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Recently some dear friends of ours from London came to stay for the weekend. Geraldine (Gerry) and her 11 year old son Luc are game for most things but like most kids of his age Luc has a fairly low boredom threshold so endless motoring and scenery gazing was not an option.
Instead, we opted for two activity visits for them, first an Isle of Mull Safari, secondly a visit to the Ice Factor indoor rock climbing centre at Kinlochleven, with an hours’ climbing lesson.
Both were great successes!
The Ice Factor is the biggest indoor ice climbing centre in the world. It is a very impressive facility housed in a disused aluminium smelting hall at the end of beautiful Loch Leven in Kinlochleven about 8 miles from Glen Coe village.
Frankly the drive to it is so beautiful even if you don't climb it is worth going just for the views; there are two routes, either go over the Pass of Glen Coe or, from Oban, past Castle Stalker at Appin (my favourite view in Scotland).
}When you enter the Ice Factor, you get the feeling that serious climbers use this
place -
Gerry and Luc have climbing experience but they hadn't climbed for a while so they booked an hours’ brush up lesson with a gorgeous teacher called Kenny! ( I was almost tempted to have a go when I saw him!!) They donned helmets and safety harnesses and a few minutes later they were off.
Luc was like a mini Spiderman, it seemed like seconds before he was almost a dot 15 meters above us, balancing on tiny little piece of plastic supposedly resembling a crag of rock.
Personally being a bit afraid of heights I felt dizzy just looking up at him. This
didn't stop Gerry though, she soon followed him -
The lesson lasted an hour and in that time they did 8 climbs each. They then stayed for another hour just climbing and practicing what they had learned. There is a lovely snack bar and sitting area where spectators can watch all the activity and soak up the atmosphere.
There is a shop were you can buy gear (of course) and maps, postcards, videos and anything and everything to do with climbing and the area.
For those less enamoured with the climbing there is also a visitors’ center setting out the story of Kinlochleven and the aluminium smelting which is now, of course, defunct. This center is also worth a wee visit if you are going to go to Kinlochleven.
Gerry and Luc returned Sunday night, leaving Tyndrum at 9 p.m. and waking up in London at 7.30 on Monday morning. This seems a very civilised way to travel to us.
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