There was a buzz of activity in the Gairloch Leisure Centre last Saturday afternoon (November 24th) as well over a hundred people of all ages tried their luck at the Gairloch Climbing Wall Event.
The activities circuit involved 12 stations. Scaling any (or all four) of the routes set up on the climbing wall was the main challenge. Some of the other stations were; doing pull-ups, teetering along a balancing frame, knot tying, and completing a climbing quiz. Points were awarded and scores were kept with prizes for the top three in various age categories.
The event was primarily organized to raise local awareness of the campaign to get the existing climbing wall upgraded and expanded. On the day £450 was raised towards the project. Estimates for the cost of a new wall have come in at around £100,000. Through a local contact, petro-chemical business Ineos offered £25,000 towards the cost which gave the whole idea a kick start. Having applied to various funding bodies to try and find the remaining £75,000 needed the best hope seems to lie with Sportscotland, a government body, who have intimated they would fund 45-50% if the other 50-55% is secured. So there is still a lot of fund raising to do, any ideas then please get in touch.

The organisers of saturday's event, Jim Sutherland and go further Scotland's Paul Tattersall, would like to thank everyone for coming along and making it such fun, with a big thanks to all who helped out behind the scenes and on the day. Thanks also to the local people and businesses that kindly donated raffle prizes and to the generous prize sponsors, namely Torridon Activities, W D MacPherson & Sons Climbing Shop in Inverness, North West Outdoors in Ullapool, Tiso in Inverness, Craigdon Mountain Sports in Inverness and Rua Reidh Lighthouse near Gairloch.
There certainly were a lot of little smiling faces at the end of the prize giving.

Tags: Gairloch, Climbing Wall, Climbing

Welcome to the revamped and updated go further Scotland website. We'll be using this new news page to keep you up-to-date with everything mountain, climbing, and mountaineering related in North West Scotland: news about conditions, the weather, our activities, offers, trips, new courses and much more......

First of all happy birthday to our newest guide - Murdoch Jamieson - who joined the team this summer. Murdo is a local climber and all-round mountaineer who just happens to be an awesome guide. See about us for more on the go further team.

We spent more time on Skye and Torridon in 2007 than any other year so check out these pages for the heads up on our new three and five day guided trips to some of the most spectacular mountain scenery in Europe: Ridge Walking, Torridon Munros, Skye, Sky Munros, Skye Scrambles.

Lastly, while go further tailors most of its guiding to suit individuals and small groups, we've decided to schedule in a few organised three and five day trips in Torridon, Skye and the Fisherfield wilderness. More on those soon....

Tags: murdo, skye, torridon, fisherfield