• Wood Ice Climbing (WIC) will be available at the sixth Mendiexpo, on 31 October and 1 November.

• Expert climbers such as Jonatan Larrañaga and François Damilano will be at Mendiexpo to show how Wood Ice Climbing is done. 

Mendiexpo will be offering climbers a unique opportunity to practice their skills with no need to wait for the winter cold to arrive or to set off in search of good quality ice - which isn’t always available. Ficoba has developed an avant-garde infrastructure it calls WIC or Wood Ice Climbing, an indoor reproduction of snow slope and ice waterfall climbing conditions that will be set up in the exhibition centre’s pavilions.

So what’s behind this concept? Fans who visit Mendiexpo on 31 October and 1 November can find the answer in situ. On these two days a specially-designed pine trunk structure will be installed at the Ficoba pavilions, simulating snow slopes and vertical ice waterfalls under very real conditions where fans can learn, practice or improve their technique. In short, they’ll be able to practice a whole range of climbing activities at Mendiexpo without needing to head off to the mountains: it all takes place indoors and under excellent safety conditions, and is particularly suitable for first-timers.

Some ice climbers - although not many - have practiced the sport away from its natural environment, in trunk warehouses that exist in different places. That’s the idea behind the scheme on show at Mendiexpo, but it’s been taken one step further. Firstly a prototype was developed, followed by a sophisticated structure consisting of a ramp and five towers, the tallest 4 metres in height and the others measuring 2.5 metres. The structure will cater for two quite different fields within the ice climbing world. On the ramp, climbers can learn to cross a glacier or climb a frozen slope, i.e. assembly progression and ramp cramponing techniques, while the towers can be used for improving their technique as regards ice progression, ice axe traction, ice screw placement, crossing techniques, ‘windscreen wiper’ turns or yaniros, and all with counselling and advice from the Basque Mountaineering Federation’s expert instructors. As an added attraction, expert climbers such as Jonatan Larrañaga or François Damilano will be at Mendiexpo to give a wood ice climbing demonstration.

All that’s left now is for Mendiexpo to open its doors on 31 October and for the climbers to pick up their ice axes and the rest of their kit and find out how it feels to practice their favourite sport first-hand on Ficoba’s Wood Ice Climbing structure.

More information: http://mendiexpo.ficoba.org