disobey_gravity | Climbing outdoors (on sandstone and concrete)

Climbing in London is a weird business, since there's a notable shortage of actual rock in the vicinity.

I've been climbing indoors for a couple of years now, but have never managed to make it outside -- all my attempts to organize a trip or tag along on someone else's have been foiled for reasons ranging from "someone forgot to e-mail me" through "sprained ankle" to "five months in hospital". I was starting to suspect that the universe was conspiring to ensure I never made it outside.

A couple of weeks back, I finally snapped. I looked at the weather forecasts, decided this might be my last chance this year, and cadged a lift down to Bowles Rocks on my own.

Where I ran into three different gaggles of people I know from the Arch, where I normally climb, everyone else having looked at the weather forecasts and thought exactly the same thing.

So it ended up being thoroughly social, and I didn't have any trouble finding a spotter when I started doing things where I felt I needed one.

Southern sandstone is ... silly stuff.

I understand that in the US, "Southern sandstone" is serious business. In the UK, it refers to some small outcroppings of very fragile sandstone which are the only rock remotely near London (with "near" meaning a good hour's train journey).

It is much-loved -- it has routes first sent by such luminaries as Johnny Dawes and James Pearson -- and also much-mocked.

The mockery is because ... well, as someone I was climbing with said, the sandstone is somewhere between actual rock and "sand with ambition".

The weather forecast gets watched so compulsively because you're not allowed to climb on the rock when it's damp: it crumbles. Even brushing the holds with a soft brush would erode them. Everything has to be top-roped or bouldered because placing protection (trad or fixed) would damage the rock too badly.

The guidebook is studded with advice to avoid "pulling outwards" on particular holds. In some places, it notes that the rock is especially soft so "grades may change" (and it doesn't mean "over the decades"; it means "since the guidebook was published").

Even when dry, the holds are always covered in a fine layer of sand; it's somewhere between climbing rock and climbing a giant sandcastle. I did find myself hesitant about pulling too hard on holds which seemed thin or protruded from the rock, so my footwork got an extra workout. And I came home with a light coating of sand all over my clothes and kit.

(Side note: can I mention that Moon Skink jeans are awesome for outdoor climbing? They are cunningly disguised as regular jeans, and just as sturdy, but with a fair degree of stretch and a "diamond cut" crotch so you have full hip mobility.)

I'd heard from many sources that outdoor climbing is a completely different beast from indoor climbing, so I came prepared to start from scratch, with my basic plan being to traverse and play around without any expectations, and let my brain wrap itself round how to climb when the holds aren't marked out in pretty colours.

In fact, I found I had to adjust less than I expected --- possibly because the Arch route-setters tend to like setting problems that require you to use the wall, aretes, volumes, etc. etc.. So I have a bit of experience using things that aren't marked as "holds." It felt like a lot of skills transferred across, and some of the moves I ended up doing weren't completely out of keeping with my indoor level.

The first big difference was the psychological component. Jumping or falling onto acres of squishy mat is very different from jumping onto a bouldering mat that suddenly looks a lot smaller than it did from ground level, even with a spotter. Especially when you know the mat is laid over uneven or sloping ground, or dangerously near smaller boulders.

At Bowles, the bouldering takes place on the lower section of the outcropping, so there are no top-outs; you either down-climb or jump (unless there's a convenient adjacent gully that lets you scramble up to the top without too much fuss). And cracks and grooves can leave you in awkward positions to jump out of.

All of which was a little unnerving.

Conversely, I also discovered that I have a rather unfortunate tendency to inadvertent solo-ing: given a nice easy crack or chimney, I am prone to continue blithely upwards, right up until the moment when I look down and decide that some careful down-climbing is necessary.

This is the sort of thing about oneself it's useful to find out sooner rather than later, I suppose. And for the record, the edge of my comfort zone turns out to be located at a fairly sensible height ...

The second major difference from indoor climbing was the sheer range of shapes that natural rock can produce, which artificial holds can't quite mimic. So many new things to learn! A whole new playground!

Some areas of the rocks had problems that were fairly similar to indoor ones -- a smooth flat slab with pocket holes, an overhanging bit with a corner to grab -- but there were also completely new delights.

There are weird shallow curvy grooves like the "banana". There's a shallow scooped out slab with nothing resembling a hold on it, just gentle rounded waves and dips; I spent some happy time just learning how to step up onto it and across it, all palms and footwork.

Finally, I found a corner with a crack and had a revelation about laybacking (by Jove, I think I've got it!).

When I next went climbing at the Arch, I told one of the staff about my adventures; he looked at me and said, "Now you need to go to Font."

Yesterday, I made my second venture outdoors.

This time, I packed lunch and reading material for an hour on the Tube, then set off to Fairlop Waters, to what is, according to its makers, the UK's largest boulder park.

It's made out of concrete.

It was a freezing, bright day, and I was the only person climbing; the few other people in the park were heading off to play golf or sail on the lake.

So I played on my own on the boulders.

I didn't take a mat; the boulders are surrounded by shingle, which is supposed to be as good a shock-absorber as mats (Mile End climbing wall use it for their outdoor section), and some people think it's safer and less likely to result in a turned ankle than over-soft matting. I'm still going to take a mat next time if I'm planning anything ambitious.

This time, I took it easy and climbed up to Font 5 or so (I'm now trying to juggle the different grading systems -- the V grades I'm familiar with, the British tech grades and occasional Font grades in the Bowles guides, the Font grades in the Fairlop Waters leaflets ...).

To my annoyance, the makers went for the gym strategy of making any remotely hard problems (at least those listed in the booklet) overhanging, for "safety" reasons, the idea being that you're less likely to be hurt in a clean fall than by sliding down a slab or vertical surface. But I think there's great potential for creativity and inventing new problems, even if some of them have to be eliminates.

The big new thing to work on here was top-outs; I've always found top-outs scary, especially when they're rounded, so this was a perfect opportunity to practice. I managed a heel-hook-and-mantel move I was proud of.

I also did my first proper hand-jam; it wasn't a very good hand-jam, but I did it. In fact, I managed to acquire a picture-perfect "gritstone rash" all over my forearms and the backs of my knuckles; the fact that I got this on concrete is still entertaining me.

(Fortunately, my psychiatrist knows that it's a good sign when I turn up with marks all over my arms.)

It was an odd and lovely thing, sitting perched on top of a carved concrete boulder in the sunshine, looking out over the lake. With its Edwardian Tube station and fake boulders, Fairlop strikes me as having a dash of a classically English form of strangeness, like Portmeirion or the concrete dinosaurs at Crystal Palace; I like it.

I definitely want to make a return trip there, and back to Bowles when levels of dampness permit.

But I'm also plotting to complete my London climbing trifecta by making it to the Shoreditch boulder ...