The World’s Greatest Climbing Gym
Kletterzentrum Innsbruck has a huge indoor and outdoor space and is home to a national training centre. Here's the climber who made it happen
There are thousands of climbing gyms around the world, but many will say that this one is greatest. Kletterzentrum Innsbruck (KI) has become the number-one training ground for world-champion climbers. The gym is the result of Reini Scherer’s effort to have it built. Scherer started climbing at 14 and by 1985 was climbing hard routes in Verdon. In 1991, he climbed Austria’s first 5.14c and in 2007, he saw the need for what became KI.
The massive gym is owned by the city of Innsbruck and run by Innsbruck’s Alpine Association under the management of Scherer. The Austrian Climbing Association’s National Comp Centre (Bundesleistungszentrum) is integrated into the facility enabling competitions and training camps to take place without interrupting daily climbing centre operations. The gym took three years to build and opened in 2018, the walls were constructed by Walltopia and cost $2 million. Below is a film featuring the gym and its manager Scherer.
Indoor lead climbing walls: 3,000 m²
Outdoor climbing walls: 1,500 m²
Bouldering surface: 1,200 m²
Speed lines: 4
Wall height: 17 m (55 feet)
Routes and bouldering problems Approx: 600 and 250
Different hold manufacturers: 20
Different holds Approx: 50,000
Kletterzentrum Innsbruck
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