A new climbing wall is set to open in West Cumbria.
Northern Problems, a small 200 square metre bouldering wall with 80 square metres of matting, is aiming to open its doors by mid April in Haig Enterprise Park, in Kells, Whitehaven.
It will also have a café bar space where it is hoping to serve coffee, cake and locally brewed beer, subject to licence, for people to enjoy post-climb.
Bouldering is a type of rope-free climbing that takes place over safety mats on lower height walls.
It’s a sport that has quickly grown in popularity following its Olympic debut in Tokyo in 2020.
Owners Kat Von Goldacker, 38 and Iain Bisset, 40, of Arlecdon, said they want to create a bouldering gym made by climbers, for climbers, and those who don’t know they are climbers just yet.
He added: “My other half Kat has been climbing for a few years and I’ve been climbing since the last millennium.
“Back then walls used to be tiny and I told Kat about that and that opened her eyes and she said wow, this is financially viable.
“Initially we persuaded a local leisure centre with a climbing wall to reopen it and it was very popular, but they weren’t climbers, so they didn’t put any money into route resetting, and seeing that, we thought we could do something ourselves.
“So we were out having a nice walk from Buttermere and I said we should just do it. That was April last year and we’re probably going to open mid April this year.
“But there’s lots of benefits to having a newer to climbing climber being involved in the start up, otherwise I would just create lots of very difficult overhanging crimp problems, whereas together we will create something much more welcoming.”
The pair said they want the centre to be a fully inclusive space and open to climbers of all levels of experience.
They are planning to offer inductions and rental equipment for first timers as well as different levels of climbing routes set up on the wall, that will change occasionally to give people different climbing experiences.
Iain added that the duo are hoping the café bar will give climbers a space to be social after sessions.
He said: “It’s a bit George Orwell and his perfect pub The Moon Under Water. We have the opportunity to create our perfect climbing wall, so that’s what we’re going to do.
“One of the things we’re really keen on is it being a cultural blank slate, so everyone can come in, climb, have a cold beer or coffee in the bar and feel welcome.
“We want to have lots of interesting climbing route settings that are not too hard or high and then people can have a bit of cake afterwards.
“Climbing is counter culture and it needs to continue to be counter culture and the whole place needs to embody that.”
Iain said that it had initially been a tricky process to find a suitable building to house a bouldering gym in West Cumbria.
He added: “West Cumbria has hardly any suitable buildings, but we found the Kells space and I rang them out of the blue and the lead management agent’s daughter turned out to be a climber, and she just said, oh yes, that would be brilliant.
“We also stumbled across our structural engineer who has built Carlisle’s Eden Rock, and walls in Newcastle and Edinburgh.
“But we’ve worked together and talked with our structural engineer and climbing friends on how we can get the most climbing squeezed into the space.
“We’ll have lots of angles and interesting shapes and we’re trying to do a mix of modern climbing route settings with modern holds and old school settings.
“The Wall in Ulverston are also fabulous and have been very kind helping us in a few ways with contacts and things.
“But we get the keys in two weeks and hopefully the plans will be finalised by then, we’re just waiting on quotes from companies who we know can set off doing the work soon.”
Iain said they are also hoping to host small social events like board game nights or climbing film screenings in the centre in the future.
Northern Problem’s official opening date will be announced in the next few months along with further details on membership and inductions.
You can keep up with the centre’s progress on Facebook here.
