What Factor is holding up the reopening of the Ice Factor?

 

Duncan Gunn being fimed for BBC "Blue Peter" 2002

Its pissing down, again! What season is it? Oh, its supposed to be summer, only its not.

I am sitting here being a keyboard warrior, seething with frustration and caffeine, thinking how up until 18 months ago, like many other locals and visitors alike I would be in Kinlochleven at the Ice Factor climbing wall on a day like this.  A place where literally thousands of folk first learned to tie on a rope and make chess like moves on the problems set on the rock walls, becoming infected with the bug of climbing and problem solving in a vertical world.

Folk learning new skills, such as working with ropes, being responsible for others safety and overcoming the very rational fear of falling and height. Like first aid and swimming, working with ropes, knots and belaying are life skills.  The ice factor was a pathway for local youth, some like my son went on to climb in national competitions and enjoy the mountains as a way of life. Some Ice Factor staff and locals who followed the mountain pathway first started climbing in Kinlochleven and some became internationally certified mountain guides with the IFMGA carnet, the highest award, or mountain professionals. Not only high awards but also a life journey that took some to the summit of the highest mountains on mother earth.  Hundreds of Lochaber and Kinlochleven high school pupils got the bug for climbing there. Climbing is now an Olympic sport and who knows how many of the present-day young, if given the opportunity, might one day represent their country at this sport if the wall was still open. Which bizarrely it is not.

Due to financial difficulties the wall closed in January 2023. There is no point in revisiting what happened then. It’s fair to say that without Jamie Smith and Tracy there never would have been a wall in the first place.  I well remember going to meetings supporting them in the late 1990’s. Meetings with local guides and instructors, where plans were put forward to convert the building into a dedicated national climbing center. Being in the majority from Fort William, the outdoor professionals wanted a national climbing center to be in Fort William and were quite vociferously against it being in Kinlochleven. But when the Ice Factor opened they were the first in the door on a wet day with clients. And soon came to realize it was the perfect building and a good location.

The Ice Factor came about as Kinlochleven was being cleaned up of its toxic industrial legacy at the cost of millions £, the building was available and perfect for the development. The local enterprise company, HIE and Sport Scotland all backed it. Andy Anderson ex principle of Glenmore Lodge and at that time working for Sport Scotland supported the project to the hilt. It’s worth remembering that this was all our money, public money.  A superb and at the time unique ice climbing wall was a big draw. During these years I was working for Joint Services Mountaineering, and we used the ice wall autumn and winter, putting many thousands of £ through the books. The rock-climbing walls were also a huge success bringing folk into the sport.

The center employed anything from seven to seventeen as instructors, admin or catering, depending on season and weather. Obviously wet days, autumn and winter were busier. Hundreds of locals climbed and spent money to climb and in the cafe. It was social, and good for mental health in our unpredictable weather and dark winters. There was a resurgence of older, some pensionable locals taking up climbing, enjoying becoming part of the climbing tribe. Some new to it, and some like me, creaking arthritic phoenix’s from the ashes of a previous climbing life.

Tuesday and Thursday evenings the rescue team lads would be climbing, SAMS Uni students came up from Oban and UHI students from Fort William campus. There was a buzz of energy, and the ones lucky not to be driving would later put some money in the tills of the pub across the road and buy food from the coop.

So, sitting here looking out of rain lashed windows at passing miserable families with nothing to do, and fed up locals who would once have been up in Kinlochleven climbing, and seeing kids bored because they have little to do, I am left wondering just WTF does it take to get the climbing center open again.

I know hundreds and perhaps if this post is shared, thousands of climbers will be keen to get the facility open. It’s a topic of conversation throughout the Scottish climbing fraternity.  They ask why it’s not open or if it ever will. A question that can only really be answered by (KTLD) “Kinlochleven Development Trust”. I understand the building belongs to Jahama Highland Estates and is let to the development trust. After 18 months one local climbing wall which was keen to take on the building seems to have pulled out. Possibly from sheer frustration as no lease was given* (see below). Other climbing business’s may be interested in future. I ponder, what recourse does the public have when a development entity becomes antithetical to its existence?

Public money went into that building as a dedicated national ice climbing center, it was an employer and a big tourist attraction. Perhaps it’s time for everyone who cares to become a keyboard warrior and ask some questions of Jahama, KTLD, local counselors and MP’s.

An aging pheonix rises

* I recently learned a lease was offered to 3WM but not accepted