Heaven's Gate
This wall has been built in some old grain silos in a somewhat run-down industrial area on the east side of Munich. Surrounded on all sides by techno and house clubs, it feels a bit more Berlin than Bavaria. After paying about 7 euros each, we also borrowed (and we didn't even have to take a test or sign a disclaimer) a 70 metre rope. This we had to do because the main climbs here are 30 metres! That's twice the height of the Westway or the Castle. Beautiful.
As you can see from the photo, the climbs are pure vertical, all the way to the top of the silo. There are 6 or 7 silos, that all start around 6 metres up from the main floor. They do have some smaller routes on this lower wall, but they are all very easy, and look kind of pointless next to the silo routes. To access the long routes in the central silos, you have to climb up a column and then tackle a small overhang, getting you nice and pumped before you attempt the next 24 metres. Being inside the silo is a strange feeling, as you find yourself psychologically torn between the vertigo of the sheer "rockface" and the claustrophobia of this massive chimney. However, both concerns soon give way to dealing with the fact that half way up you are completely pumped and the next clip-in looks miles away. Once at the top you then have the uneasy experience of being lowered 30 metres by your partner (don't attempt this after an argument). Despite all this, the moment your feet are on the floor you're dying to have another go, just as soon as your forearms chill out. Sick pythons are an inevitability.Those of you who don't like sports will be pleased to know that there are no top-ropes, and those who do will be excited by the fact that half of the routes require you to take quick-draws with you. If you need to build up stamina for big alpine routes, then this is absolutely the place to go.
Thalkirchen
Thalkirchen is more scenically placed on the fringe of a large sports complex in the south of Munich, a bit like Crystal Palace with less car crime. It's more upmarket than Heaven's Gate, though not quite as tall, but still about 20 metres. The first thing you notice, before even entering the building, are the outdoor routes, lots of them. As well as the outside of the building being covered in them, there were many more along large concrete walls on the other side of the building to that you see above. Unfortunately this visit was in winter, in Munich and I'm not Alex, so we stuck to the routes inside.
Thalkirchen is more scenically placed on the fringe of a large sports complex in the south of Munich, a bit like Crystal Palace with less car crime. It's more upmarket than Heaven's Gate, though not quite as tall, but still about 20 metres. The first thing you notice, before even entering the building, are the outdoor routes, lots of them. As well as the outside of the building being covered in them, there were many more along large concrete walls on the other side of the building to that you see above. Unfortunately this visit was in winter, in Munich and I'm not Alex, so we stuck to the routes inside. 
Thalkirchen is a reasonably new wall, and rather than adapt an old building or squeeze it into a sports centre, it's been purpose built for nothing but climbing. The picture above was taken from a staggered gallery just past reception, so that you can have a coffee and watch people climb without getting neck-ache. Above this gallery on the top floor is a bouldering room with a crazy grading and labeling system that I didn't understand.The main climbing area is made up of a combination of feature wall, like Palace (but considerably higher), the moulded panel system as you can see on the left of the pic above, and flat panels kinda like Brixton-The Next Generation. Every climb is a lead, so if you want to tope rope you need to take along someone who will put the rope up for you! The feature walls were my personal favourites as there were some great routes, and even several yamming cracks. The tallest section was the moulded panel one, the top quarter of which was hinged so that that last 5 metres could be made even harder. They also had some truly immense overhanging climbs, as featured in the photo above. When lowered from them, the leader would end up a good 10 metres or so from the belayer! That large wire ladder you see is for climbing up using only your hands, in case you just don't feel pumped enough after the overhang.
Thalkirchen was definitely my favourite of the two. It was also the most expensive at something like 12 euros a climb, but if you're a member of the wall and a member of the German and Austrian alpine club it came down to around 5 euros a pop. Makes you sick doesn't it?
The Reach
A couple of weeks ago, using Claudi's immense network of contacts, we found ourselves going to the open day of this new wall down the docks in Woolwich. After consulting the interweb as to the actual whereabouts of this "Woolwich"(it's near the Thames Barrier!) we headed over there on a freezing saturday afternoon in the refreshing sleet showers of January. It's been built in a massive warehouse on an industrial estate that reminded me of Robocop, and was only fractionally warmer inside than out. They are very much still finishing the interior, the male changing room, with it's bare pink walls, felt like installation art that challenged the notion of gender stereotypes through the use of colour and void. The main climbing area was a little bit like the Tate Modern's main hall too; a vast space with large angular blocks thrusting up from the ground to meet in a heavenly embrace above. They havn't filled this area yet, but that's the plan, and when they do it will be one of London's biggest walls. I would show you a picture, but I neglected to take any and there don't seem to be any on the net, so you'll just have to imagine it through the power of my words blending with your furtive mind-dreams.
The climbing was very good. We forgot to take our own rope, which was a shame because the sports routes looked good. We started with a quick warm-up in the bouldering section, where there were some excellent but very hard problems, and then took to the top-ropes. The big positive with this wall that grabbed me straight away was it's slabs. Obviously some of you will fail to see this as a positive, but there are not that many good walls in London for proper, balancy, trust-you-feet slab climbing, and this place has two large slabs. Naturally I got straight on to the route that featured nothing but screw-ons, annoying my fingers by having to crimp on one of these to get past an overhang at the top. An excellent climb, and one of many good climbs we attempted over the next two hours. I hope this standard of route-setting can be kept up, because this is what made the trip worth while, and the wall could struggle with it's location, particularly on a week night. Otherwise I would be more than happy to return for a weekend session, this time with a rope. In fact, I'll organise a Brixton outing, maybe we'll get a discount or free membership or something, watch this space....(or the one on yahoo as that's updated more frequently!).
