April 22, 2004 Five Chicago-area climbers put their skills to good use on Tuesday by demonstrating that a new "escape-proof" ape house at the Lincoln Park Zoo, slated to open in a couple of weeks, is nothing of the sort.
Andy Henderson, the director of primates at the zoo, originally invited Jeremy Bloomfield, 40, the director of two Chicago-area climbing gyms, to test the new $25-million Regenstein Center for African Apes. Of four separate habitats there, the largest—an uncovered 12,000-square-foot yard—is surrounded by a 12-foot overhanging moat, which is sculpted to look like an eroded clay riverbed. According to a front-page story in The Chicago Tribune, the zoo's general curator Robyn Barbiers had expressed confidence that the moat's 300-foot-wide wall was unclimbable.
Jeremy eagerly accepted the invitation, and invited three climbing partners and a coworker, Keith Geraghty, to help test the facility. "We didn't know what to expect going in there," Keith told Outside. "All we knew was that we wanted to get out."
Within ten minutes of his arrival at the moat, Jim Downar, 30, scampered up the 12-foot overhanging wall and escaped on his first attempt. Within an hour, the climbers had discovered a total of six viable escape routes ranging in difficulty from V0 to V4 (or 5.10 to 5.12). Much to the dismay of zoo officials and construction workers, who jokingly yelled "Boo!" from the sides, the climbers ascended the routes repeatedly, just for fun.
The first nine feet of the moat, according to Geraghty, were vertical, with tiny nubs for footholds. Above that, he was able to easily undercling in a seam beneath the 45-degree bulge, and reach out three feet to the sloping lip. "The feet were really bad," Keith said, "but after the first couple of moves, the top-out was no problem." He added that given more time, he could have found many more escape routes.
The team used no ropes or harnesses during their test—only a crash pad under each person who was climbing.
Jeremy noted that the easiest route out, in a shallow dihedral, was just beneath the viewing area. "They were amazed," Jeremy said. "They were thanking us profusely for doing this."
Zoo officials reportedly worried that apes would have even better success than the climbers.
"These animals...are intelligent, and they have minds of their own," Barbier told The Tribune, "so you never know what they're going to do."
Since construction began on the ape house complex in 1998, it's become the most expensive project in the zoo's history. The chimpanzees and gorillas are scheduled to move into their new quarters in early May—though not, obviously, into the section surrounded by the "escape-proof" moat.
Before that happens, zoo director Kevin Bell says that zookeepers will go over the structure meticulously, looking for nails, tools, or construction scraps, and making sure that all nuts, bolts, doors, windows, and crawlways are secure. Construction workers will also try to eliminate all of the tiny features on the wall of the moat, rendering it unclimbable. "This is gonna set them back a little bit, I think," Keith said.
How will they know when the facility is ready? They're inviting the climbers back, sometime in June.
"I think it's going to be a lot harder," Jeremy said.
