Climbing magazine

The intrepid Daniel Holz came to Berhala and published this article in the Climber magazine website;

http://www.climbing.com/exclusive/readerblogs/daniel_holz/daniel_holz_-_reader_blog_6/

Guess what....

Correct! absolutely nothing has changed.

The wall is slowly being vandalised, stuff getting stolen, no security whatsoever to protect it and do you think anyone cares?

Had the money to create this project come from private funds, or if anyone at the Sports Board were accountable for its success this situation would not be happening. Someone would care.

We will keep pushing to get the centre open, its a crushing disappointment to see it being left and a real lesson for us about who we work with and what terms we negotiate at the beginning.

There is another climbing centre currently in the pipeline and while it is not yet finalised it could still be open before Likas!

Moving swiftly on....

Building climbing walls is not all that we do here in Sabah and we are often asked about that. What does a rope access company do?

Traditionally rope access company's are heavily involved in construction, deconstruction and maintenance or inspection. Big buildings, dirty overalls oggling passing women.

Not Ropeskills though, its far too hot to be out in the sun in the city when there are so many interesting jobs to be found.

For example; at the moment we are building Borneo's best canopy walk on the island of Gaya at the brand new 5-star Bunga Raya Resort.

An ambitious project to build a canopy walk that doesn't require much exertion from guests, so no ladders to climb or big steps. It also needs to be big and stable enough for couples to stroll along at sunset or sunrise to enjoy the forest and beach view without struggling to hold on the whole way.

Sabah only has a couple of canopy walks that have a deck more than a foot or so wide, one at Borneo Rainforest Lodge and the other at Maliau Basin. Curiously both constructed by the legendary Philipinno, Emiliano.

Once this stage is completed we will be adding to the facilities by building six ziplines into the surrounding forest for the more adventurous guests, we will keep you posted....

NEWS!

Just kidding....
There little else to say except that we are still waiting for the sports board to decide when the centre will open, in practical terms they have let the moment pass for us to capitalise on the facility being new and exciting.
To those of you who have been enquiring, I apologise for the delay, it really is out of our hands. Truth is that we cant wait much longer ourselves, it may be that we reach the limit of our resources to wait and step out of the management role.
In the meantime we are looking into some alternative possibilities, KK is ready for a climbing centre....watch this space.

More Delays

It is with a heavy heart that I report yet another delay in the opening of the climbing centre.
Maybe it will never open, after five months of waiting I am starting to doubt that it will be worth the effort. The reflection on us is hard to avoid yet we have been ready and waiting for ages.

Without launching into a rant about working with governments I shall simply let the silence say what it needs to......

GO!!!!!!

An incredible amount of time has passed since we finished installation of the Sabah Indoor Climbing Centre and we have been stood by waiting for the thumbs up to go ahead and open it. A lot has happened with us in the meantime, we have been to Australia to get our Level 3 certification in rope access, we have completed half of the Canopy walkway in Bunga Raya and re-rigged the National Service High ropes course at the Tamparuli camp. No-one could accuse us of letting the grass grow...

Any road up, insurance and paperwork dependent we aim to be open in the first or second week of January 2010, Woohooo as Homer Simpson would say. New Ropes, new shoes and toilets that actually flush, its a modern miracle.

So now its your turn, you have to come on down and give it a try, then tell us what you think and we can improve it because this is your climbing centre.

If you write to simon@fieldskills.com and tell me why you deserve a free climbing session I will be passing out some free passes for people to come and try it out.