The Future of Indoor Climbing Walls

inside

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the

future

Climb takes a look at the current state of the art cf climbing walls and what the next decade might bring for the wonderful world of artificial climbing

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The last three decades have seen many startling changes in climbing. Trad climbing standards have risen from E7 to a possible E12, the icy north faces that used to fill the magazine pages have been replaced by sun tanned shots of the latest sport testpieces, and youngsters now warm up on routes that took the then-elite months to establish.

Despite these seismic shifts, perhaps the biggest advance of all has been in climbing walls. Only 30 years ago a ‘state of the art’ climbing wall might have involved the architect leaving a few bricks pointing out in the corner of a sports centre, the scope, scale and variety of indoor climbing facilities now would have been impossible to imagine then. British climbing legend John Dunne, who since retiring from the cutting edge of the sport has developed three centres, remembers his visits to the Charlotte Mason Wall in Ambleside at the beginning of the eighties: ‘teams from Yorkshire would travel 2 hours, that’s how important it was.’

The eighties saw a gradual trickle of dedicated areas for climbers, usually converted squash courts, which at least meant you weren’t getting whacked on the head by a football. The first sea changes in wall design were very much climber-led with activists building their own significantly steeper facilities in garages or cellars.

This new wave of overhanging mini-walls grew

to fruition in 1991 with Britain’s first two ‘modern’ climbing walls: Undercover Rock in Bristol, and most influentially The Foundry in Sheffield. It was a blueprint that has spawned over 500 walls throughout the country. ‘We have a higher density of quality walls in the UK than anywhere else.’ Says Colin Boothroyd, the UK director of leading wall manufacturers Entreprises. ‘Certainly nowhere in Asia compares, and whilst France might have a wall in most provincial towns it doesn’t yet have the big flagship centres we have.’

Looking at the cream of our crop of British walls, what is the secret to a successful climbing wall? The opinion among leading wall managers it seems to be getting the balance right on the holy trinity of three key wall elements. The first is the fabric of the facility itself. It’s no longer just a case of the bigger and the steeper the better. At Bristol’s Climbing Academy, Paul Twomey aimed for ‘a subtlety of design with the interaction of walls giving as natural a feel as possible. We coined the term ‘Bristolbleau’ during the building phase to remind us of what we hoped to achieve.’

Kinlochleven’s Ice Factor ‘sacrificed some areas that could have been turned into more wall panels, to keep the facility bright and airy’ explains Jamie Smith. ‘That may seem superficial, but it makes a huge difference to the centre - every climbing area

is flooded with natural light.’

The second key issue is route setting. ‘We invest heavily in purchasing new holds and route setting’ explains Steve Dunning from The Depot in Leeds.

‘We re-set an area of the wall every week resulting in over 1,500 new problems going up in the last year alone.’ Chris Graham from Climb Newcastle aims for quality problems across the whole grade spectrum ‘For example people taking our introductory sessions will never run out of problems they can do on their first visit, which only leaves them wanting to come back’ The third equally important aspect is a centre’s staff. ‘It is easy to forget that you are a customer service business, and your service just happens to involve climbing’ says Twomey from Bristol’s Climbing Academy. ‘People love the atmosphere here, it’s a warm friendly place to climb and has recreated a long-lost social hub for climbers in the local area.’

Perhaps the most recent shift in climbing wall provision has been the rise in dedicated bouldering facilities with Sheffield’s The Works one of the first to offer a complete rope free climbing experience.

Does the rise in bouldering-only centres chime the death knell for roped walls? John Dunne doesn’t believe so: ‘I think they’re two different things, like snow boarding and skiing, and can exist side by

previous page left; The lead walls at the new Reading Climbing Centre, current state of the art roped climbing; bright. Developed by John Dunne building on his experience with facilities in Manchester and Harrogate. previous page right: The Edinburgh International Climbing Arena is one of the world’s largest climbing facilities. Built inside a quarry, the numerous climbing surfaces are complimented by non climbing attractions such as the ‘Aerial Assault’ course hanging a 100ft above the floor. Previous page bottom: Seamless integration of high class social spaces with the climbing area at Bristol’s Climbing Academy. facing page top: One of more than 300 routes at The Redpoint Climbing Centre in Birmingham. Manager Phil Minal says ‘When we got the building it had a huge industrial crane in it which was perfect for suspending the stalactites which are a favourite feature.’ Facing page bottom; The 13m high main lead wall at The Foundry, the original ‘modern’ climbing wall and a template for many facilities since. tom napier.’

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When Ged Macdomhnaill decided to develope a new wall in Liverpool he looked long and hard at the current crop of dedicated bouldering facilities, here he reports back on what he found.

Boulder Liverpool is due to open in January 2011.

Like most climbers imagining the perfect wall, when I first envisioned the wall I planned to build, I saw steep caves, campus rungs, fingerboards, system boards, a laboratory of mutant making devices that would eschew the aesthetic in favour of puritanical bouldering zeal. To my horror, none of the major high streets banks that I visited thought that having ‘Done 1-4-7 on the small rungs’ qualified my business plan. I was going to need to do more industry research to prove I knew the bouldering market if I wanted the loan that would make the project possible. This research threw up a number of surprises and left me wondering what is a typical boulderer now, what do they want in a wall and how will more new climbers improve your ability?

When Climb Newcastle, opened in its bare bones, but very functional form, it caused a tectonic shift in how I saw the indoor climbing market demographic. On hot sunny days it was busy, People not wearing Moon or Prana - I even saw someone in Adidas! Girls, loads of them, all seemingly there of their own volition. Suddenly my duck tape mended down jacket felt out of place instead of badge of honour. Chris Graham, owner manager describes their climbers, “The centre has a real cross-section of people, from 3 to 75 and a

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male to female ratio getting nearer to 50:50 every week. The accessibility of bouldering has allowed us to reach out to a much wider audience, we run at least 10 kids sessions a day at weekends and new people come every day who are curious to try something new.”

Then The Climbing Academy opened and recalibrated the spectrum of what a climbing wall could be; underfloor heating? ‘Gucci’ bogs? A pizza oven?

Goodness! This bold move suggested that either Bristol climbers were well minted and/or bouldering could attract people like a gym, a healthy recreation for normal people. I saw queues out of the door on a Wednesday night, and they have a youth competition squad! If you ignored the climbing bit for a minute, and looked around, you would never have guessed this was a place for climbers.

So now I am confused, if I try and understand who boulders are by looking at what is made for them, it becomes very unclear. Andy Earl, the other owner of Climb Newcastle sheds light on the disparity in bouldering walls, ‘”The vibe is the most important factor and that it is individual to each centre and city, for example the distance between Sheffield and Newcastle is only 149 miles but the culture in the cities are very different. And this is reflected in the customers and what they want and how they view climbing.”

When roped indoor walls appeared there was terror among the fiercely ethical British scene, ‘Soon all of Stanage will be bolted…’ It seems the only observable effects have been a rise in the popular-

ity of sport climbing and small children being able to onsight 8a. Going outside requires so much, beginning with at least a car. Add up the cost of the normal kit to go bouldering outside, the investment is huge.This accessibility issue perhaps provides some clue to why bouldering seems to be attracting new user groups that roped climbing never tapped.

In a gym people get a fitness assessment and the personal trainer helps them work out a plan, they expect to progress. Any other sport and people expect to get better and regularly seek paid for expert guidance, the new breed are bringing this ethic to bouldering walls. Women are more likely to get coaching than men, with a considerably higher percentage saying they would pay for a coach. No shock that men don’t want to be told what to do!

Over time, with more new climbers getting quality coaching and improving their climbing, a new average will emerge, I reckon about V5. This slow shift in the norm will force you to up your game, lest you find yourself asking for beta from someone wearing a tracksuit who thinks Jerry Moffat is a Scottish border town. facing page: Gone are the days of uninspiring shapes and

surfaces. The Depot in Leeds pushes the limits of what’s possible with plywood. Manager Steve Dunning explains “Rather than building a surface on a timber structure, which has its limitations we have been able to build outrageous walls such as our 700+ square foot roof.’ alex messenger/the depot

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side – we see a lot of people doing both.’

Matt Perrott from The Climbing Station observes that ‘school and youth groups love bouldering as all the children can be involved at the same time, no need for bell pulling! Also ratios can be higher, meaning teachers and leaders can become qualified and then bring economically sized groups.’

Steve Dunning, a top climber who has turned his skills to wall development with the impressive bouldering centre The Depot in Leeds, says that ‘climbing wall users now are completely different to when I first started using indoor walls 20 years ago. The first wall I climbed at didn’t offer any courses, inductions and such like - you had to be an experienced climber to use them or at least give the person letting you in that impression. Over 70% of our users have never climbed outside and have no immediate intention of doing so’.

Jamie Smith, boss of the innovative Ice Factor in Kinlochleven, adds that ‘when I first started going to indoor walls in the 80’s, the profile was almost exclusively male. Now we see a huge number of young girls taking to the sport and increasingly the Asian Community appear to be embracing climbing.’

So what is this year’s latest trend? It could be the provision of ‘dry tooling’ training routes. Sheffield’s Foundry is offering a series of roped routes on which real axes could be used following a successful trial last season. Centres such as Awesome Walls offer rubberised tools for hire which can be hooked

over normal resin holds, plus they are also building a dedicated area for real axes at their Liverpool facility.

The cream of winter training facilities however is Kinlochleven’s Ice Factor near Glencoe - the world’s largest real ice wall. Is it likely we’ll see more real indoor ice? There is not a single week without an enquiry from somewhere in the world about how to build indoor ice’ says boss Jamie Smith. ‘Almost all of these go nowhere, people are shocked at the capital outlay and complexity of operations required.’ Smith isn’t put off though. ‘Our next ice wall will be even bigger…’

Looking to the future what can we expect to see?

Jamie Smith again: ‘I’ve seen some amazing designs in Norway and the USA in particular where designers are lazer scanning classic routes and replicating them. I see greater creativity on the design with more 3D features coming into play and a broader range of climbing surfaces. This will allow caving in the rear, Via Ferrata on the top, and Mountain Ridge Training on the sides.

Dave Douglas from Awesome Walls believes that ‘the number of bouldering centres will probably double in 2011, and larger climbing centres offering a wealth of opportunities will be the real winners for the future.’ And he’s willing to back that up with action. ‘We’re looking at a new venture where we may have to change our name to ‘Colossal Walls Climbing Centre’. To say that we could fit all three Awesome Walls in to this place wouldn’t be

far off the truth!’

Chris Graham sums up the state of the indoor art today: ‘From an international perspective we seem to be spoilt with our facilities, and that can only be a good thing for UK climbing moving forward.

Thinking back 10 years I’d have been amazed to know how far facilities would advance. It will be fascinating to know where we’ll be in another 10’

this page: Dave MacLeod on the real ice wall, the largest in the world, at The Ice Factor in Kinlochleven. Many climbing centres are now looking at how to provide winter style climbing . The ice factor

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