Both looking for their “Ikigai”, the idea for Boulder Forest came to fruition.

Fred & Dean have known each other for years, back from the time they were making the streets unsafe with their skateboards as teenagers.

Both went their own way in life later on. Dean started a successful electricity company and Fred was active in real estate & marketing.

In search of a new professional path Fred took a class in product design and started a company in large-format 3D printing.

Our paths joined again while climbing. As skateboarders we found a lot of similarities in climbing. The physical challenge, the joy of solving a hard thing and most of all the close community.

We both knew we wanted to do something with this, but wanted to do something a bit different.

Remembering our time as skateboarders, we loved to go to indoor skateparks, but honestly, nothing beats skating outdoors with your friends in the sun all day. (or between rain showers, we do live in Belgium ;-))

That was the thing we were missing with the current climbing facilities. We didn’t want to climb indoors on a sunny day. And a 5 hour drive to natural boulders are not always an option. We wanted to be outdoors in nature and that is how the idea of Boulder Forest was born.