Civil disobedience

Sabah Indoor Climbing Centre has enjoyed a modicum of success since it was opened two years ago. There is now a small community of hard climbers, a large group of regulars and many, many who come down on occaisions.
I guess, considering the marketing we have done its not bad at all.

Now we have completed Sandakan Climbing Centre, newer, sexier and almost ready to go.

Except that it is a government project.

So, will it ever open???

We are waiting for the Sports Board to get their ducks lined up, just like we were with SICC three years ago. One promise after another falling by the wayside.

From a business perspective its a non-starter. No chance of making a real profit, its not scaleable and our landlords openly admit that if we do make money they will raise our rent to get it off us.

We remain as determined as ever to make climbing popular as a sport in Sabah, we are also determined to have athletes go and compete for Malaysia from Sabah so we are sticking at it.

We are now looking for staff to work at the Sandakan Climbing Centre, know anyone?

Climb Fest & the rest

We sent four climbers from Sabah to represent us at the inaugural Climb Fest. A wonderful festival of climbing as it turned out and just what Malaysia needs, a breath of fresh air, free of political tie-downs and unnecessary dirge.
Choosing who to sponsor was a lot of fun and as it turned out four great ambassadors of Sabah Indoor Climbing Centre went along and we were happy to sponsor them.
Its a shame that the State and federal climbing associations are so useless really, Malaysia could do so well at this sport and for a fractioon of the costs of other sports but you know how it is, the decision-makers have no idea about these sports at all, too busy lah!
Sandakan Climbing Centre is now under construction! oh yeah. In three months we hope to do a deal with Lembaga Sukan to operate the centre and team it up with the KK centre, its gonna be awesome! The great thing is the fact that we can have trips out to Berhala every single weekend! lovely, lovely Berhala. We will be improving and further developing the bolts as well as putting up new climbs as fast as we can.
We are looking for staff; international volunteers, local part-timers and full-timers too. Our team is big and friendly with many interesting things happening.
'Nuff plugging I think, back to climbing:
A couple of potential new crags in Sabah have been spotted and will be investigated quite soon, some of you told us about the big face on the left side of the Sandakan - KK road close to the Togop turn. We did go and look and found out it is an active quarry. Its looks really nice though and once they stop chucking dynamite around we are going to be right in there!
A trip up Kinabalu is planned for the end of the year, we plan to spend a couple of weeks up there in a group, anyone interested contact us and we will get some bookings made.

Dont look back, or down....

This weekend sees the welcome arrival of the Climbfest organised by Climb Malaysia (find them on Facebook etc..).
We held a small competition to see who was the best climber after eating barbeque, turns out it was Kenji with Donald snapping at his heels.
The idea was to select people to represent SICC which we did and we will go to the big city busting a gut to make sure that everyone knows that Sabah has some great climbers.
So what of other news?
Sandakan is about to get started, of course the contractor is late handing the place over but we are excited about a new climbing centre in Sabah. Especially in Sandakan with its proximity to Berhala island! I can see weekends are going to be busy developing new routes.
Any Foreign climbers with experience either building climbing walls or bolting new routes are welcome to join our team as volunteers, we can help with accommodation and food if you want to be part of the action. Drop us a line through www.ropeskills.com.my
We are also looking to do some exploring at the tun Sakaran Marine Park where there are a couple of beautiful cliffs, so far no-one has been to take a look but the National Parks office asked us if we could take a look. Anyone interested should get in touch and we will give you the beta (its volcanic by the way).
A team of our staff is in Terenganu this week filming bees with a Canadian TV crew, I figure a bee suit has to be hot and getting swarmed by the stingy little fellas when you are hanging on a rope, unable to run like hell does not sound like a bundle of fun. I am sure there will be stories to tell when they get back.

Jeez, Amnesiac.....

Climbing trip this friday to Berhala, sandsone, oh gritty, gritty loveliness. You will be twitching with excitement if you go, I promise.

Sorry for the delay but tons to tell you;

Sabah Climbing Association is now established, Ed is the Chairman and Roy is the secretary. With luck we can now ask the government to give us funds to run a state-wide climbing competition with a view to running a nation-wide comp later in the year.

Designs for the new climbing pillar at SICC are on the way, input from you guys is always welcome though, looks like it will be about 12 - 15 metres high and have some 10 or more lines. I theory this could give us upwards of another 30 routes!

Sandakan is soon to have a new climbing centre, work starts at the beginning of April and is thought to only take about 4 months to complete. I would not expect it to open immediately though, the one in KK was a year before Lembaga Sukan decided to open it!

We are especially excited about Sandakan because of its proximity to Berhala Island. We may have to invest in a boat and start running weekly trips out there. Its time to get some more routes put up, the Sandakan cik-caks will be a busy bunch!

Roy managed to get a busload of models to come to SICC recently and into harnesses, it is of course a tough job that Roy has and putting harnesses onto models is just one of the ways that he demonstrates his dedication...... (did he use a Gri gri?)

Morning Glory

If you strip away all the unnecessary crap that we have in our lives and kept hold of two or three important things, what would they be?
Climbing is a given, it is quite obvious and totally legitimate so thats easy but what else? TV? Music? Mountain biking?
Where would you look for answers? I just thought of the things that I look forward to the most, Watching a good game of football with my friends is one for sure.
The last thing I would hold on to would be .........................