Okay, Scottish winter conditions can be a tad unreliable, but
Holland? Come on...
Or maybe come on over, because what's claimed to be the world's
largest and Europe's first purpose-built indoor ice wall has opened
at the Globe shopping complex in the Nettherlands. Actually it's not
the first, there's one at the giant Tiso Outdoor Experience store in
Glasgow, but it's the only other one that we know of and even better,
it's been built by a British company.
Established UK climbing wall manufacturer Entreprises
put the wall together for outdoor store Bevor and they say it's 'cold
and wet...just like the real thing'. The wall is formed by applying
ice and snow - or maybe just water - to a bare wall at a temperature
of -15 C to form two ice-climbing zones for either practice or
competition.
For added realism the temperature can be varied to simulate a
freeze / thaw cycle and give different ice conditions - yep, at last
you can scratch up tenuous 5mm-thick water ice in perfect safety. The
wall is 10 metres high and there's a floor area of some 36 square
metres while 150mm insulated walls and triple-glazed viewing windows
stop the thing from melting.
If you're off to Holland and fancy an indoor ice fix, you can find
full details of the wall's location at the Bever
web site.
Stop Press - Scotland To Go Bigger...
If you're feeling jealous, just be patient; Scotland is getting
its own even larger artificial ice wall. Work is scheduled to begin
on The Ice Factory at Kinlochleven near Glencoe, which will have a
wall standing over 13 metres high and cover over 400 square metres.
The facility will be on the site of the old Alcan works and is
supported by the Mountaineering Council of Scotland. Should be ideal
for those rare Scottish winter days when conditions are crap and
another eight hours vegging in the caff is losing its appeal. Not
that that ever happens of course...
The indoor ice wall at the TNF store in Manchester is open for business with 40 tons of ice just waiting for a good kicking from your expertly wielded crampon points :-)
