As soon as we booked our stay at the Camping and Caravanning Club, Keswick I began looking up things to do. I knew what famous climbs to attempt: Scafell Pike along the Corridor Route and Helvellyn over the Striding Edge and Swiral Edge ridges. While searching Trip Advisor, I came across the highly rated King Kong Adventure Centre. This would be a great activity to do on a wet day. We could even bring our climbing equipment and play around with their walls. As I was browsing the King Kong site, I discovered that they have an Ice Wall.
It’s hard to find Ice Climbing in England and Cornwall. It seemed like something we’d have to do for years before we could try it. I knew about indoor ice-climbing walls, but I didn’t think we would get to see one. When I Googled the location of the King Kong Adventure, I discovered that the building was only a short walk away from where we would be camping.
After arriving at the camp in the afternoon and booking a session we went to the ice climbing area for our first attempt. Then we were outfitted with B2 boots, C2 crampons, and some nice Rab gloves and down jackets. The room was a walk-in freezer that we entered from the opposite side. All four walls were covered in thick ice. The wall had a slope to make climbing easier. There were also vertical sections and one overhang.
The first thing we learned was how to use the crampons, ice axes and other equipment. The ice axes were more aggressive than the ones we would use later on in the week. We were giggling from ear-to-ear. Ice axes are cool. As we traversed along the wall with crampons, we used some ice axes that were pre-fixed to help us balance.
We then moved on to swing the ice-axes at the wall while standing. It is important to pick the right area for your ice-axe to be planted and then listen and feel to determine how it did. You can tell when the pick has landed well by the satisfying sound it makes as it settles into the ice. The crampons were harder for me to use because they seemed further away and I couldn’t see them quite as well as with the ice picks.
Vicky and myself are both competent belayers and climbers, so we were allowed to use the harnesses and top ropes provided to begin climbing. We both did the same thing on our first climb: we put too much weight on the arms, and didn’t stand up enough. This is a very common mistake for first-timers, as they don’t trust their boots as much. Ice climbing is different from normal climbing because your feet don’t stand on anything. Instead, they rely on one or more spikes at the front of your boot to support your entire weight.
We both tried, on the second ascent, to push upwards from our crampons instead of pulling with the ice-axes. It worked much better and our forearms didn’t ache at the end. The 90-minute session ended in what seemed like no time.
It was a great experience for us both, but it is not something we would do again as there are very few frozen waterfalls to climb in Cornwall. We will certainly do it again when we return to Keswick. The skills that we learned on the wall are sure to come in handy for winter scrambling on mountains.