UKC

Hi. Might anyone know of a suitable material to build a small ice climbing demo wall. Please. Just a couple of vertical  8ft panels for beginners. Thanks 

IIRC at the Outdoor Expo Show in Birmingham back in ~2006 Grivel/Vasque(?) had made a demo ice climbing wall from what basically looked like very dense polystyrene sheets with a harder plastic outer stuck to plywood. Always thought it was quite novel, worked surprisingly well and have never seen anything like it since.

Swinging a tool into Celotex feels quite a lot like neve. Not sure I'd want to trust weight to it, though.

https://nicros.com/walls/ready-to-install/foamice/

I think HDPE sheets were used some places as well, think those thick plastic cutting boards.

Back in the 90's  Marple climbing wall had an artificial ice wall , it was if i recall correctly 50MM stiff foam glued to 12mm 8'x4" plywood sheets. I remember it getting hacked up quite quickly and over enthusiastic swings bedded the axe through the foam into the Plywood.

Waiting for a teabag to brew, I have just buried an old MT vertige into some 50mm Celotex.

Flick of wrist to get 50mm in.

Pulling up on it, Celotex on shelf, it ripped through at about 15kg.

Heavier grades available, trip to local builders supply maybe, try explaining why you want to bury an axe into every sheet on their shelves, could be an expensive day out!

Got to be better than dead trees, that's hard work. On the plus side... the south coast Dover to Margate?

In the late 90s PMI made some "ice" blobs out of resin which you could hook your tools into. They were pretty decent... we had some on our uni wall. 

I reckon archery target construction would be the sort of things that would work. 

Interesting 

Didn't the Glenmore have an old telegraph pole in the carpark they used to practice on with a toprope years back?

I like that. Maybe me that one would be good

This does require cold temperatures to start with, but have there ever been explorations made into artificial ice climbing walls with pycrete?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pykrete 

Interesting concept.

I think its been tried for climbing already though, just forgetting to mix in the sawdust.

I see. Then I wonder if anyone has taken the idea in the other direction, and just forgotten to add the water instead?

Sawdust and something slightly softer maybe with some fibre for tensile strength bound with pva might work quite well.