WINNER: jkr1

Built in mid-2014 by climbing wall construction specialists - King Kong Climbing Walls, the centre represents the latest in climbing wall design and construction, including a rare indoor ice climbing wall and caving system, bouldering area; lead walls and a dedicated training room. To compliment this they also have a café and children’s hard play area, which allows anyone from toddlers to grownups to get into the mountaineering sports safely under professional instruction, or to have a play and fun time when the typical Cumbrian weather is bad.

King Kong Ice Wall © King Kong Climbing Centre

King Kong Ice Wall © Kind Kong Climbing Centre

Despite being new, the centre has been extremely busy hosting a multitude of amazing events and establishing itself within the outdoor and tourism communities. One of the first prominent events, was during Christmas running a mobile zip line in Keswick’s town centre, with 12 Santa Clauses and the town mayor zipping down it, followed later in the day by the companies managing director, dry tooling up the side of the building to light up the first Keswick advent window display.

This however is merely a warm for more extraordinary events to follow, which have included ‘Community Action Nepal’ running a 24hr ice climbing challenge, climbing up and down the height of Mount Everest using their ice wall, with people sleeping on porta ledges at -12⁰c overnight. This raised a staggering £36,000 for the charity.

Being a climbing centre, King Kong has naturally ran a number of climbing competitions, starting with a winter dry tooling and bouldering league, as well as one off dry tooling and bouldering competitions for the annual Keswick Mountain Festival, and an inter school county climbing competition.

Other notable occasions for climbers and locals, have been their numerous talks and film evenings by celebrity climbers which has included: Martin Boysen; Tim Emmett; Ueli Steck; James McHaffie; Sir Chris Bonington and Doug Scott, in addition to hosting the famed BritRock 2014 outdoor film.

When the sun is shining, the centre being in the heart of the Lake District, also runs a number of outdoor activities, which include Via Ferrata, Ghyll Scrambling; Rock Climbing; Multi-pitch guiding; Mountain walks and even MLTE training courses.

Whether you’re an experienced outdoor enthusiast, or a complete novice, King Kong Climbing Centre, has something on offer for you, and it’s definitely worth noting their next major event day on the 10^th October with competitions, talks and showing their latest major update.