On Saturday, I had the somewhat painful pleasure of getting along to the Arch climbing wall’s new venue, the Biscuit Factory. More importantly, my camera came along for the trip. Here’s a few shots of the rather epic facility:
One of the superb new sections, with a full underhang bordered by more aretes than you could dream of...
Ricky testing one of the new routes on the impressive main prow.
The best thing about it (other than its size) is the huge variety of wall angles and combinations. Slabs, ledges, volumes, and all three together...
One of four main corridors. The place is immense.
The centre was buzzing all day, with smiles all round as Arch regulars and stacks of others ran around like kids at Christmas. The centre is shrewd in what it’s missing; there’s no traverse section or roof – both of which are present at their existing London Bridge facility – and there are very few inner corners, so bridging is rare. Again, the London Bridge walls are perfect for this. So it’s a very well thought-out addition, alleviating the crowds, adding many new climbing options, a tough-as-nails competition wall and new training wall, while leaving reasons to go to London Bridge too.
Great stuff to the whole team who’ve put together the new centre. I suspect my skinned knuckles and sandpaper-smooth fingers will still be complaining when I next make the trek…
Do you have shares in the new facility? Great advertisement. LOL.
Do my knees look that disturbing in real life?
Chris: I wish! Maybe they’ll give me some?
Jonny: You usually move too quickly for people to notice.