Climbing in England (1)

Climbers: Joey
Venue: Symonds Yat, England
Featured friends: Hannah, Yun, Ming

So I've finally been granted access to posting in this blog - big day for me, but I still had to think of what to write for my first post! Bing asked me to write about climbing in England, but climbing indoors is probably much for muchness whichever country you're in, isn't it? After much deliberation, I've decided to go for my first outdoor climbing experience - just to be a bit different ;)

Last September, my friends, Hannah, Yun, Ming, and I went to Symonds Yat in the Wye Valley, Gloucestershire (West of England). It was a wet, rainy day, and being a limestone area (slippery at the best of times; worse when it's wet!), it probably wasn't the best introduction to outdoor climbing (girls, if you treasure your nails and are afraid of getting muddy and dirty, this is definitely not for you)! Still, we consoled ourselves with the thought that if we could climb there, we could climb anywhere.

The area is very large and features a great variety in rock features (quite a lot of nice jugs!) and routes across the different grades. Set amongst beautiful surroundings (you can even hear the River Wye rushing by) it's very popular with middle grade climbers. The routes range from VDiff (4a) to the occasional E6 (beyond the scale!).

Being hardcore(!), our guide started us off on a Severe (French 5c) climb in a crag on the Kipper Crack, which we each climbed up and absailed back down a couple of times, before moving on to a VS (French 6a) climb. You'd think this was ambitious for our first time, but I can't stress enough how different outdoor climbing is from indoors. Anyone, no matter how tall/short, can potentially do any climb. Forget 'following the colours' - outdoors, you grab anything within your reach!

(Clockwise from top left) 1.Getting ready for the first climb; 2.Where's my next hold?!? Bring the colours back! :( ; 3.Yun looking all calm and relaxed despite the strain the rest of us are feeling; 4.Reaching the top - see the relief on my face?!? (Bing says I look dorky in my helmet, but be nice or I won't post again!)

We spent the whole day there and by the end of it, you'd never seen a muddier, more bruised or tired bunch of people in your life - but it was definitely worth it! Unfortunately, we went before we learnt how to lead climb, so we were forced to resort to top roping (by tying very long ropes off on trees at the top of the crag).

This Summer, I'll be climbing in the High Pyrenees (Spanish range of mountains). It's a granite area and having now learnt to lead climb, I can't wait to try it out for real! I hope I live to tell the tale!

J xx