Hey Kally, daughter of Aphrodite here. This might be a little morbid, but has anyone ever fallen in the lava from the climbing wall? Because the thought pops in my head every time I pass it.
Hey!
Sorry for the late reply, but I went to the Hephaestus kids for help answering this!
"Has anyone fallen in the lava?"🤔
Not that I can recall.
See, the whole point of Camp Half-Blood is that we are able to put ourselves in situations that simulate the kinds of danger we will likely encounter in the outside world.
Yes, people will get burns, but we have some safety measures in place.
Here's how the wall works. There are some pumps at the top of the wall that release the lava as an obstacle. In order to maintain that, though, some things need to be going on behind the scenes. Lava is constantly losing heat, which is what allows it to turn into pumice. To keep it from turning into rock, it needs to maintain a temperature minimum of about 1,300ºF or about 700ºC.
Therefore, we have some mechanisms in place to do so. We have pits at the bottom that collect the lava. There are openings at the very bottom of those that feed into tubes that travel up the center of the wall. While it is in those tubes, a mix of Hephaestus kid engineering and Hecate kid magic heats the lava back up so that it doesn't solidify. Then it gets spit back out at the top to complete the cycle again.
Normally, the spot campers would most likely fall into would be the pools at the bottom. However, we have celestial bronze catch nets for the campers well above the highest lava-line.
Basically, people can get burned while climbing, but no one will fall in. We also have at least one Apollo kid on duty at the rock wall at all times and it is strictly forbidden to climb when there isn't.
Hope that answered your question and put your mind at ease!
–Kally
