Copenhagen Is Opening the World’s Tallest Climbing Wall; It’s Designed to Feel Like a Real Mountain

[Sept. 14, 2020: Meena Thiruvengadam]

Copenhagen proves you don’t need mountains to create memorable mountain experiences.

CopenHill, an adventure recreation site built on top of a clear power plant in the Danish capital, is planning to open a 279-foot artificial climbing wall it claims will be the world’s tallest. Complete with overhangs, the wall on its facade is designed to look and feel like a real mountain in the middle of the city.

The higher you climb, the harder it gets, and ascending to the top will require more than just skill — appropriate certifications and a minimum age of 18 are necessary to make the trip.

CopenHill already offers year-round skiing, tobogganing, running, hiking, and a collection of après-ski activities. It opened in 2019 on top of the Amager Bakke power plant, considered to be the cleanest waste-to-energy power plant in the world. The plant can power an estimated 50,000 homes per year.

Copenhagen has been on a quest to minimize its energy consumption and aims to be carbon-neutral by 2025. With projects like Amager Bakke, it hopes to wean itself off of fossil fuels entirely by 2050.

A rare peak in a relatively flat country, CopenHill — with its artificial ski slope, tree-lined hiking paths and idyllic picnic spots — is designed to help the power plant better blend in with the neighborhood. The roof of its incinerator turns into a 1,400-foot ski slope every winter.

CopenHill is also set up to remind residents of the city’s environmental efforts. A chimney on top of the project releases giant smoke rings each time an additional 250 kilos of carbon dioxide are pushed out into the atmosphere.

This Brighter Side of News post courtesy of Travel and Leisure at www.travelandleisure.com.

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