UKC

Looking to get peoples thoughts about Inverness and its climbing wall.

I've beeen going there for about a year now. To be honest its not the greatest wall, and no i'm not complaining about the route setting which is great, the setters do a good job. its just when you look at some of the walls down south for example there of so much better quality. Take newcastle, sunderland and Durham. 4 qaulity walls about 25miles apart. Surely with inverness having a population of about 70000 plus everyone in surrounding areas thats enough to sustain a decent wall.

Look at Kinlochleven and the ice factor. it would do alot better in Inverness.
Remember that a new wall would bee more suitable for beeginners, b day party's and less intimidating and would hopefully geet more people.

I wish i could have the time to build a new one but i don't. i did hear a while back of a new one planned for near the marina but heard nothing in a long while.??

In reply to Daniel Sutherland: Still planned to go ahead... http://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/Article.aspx/1911449?UserKey=
Al

In reply to Daniel Sutherland:


Have a look at http://www.mlta.co.uk/news-detail.php?id=313

There are plans afoot...

In reply to AlH: Thats great, i thought this had been shelved!! Lets hope it goes ahead, although it looks like in the early stages so could be a while yet. hopefully worth the wait!!

In reply to Daniel Sutherland:

The only good thing about it is the price. I suppose there's nothing too badly wrong with the lead wall but the bouldering is awful!

yes the price is fantastic but i'd happily pay more if the qaulity is there!

In reply to Daniel Sutherland: There is nothing wrong with the wall if the management had any balls and let the guys set some new routes, and didn't tell lies about actively recruiting more staff to man the place and open it up through the day. Its a great facility not being utilised through the early part of the day.

In reply to Daniel Sutherland: Daniel, your obs are pretty fair...it's getting rather grubby too, with no scope for improving facilities either. That, together with the incessant noise from other activities within the hall make climbing an unbearable experience at times. I was Inverness wall users' rep between 2006 and 2009...almost a waste of time. No idea who's taken over this post, but nothing will progress for sure....lack of funding etc. The future of indoor climbing within Inverness most definitely lies outwith the present set-up....a different, and perhaps privatised venue

In reply to torridonneil:It is a good basic venue isn't it? But as you suggest it suffers from many of the problems that non specific shared facilities do (e.g. noise, lack of understanding of the investment needed in routesetting and ongoing development). There will always be a place for it in Inverness as a commercial venue will never be able to compete on a price basis with a council run (subsidised) venue. This means it will need to up the quality to ensure people get value for money (look at the quality of some pof the new venues down south- there has been a quantum shift in new walls away from the old self build in a second hand venue).

In reply to Daniel Sutherland:
Yeah agree, the wall is getting grubby, the din can be quite bad with kids parties etc, although this is the price to pay for a council run facility. But yes i do agree its a decent basic venue. I would be amazed if most of the regular climbers would not be willing to pay the considerable extra expense of a quality new wall.

In reply to Daniel Sutherland:

It's getting better. I've started going again after avoiding the place for the last year. Change in staffing has improved the atmosphere hugely and it seems to be far more relaxed now. I'm now happy to bring my daughter down there again.

They've put a stop to route setting for the moment while they wait to get the staff trained up. It's not a bad place though and more than adequate for a punter like me!