Cairngorm Mountain New Holds

Cairngorm Mountain Centre definitely has the highest Traverse Wall in the Country (as far as I know). All the holds have now been replaced. We installed it back in 2009. Yesterday afternoon was the perfect day to be doing some annual maintenance. No wind, plenty of sun – great way to end the week and start a holiday.

Cairngorm Mountain Traverse Wall Dream Climbing Walls

Inverness Castle Boulder Complete

This week we finished one of our most ambitious projects to date! To recreate Inverness Castle for a new showcase adventure playground at the Inshes in Inverness. The play park has some very bespoke play equipment including a Freerunning / Parkour area and some Solid Oak Hand Crafted Play Structures. We were working for one of the countries best play equipment companies Sutcliffe Play Scotland  based in Dundee. This project has taken most of the summer to realise and is undoubtedly a first!

Our  Freestanding Fibreglass Castle Boulder is in an open play park behind the new Inshes Primary School. The castle has 4 platforms at different heights for different ages and abilities. Children (and some adults 🙂 can climb up the front stone face over the parapets along its entire length. On the back face we have sculpted more rock like features to offer a different climbing experience. The castle is fantastic for kids role play.

The boulder has rubber mulch underneath it as a fall surface. This is a great place to get children into climbing in a fun way. We are really pleased to have been part of such a great, landmark project – and so close to home that we can use it with the kids as well . I was struggling to keep our kids off the Castle in the workshop!

This Saturday (the 05th October) is the official opening day for the whole park. If you cant make this day with your kids, the new park is a must as soon as possible and is free and open all day – everyday!

Dream Climbing Walls Fibreglass Inverness Castle Boulder 14

 

Dream Climbing Walls Fibreglass Inverness Castle Boulder 12

 

Dream Climbing Walls Fibreglass Inverness Castle Boulder 13

 

Dream Climbing Walls Fibreglass Inverness Castle Boulder 11

 

Dream Climbing Walls Fibreglass Inverness Castle Boulder 15

 

 

Speyside High School Aberlour – New Indoor Wall Opening Soon!

Gareth Wignall has done an outstanding job raising the funds to replace the Old Climbing Wall at Speyside High School in Aberlour. He has shown what can really be achieved with drive and dedication! Other locals such as Pete Hill have also been involved. This is a very significant development for the North East of Scotland, especially Elgin and Nairn where a long journey has to be made to Inverness, Aberdeen or Grantown to get to the nearest roped climbing wall.

We succeeded in winning the tender for this project at the end of August. The project is already underway, but work onsite will start in October, with the wall due for completion in early December in perfect time for the winter training season.

The wall will have approx 14 rope points! with plenty of angles for everyone. I’ve included a picture of the existing wall to show just what is being replaced – quite a change!

It is one of a growing number of Scottish Secondary Schools with fantastic NEW Indoor Climbing Facilities. It is sure to have a long term impact on climbing. More news to follow!

Speyside High School Indoor Climbing Wall Design

 

Existing Indoor Climbing Wall Speyside High School

Inverness Bouldering Wall Upgrade Complete

That’s us finished at Inverness Leisure! Hope everyone up this way enjoys the extension to the bouldering wall this winter. At one end we added a 40 degree overhanging wall that merges into a long 5 degree wall – we then blended the old and new wall together with some freeform fibreglass. At the other end we added a Campus Board (also blended into the old wall) and then placed a finger board on the other side of the partition. To complete the project the Bouldering Wall got a brand new carpet top matting system – happy landings!

Inverness Leisure have really improved the lighting this summer in the entire hall with brand new fittings through-out – the sleek inset lights in the new bouldering wall look really smart as well.

Thanks to Kevin Brown and Team

Inverness Leisure Boulder Wall Upgrade

On the 17th August we will be starting work onsite for Inverness Leisure (Aquadome) to upgrade the Bouldering Wall and Boulder Wall Matting. We have been working closely with Craig Steedman – Kevin Brown, Smiler Cuthbertson and The Wall team to make some cool changes.

The matting will all be upgraded to carpet top making for a much nicer environment and happier landings. The hall lighting is also being completely redone as we speak in advance of our works.

At the door end (entrance) we will be creating a new 40 degree wall which has a long 5 degree overhanging wall on the left and a then on the right the wall will merge into the existing freeform.  We will also be adding a new training board to the other end of the wall. This will either have fingerboards or Campus rungs – yet to be confirmed.

These simple alterations should add significantly to the climbing experience at Inverness and offer some decent steepness.

Pictures to follow as work progresses!

Existing Bouldering Wall at Inverness Leisure

Inverness Leisure Bouldering Wall in its current form.

 

NEW Indoor Climbing Holds Shop Under Construction

Work has started this month on our new online shop. We are hoping it will be ready mid August at the latest. This will have all of our new ranges of Climbing Holds and our new Winter Climbing Training products. We also have some interesting new training aids we have been working on over the last year for home walls and training areas in commercial roped and bouldering walls.

Our New Ranges have changed significantly in response to customer feedback to be much more like indoor climbing holds training climbers are used to experiencing. However our new range has not lost the essence of what makes them so different and so much more interesting than everything else on the market. Only our holds offer true realism.

  • Very Technical Holds with very subtle (and multiple ways) to hold each shape like no other climbing hold available
  • New Ergonomic Finger Friendly Shapes
  • Non Aggressive texture
  • Explosion Coils and Load Spreading fixing points that accept Cap Heads and Countersink Bolts
  • These are a route setters dream

Please email us directly for a PDF brochure and price list ahead of the shop opening online scott@dreamclimbingwalls.com

Here are a few images of some of our new ranges all named after some of the best Rock Climbs in Scotland.

Auchengillan Scout Centre Climbing Tower Completed

Finally! I get round to blogging again with some images of what we have been doing of late! Its been a super busy lead up to summer with loads of excellent projects on the go. We finally got the refurbishment of the 15m High Auchengillan Scout Centre Tower in Glasgow completed. The weather provided us a bit of a fight with the fibreglass, but the end result turned out well. We used 2 Tons of Resin! The weekend we finished the wall they had over 1000 Girl Guides onsite and it saw about half this number of children climb it over the two days, so its been well tested. (In fact they got our nice new tower very muddy) The tower was originally build in 1999 so the plywood side panels were completely destroyed and needed replacing, plus we had to re-engineer the tower and produce new calculations to bring it up to standard. This wall is a hidden gem – shame its not open for public use it has a fantastic outlook over the Campsie’s.

The shot taken in the dark was taken at 3.40 am at the end of a very very long shift starting at 7am the day before – the things you do for good customers! The sun was just starting to come up!

Dream Upgrade to 15 m High Glasgow Tower Wall – Auchengillan Scout Centre

We are working away in the workshop this week creating two huge new sections of fibreglass panels to replace both of the old and degraded plywood side panels on the 15 metre tower at Auchengillan Scout Centre in North Glasgow. This well hidden tower wall was originally built in 1999. We seem to be getting called in to improve and upgrade Rockworks walls of late :). So we are hoping for some nice stable weather at the start of April to get them installed. Fancy one of these in your garden. By the end of the project we will have gone through over 750 kgs of Resin…..! We need a flat bed articulated lorry to transport the panels to Glasgow in 8 sections. Much fun. We are looking forward to a trip down memory lane and some climbing at The Whangie… only 5 mins away along with Craigmore just round the corner. Classic

Kirkwall Grammar School Indoor Climbing Wall Finished

Kirkwall Grammar 1We got back late on Saturday after another mission to Orkney to install a new climbing wall at Kirkwall Grammar School. This brand new school is still several months away from  opening, but when it is finished it will be mighty impressive. We were working for Morrison’s Construction who are also building the new swimming pool at the Pickaquoy Centre. Unbelievably, Kirkwall now has two brand new roped walls! and opens up a new chapter in climbing on the Island. The Grammar School Indoor Climbing Wall has all the key angles for introducing beginners and teaching Physical Education. Nothing too funky, but is totally functional and has plenty of height at 8.5 metres and is a great warm up to the leisure centre wall.  Significantly, now there are two good walls on Orkney – Climbing Wall Award courses can now be run with ease. So its great to be home – but a bit sad to be sailing away after so many great weeks on Orkney. We all look forward to going back on holiday and enjoying climbing on the walls ourselves.Kirkwall Grammar Indoor Climbing Wall 3

New Bouldering Wall Kirkwall Orkney

That’s us finished the New Bouldering Wall at the Pickaquoy Leisure Centre in Orkney. Between finishing the Main Roped Wall and starting the Bouldering room we had to wait for the old soft play area to be decommissioned. The council have just added some cool lighting and it should be open later this week. Not a big bouldering wall, but its certainly fierce with tons of insane steepness. And a neat little training board in the gear up room!

The Picky Team were amazing to work for. The climbing club is now thriving and it has been fantastic to see so many people on the new wall enjoying the surfaces and routes.

So whats next – well right now we are building an 8 Roped wall for Morrison’s Construction at the New Kirkwall Grammar School! Amazing! Orkney will have two fantastic brand new indoor climbing walls only 5 minutes apart. Watch this space for some hot new Island Climbers and hopefully some mega cliff development!