Ratho climbing centre
March 9th, 2004
Ratho climbing centre is one of the biggest climbing walls in Europe. The concept was pretty cool – cover an existing rock climbing quarry with a big roof, keep some of the existing routes climbable, stick in a huge climbing wall and plant a building there with offices, cafes and shops.
Unfortunately it should have remained just that – a concept, a dream. As Mike suggested to me, they should have built a big warehouse type building and stuck it in a field somewhere for £1m. Add some offices and a climbing wall for another �1m and that’s �18m saved. I’ve never built a climbing wall so I’m probably talking rubbish, but you get the idea. Building it in the quarry has always seemed like a needlessly frivolous expense. It’s a great shame that it’s future is so uncertain as it is without doubt a great facility. Hopefully they can sort something out, I might not have a chance to climb there!
Let’s just thank God they did it at Ratho, not Cambusbarron :)
March 13th, 2004 at 11:48 PM
Hey;
I read this the other day and thought sounds like an interesting place. And well to cut a long story short i was tehre. . .today for the BUSA bouldering comp thing (can i just say how mark from staffs uni came joint first wohooooo for us!)
Back to the point, it is an amazing site there; some technical issues, lots of routes, few holes in ceilings (seems a design flaw) to let drips of rain it, it looks damn good though!
April 13th, 2004 at 11:45 AM
Ratho is fantastic :great food, Fantastic Tiso, amazing skyride (challenging thing on a rail on the roof), lovely fitness facilities and super climbing. Its great for kids because it has a range of walls for different experiences and techniques. Its an achievement for the designers to think of such an amazing, well design. Its also a great place for office parties because it builds up team work skills and the moral of everyone as well as sitting in The Stone Room for a lovely dinner and drinks.