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CLIMBING

Zurich silo could become highest inner-city climbing wall in the world

The giant silo belonging to Swissmill is the tallest operating grain elevator in the world and the second tallest building in Zurich – and some consider it the ugliest.

Published: 12 October 2017 09:31 CEST
Zurich silo could become highest inner-city climbing wall in the world
The Swissmill tower. Photo: Roland Fischer/Wikimedia Commons
Since it was completed in 2016 the concrete behemoth has divided opinion, with some viewing it as a new landmark for the city and others a blight on the landscape.
 
Proposals to liven up the grey facade have included allowing local artists to paint murals on it, and lighting it up with artful illuminations. 
 
But now a local architect firm thinks the 118m tower would be the ideal location for a climbing wall, according to newspaper Neue Zürcher Zeitung.
 
The idea is technically achievable and should cost around 10,000 francs to install, the IG Zürinordwand firm’s board member Robert Fischer, himself a climber, told the paper.
 
The idea isn’t new. Industrial buildings in Vienna sport climbing routes, while a hotel in Reno, in the US, has a climbing wall up one side.
 
 
With its 118m height, the Swissmill silo could become the tallest urban climbing route in the world, said the paper.
 
In the coming days IG Zürinordwand intends to send an open letter to Swissmill’s owners to suggest the idea, said the paper.
 
Switzerland already holds the record for the tallest non-urban artificial climbing route in the world, which stretches for 160m up the Luzzone dam in the canton of Ticino.
 
The Swissmill silo – also known as the Kornhaus – opened in its current form in 2016 after three years of construction work to extend a previous 40m silo on the site. 
 
It is the second highest building in Zurich after the Prime Tower, which stands at 126m.
 
Currently the tallest building in Switzerland is the 178m Roche Tower in Basel.
 
The pharmaceutical company is set to break its own record by constructing a 205m office block, designed by Herzog & de Meuron, due to open in 2021.
 
But Switzerland’s tallest buildings are dwarfed by the country’s huge dams, the highest of which is the Grande-Dixence in the Valais, at 285m.
 

PAKISTAN

Search for missing Italian and British climbers suspended

Bad weather forced rescuers to call off a search on Friday for two climbers from Britain and Italy who went missing in northern Pakistan on a peak known as "Killer Mountain".

Published: 1 March 2019 12:45 CET
Search for missing Italian and British climbers suspended
Daniele Nardi (L) and Tom Ballard (R), the climbing partners who haven't been heard from since Sunday. Photo: Daniele Nardi/Facebook

Climbers Daniele Nardi and Tom Ballard were last heard from on Sunday as they climbed the Nanga Parbat, which at 8,125 metres is the world's ninth-highest peak.

They were attempting a route that has never before been successfully completed. 

Heavy snowfall on Friday kept a helicopter from taking off and a ground team confined to base camp in the western Himalayas.

“Snowfall has reduced the visibility and we expect snowfall for the coming three to four days, which makes it difficult for us to climb up and do a ground search,” Pakistani mountaineer Muhammad Ali Sadpara told AFP by telephone from Nanga Parbat base camp.

He said the the mountaineers had taken the notorious Mummery route, named after a mountaineer who died while attempting it in 1895. The route has never been attempted since then, he said.

“The risk of avalanche makes it [rescue] almost impossible in this weather,” he added.  

Sadpara, along with other four local mountaineers, were airlifted to the base camp for a ground search. A top army aviation official said a Pakistani military helicopter that was set to search from the air was unable to take off due to the snow. 

“The weather prediction for the coming few days is not good, and unfortunately it will make it very difficult for us to fly,” he told AFP.

Four Russian mountaineers currently at the base camp for K2, the world's second highest mountain and also in northern Pakistan, had volunteered to join the search. But a spokesperson for the Russians said the Nanga Parbat climbers' support team had opted instead to carry out the search using drones.  

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Nardi's team said on Facebook that the climbers' tent had been “spotted from a helicopter, buried under snow. Traces of avalanches can be seen”. But Karim Shah, a Pakistani mountaineer and friend of Nardi who is in contact with the team at the base camp and the search team, said that tent was spotted on a different route than the one taken by the missing climbers.

Ballard is the son of British mountaineer Alison Hargreaves, the first woman to conquer Mount Everest solo and without bottled oxygen. She died descending K2 in 1995.

The search was delayed because rescue teams were forced to wait for permission to send up a helicopter after Pakistan closed its airspace on Wednesday in response to escalating tensions with India. 

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