At an altitude of 62.5 degrees north, Norsk Tindesenter is the climbing gym closest to the North Pole. Located in the Norwegian town of Åndalsnes, at the arctic circle, the facility is far beyond just a gym – it is a Mountaineering Museum. On top of the educational experience, it also offers a variety of activities such as Via Ferrata, guided hiking tours, mountaineering movies watching, and dining.
The climbing walls
When it comes to the climbing wall, it was designed to cater to all kinds of visitors of Norsk Tindesenter – from absolute beginners to advanced climbers, kids, and adults alike. It features a bouldering area, kids bouldering at less height, a beginner-friendly 10 m (33 ft) top rope area, and a tall lead wall – the tallest in Norway at 20.8 m (68 ft) height. The climbing surface is 460 sq. m (4951 sq ft).
As usual, no matter how well we organize the installation of a wall, there are unexpected challenges that emerge along the way. In this case, the facility access was the boat-rocker. It turned out that the only lift that can get into the facility is only 13 m tall and that meant that the top 8 m of the wall had to be installed via rope access. We needed anchor points on the ceiling that can bear big loads as all the steel structures and plywood panels had to be manually hauled from these points. Thanks to our highly skilled technician Milen Vidinovski, the job was executed in a professional manner and completed 100% matching the design despite the challenging rope access.
The non-climbing walls
Except for the climbing wall, the client asked us to create a wall for video mapping in their museum cinema and realistic rock for one of their exhibits. This way we turned into something more than a sports facility manufacturer. The construction of the video mapping wall presented a challenge as it has a lot more and smaller plains than any regular climbing wall. In order to fit them well and match all corners properly, it takes great precision in terms of design, cutting, manufacturing, and installation. The rock realistic boulder in the museum part also made a signature exhibit as an anchor point for a place to take a photo and save a memory from the visit.
