Outdoor bouldering for indoor boulderers
Jul. 5th, 2011 10:25 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rydra_wong posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
disobey_gravityYesterday was a southern sandstone day. So while I nurse my grazes and nettle stings and work on removing the amazing quantities of sand that made it back on the train with me, I thought I'd post some of the things I've learned about outdoor climbing so far, for anyone else who's working on the great indoor-to-outdoor transition.
Should you wish, you can amuse yourself by guessing how many of these I learned the hard way (hint: most of them).
If you've got tips of your own (re: bouldering or route-climbing), please share in the comments.
Check the downclimb.
Indoor bouldering does not prepare you to think about downclimbing once you've sent a problem. Some boulders outdoors have nice gentle slopes on the other side that you can walk off; some are short enough that you can jump comfortably onto the ground, even without a mat below you.
Some don't and aren't.
And it's a lot harder to find a potential downclimb route when you're looking from above, and trying to step down onto footholds that you may not be able to see. Do yourself a favour and check the downclimb first.
In some cases, boulder problems are on the bottom portion of crags, in which case, when you complete the problem, you need to either downclimb (bearing in mind that downclimbing a problem is often significantly harder), jump, or traverse sideways to escape.
It's good to think about this in advance, and also to register where the end of the boulder problem is, before you continue blithely upwards and suddenly realize that you're now solo-ing.
You might want to check the top-out, too.
Indoor bouldering frequently doesn't involve a top-out at all; if it does, it's usually over a rail or at least onto a nice flat surface. Mostly, you're conditioned to think that once you've got your hands on the last hold, it's over.
This is not the case outdoors. You can think you've done the problem and then realize that in front of you there is a rounded slope, and on that slope there is nothing even faintly resembling a handhold.
Top-outs can be scary, because they often involve moving through precarious positions where it feels like a fall would be awkward and uncontrolled (because you've got one foot up high, for example). And your alternatives are downclimbing or jumping.
Be prepared to do a lot of beached-whale top-outs until your skills start to improve (I'm still firmly in the beached-whale phase, with lots of bellyflopping and kicking legs).
Take a mat, and (if you're going on your own) take a mobile phone if you have one.
Doesn't need explanation. It would be embarrassing to have to do a Joe Simpson crawl to safety just because you've sprained your ankle falling off a small rock.
You won't invariably need the mat (if the landing's flat, the problem's low, and you're confident you can handle it). Elderly Frenchmen wander the forest of Fontainebleau armed only with beer towels and small squares of carpet to wipe their shoes on, burning off all the young hotshots.
But a mat does make a lot of difference to your comfort and sense of safety, especially if you have cranky joints.
Be prepared for the moment when you look down and find that your mat looks waaaaay smaller than it did at ground level.
You're going to need to think in advance about where you're likely to fall and where you want your mat to be.
If people are bouldering in a group, they'll usually pool resources and lay out several mats if there's a dodgy landing, and act as spotters for whoever's climbing in order to ensure that they end up on the mat.
If you're on your own, you're reliant on your own judgement, and need to gauge whether there's a risk of your falling badly, missing the mat, hitting the mat but bouncing off, tobogganing down the hillside on the mat, etc.. There will be some problems where you decide you don't want to do them without a spotter or more mats. THIS IS VALID AND SENSIBLE.
If you're using a guide, be prepared for your grades to take a sharp drop compared to your indoor grades.
Don't jump in at the grade you'd expect to be able to climb. Start low and work up. Be prepared for the blow to your ego and try not to take it personally; it happens to everyone.
There are various possible reasons.
If you've climbed predominantly indoors, it'll take you a while to get your brain round not having nice bright colours to show you where the holds are, and to start learning how to read the problems on rock.
Beyond that, holds on indoor problems have to be distinct objects large enough to bolt or screw onto the wall. Holds on outdoor problems don't. So you can have footholds which are very shallow smears, or problems which rely on palming or bridging against a very gentle curve in the rock. This can vary depending on the type of rock you're climbing; some are more like indoor climbing than others (in my limited experience, gritstone has been the most different from indoor climbing so far).
Outdoor climbing can involve skills that indoor climbing tends not to cultivate (notably jamming, laybacking, smearing on things which aren't quite footholds and aren't quite flat wall, and dealing with Evil Rounded Top-Outs).
There's also the fear factor: you may find your grade picks up a bit once you get more confident falling onto the mat and start to re-calibrate your sense of the risk you can handle.
Then there's a regional element to grading. In some areas, the locals seem to grade problems partly to inflict maximum ego-damage on outsiders (a practice known as "sandbagging").
Even with all those elements taken into consideration, though, it seems to be a rule of thumb that indoor grades tend to be "soft" compared to outdoor ones.
(At the moment, my personal conversion rate is that V3 indoors = V1 on gritstone, V4 = V2, and so forth, and I have had my arse kicked brutally on V0s. But I'm hoping that more practice outdoors will help me level up.)
Google is your friend.
Googling bouldering AND [venue name] can find you all sorts of good things, often including websites with free guides and topos. But more importantly, it will also find you info about access and other specific local issues you should know about.
That can include things like a site being off-limits temporarily because of nesting birds, having to pay a fee to climb (when the climbing area is on private land), nearby sites of special scientific interest which you need to detour round rather than tromp through, safety issues (like known unstable rocks), local ethics, and special issues of rock care (for example, the highly specific code of practice needed to protect the fragile southern sandstone in the UK).
Basically, it'll save you from wasted trips, and from inadvertently screwing up the rock and access to it for others.
And finally, my most recent lesson:
If you're going to need sunblock, apply it before leaving the house.
So you can wash your hands with soap. Because greasy suncream is not good for friction. And using half your waterbottle to try to wash it off won't help if it's waterproof sunblock.
*facepalms forever*
Should you wish, you can amuse yourself by guessing how many of these I learned the hard way (hint: most of them).
If you've got tips of your own (re: bouldering or route-climbing), please share in the comments.
Check the downclimb.
Indoor bouldering does not prepare you to think about downclimbing once you've sent a problem. Some boulders outdoors have nice gentle slopes on the other side that you can walk off; some are short enough that you can jump comfortably onto the ground, even without a mat below you.
Some don't and aren't.
And it's a lot harder to find a potential downclimb route when you're looking from above, and trying to step down onto footholds that you may not be able to see. Do yourself a favour and check the downclimb first.
In some cases, boulder problems are on the bottom portion of crags, in which case, when you complete the problem, you need to either downclimb (bearing in mind that downclimbing a problem is often significantly harder), jump, or traverse sideways to escape.
It's good to think about this in advance, and also to register where the end of the boulder problem is, before you continue blithely upwards and suddenly realize that you're now solo-ing.
You might want to check the top-out, too.
Indoor bouldering frequently doesn't involve a top-out at all; if it does, it's usually over a rail or at least onto a nice flat surface. Mostly, you're conditioned to think that once you've got your hands on the last hold, it's over.
This is not the case outdoors. You can think you've done the problem and then realize that in front of you there is a rounded slope, and on that slope there is nothing even faintly resembling a handhold.
Top-outs can be scary, because they often involve moving through precarious positions where it feels like a fall would be awkward and uncontrolled (because you've got one foot up high, for example). And your alternatives are downclimbing or jumping.
Be prepared to do a lot of beached-whale top-outs until your skills start to improve (I'm still firmly in the beached-whale phase, with lots of bellyflopping and kicking legs).
Take a mat, and (if you're going on your own) take a mobile phone if you have one.
Doesn't need explanation. It would be embarrassing to have to do a Joe Simpson crawl to safety just because you've sprained your ankle falling off a small rock.
You won't invariably need the mat (if the landing's flat, the problem's low, and you're confident you can handle it). Elderly Frenchmen wander the forest of Fontainebleau armed only with beer towels and small squares of carpet to wipe their shoes on, burning off all the young hotshots.
But a mat does make a lot of difference to your comfort and sense of safety, especially if you have cranky joints.
Be prepared for the moment when you look down and find that your mat looks waaaaay smaller than it did at ground level.
You're going to need to think in advance about where you're likely to fall and where you want your mat to be.
If people are bouldering in a group, they'll usually pool resources and lay out several mats if there's a dodgy landing, and act as spotters for whoever's climbing in order to ensure that they end up on the mat.
If you're on your own, you're reliant on your own judgement, and need to gauge whether there's a risk of your falling badly, missing the mat, hitting the mat but bouncing off, tobogganing down the hillside on the mat, etc.. There will be some problems where you decide you don't want to do them without a spotter or more mats. THIS IS VALID AND SENSIBLE.
If you're using a guide, be prepared for your grades to take a sharp drop compared to your indoor grades.
Don't jump in at the grade you'd expect to be able to climb. Start low and work up. Be prepared for the blow to your ego and try not to take it personally; it happens to everyone.
There are various possible reasons.
If you've climbed predominantly indoors, it'll take you a while to get your brain round not having nice bright colours to show you where the holds are, and to start learning how to read the problems on rock.
Beyond that, holds on indoor problems have to be distinct objects large enough to bolt or screw onto the wall. Holds on outdoor problems don't. So you can have footholds which are very shallow smears, or problems which rely on palming or bridging against a very gentle curve in the rock. This can vary depending on the type of rock you're climbing; some are more like indoor climbing than others (in my limited experience, gritstone has been the most different from indoor climbing so far).
Outdoor climbing can involve skills that indoor climbing tends not to cultivate (notably jamming, laybacking, smearing on things which aren't quite footholds and aren't quite flat wall, and dealing with Evil Rounded Top-Outs).
There's also the fear factor: you may find your grade picks up a bit once you get more confident falling onto the mat and start to re-calibrate your sense of the risk you can handle.
Then there's a regional element to grading. In some areas, the locals seem to grade problems partly to inflict maximum ego-damage on outsiders (a practice known as "sandbagging").
Even with all those elements taken into consideration, though, it seems to be a rule of thumb that indoor grades tend to be "soft" compared to outdoor ones.
(At the moment, my personal conversion rate is that V3 indoors = V1 on gritstone, V4 = V2, and so forth, and I have had my arse kicked brutally on V0s. But I'm hoping that more practice outdoors will help me level up.)
Google is your friend.
Googling bouldering AND [venue name] can find you all sorts of good things, often including websites with free guides and topos. But more importantly, it will also find you info about access and other specific local issues you should know about.
That can include things like a site being off-limits temporarily because of nesting birds, having to pay a fee to climb (when the climbing area is on private land), nearby sites of special scientific interest which you need to detour round rather than tromp through, safety issues (like known unstable rocks), local ethics, and special issues of rock care (for example, the highly specific code of practice needed to protect the fragile southern sandstone in the UK).
Basically, it'll save you from wasted trips, and from inadvertently screwing up the rock and access to it for others.
And finally, my most recent lesson:
If you're going to need sunblock, apply it before leaving the house.
So you can wash your hands with soap. Because greasy suncream is not good for friction. And using half your waterbottle to try to wash it off won't help if it's waterproof sunblock.
*facepalms forever*
no subject
Date: 2011-07-05 09:43 am (UTC)Be prepared to tape your fingers even if you never have done it indoors. You may think you have the best climbing calluses in the world but some rock will just laugh at your flimsy calluses.
no subject
Date: 2011-07-05 03:43 pm (UTC)Also useful: antiseptic wipes and sticky plasters/bandaids, at least for people who bleed as easily as I do.
no subject
Date: 2011-07-05 06:37 pm (UTC)So very true.
no subject
Date: 2011-07-05 10:19 am (UTC)I found chalk was enough to undo most of the sunscreen (which I did need, given it was pretty hot on Saturday). Your point about grades is sound, but should probably also suggest dropping a grade or so when on a new rock type for the first time - limestone and grit provide very different climbing experiences, for example! With trad this is worse, because the placements tend to be different, too.
The BMC's Access Database is a good port of call to check for restrictions and the like, and the UKclimbing database is useful for problems/route lists, where to eat, etc.
You missed the most important lesson:
Bathe in DEET before going anywhere near the rock on a still day.
I have some evil Jungle Formula "maximum strength you only need this if you're going somewhere where ever mosquito alive has three different malaria species on board". I sprayed it on myself vigorously on Saturday, and got bitten twice. My partner was less lavish in their application, and is covered in bites :-s
no subject
Date: 2011-07-05 10:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-07-05 02:47 pm (UTC)Therefore: carpet square, beer towel, or willingness to swipe each shoe on the opposite leg of your jeans.
(One day, some design genius will market climbing jeans with built-in carpet swatches at the critical areas.)
no subject
Date: 2011-07-05 02:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-07-05 02:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-07-05 10:49 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-07-05 02:51 pm (UTC)And V0s. See under: arse, my, kicked.
no subject
Date: 2011-07-05 03:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-07-05 03:54 pm (UTC)Blind terror sometimes produces a sudden surge in my skills, but my new plan is to spend some time learning how to jam properly when I'm not four metres above the ground.
no subject
Date: 2011-07-07 04:16 am (UTC)I'm actually trying to go on a guided outdoor climbing trip that my gym's running in a few weeks, but that one's top-rope. About the same sort of advice? Any fiendish peculiarities for that approach in particular?
no subject
Date: 2011-07-07 07:14 am (UTC)There are a bunch of glossaries online -- these are some that came up when I Googled:
Wikipedia's glossary of climbing terms -- note: I had to Google "Alpine Cock Ring" because I was convinced it must be someone having fun messing with the entry, and no, it really is a type of anchor.
Touchstone Climbing: Glossary
A Glossary of Climbing terms: from Abseil to Zawn -- this is British, so there will be some transatlantic differences in terminology for you, but it's detailed, entertaining and informative.
I'm actually trying to go on a guided outdoor climbing trip that my gym's running in a few weeks, but that one's top-rope. About the same sort of advice? Any fiendish peculiarities for that approach in particular?
I only boulder, so can't answer this one. But if you make it a new post, then hopefully various people will chip in (that'd also be a good way to ask about any particular terms that are baffling you). And I'd love to see more posts in the comm by people who are not me -- I'm always afraid I'm spamming it. *g*
no subject
Date: 2011-07-07 05:31 pm (UTC)I will totally post about my top-rope trip outside, if I manage to get into the group doing it.