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kareinaOne of the things I have always enjoyed, but have not made enough time for in recent years is climbing. As a kid we were on the roof of the house often, and I loved to go up trees. I was introduced to rock-climbing in high school, and loved it, and climbed at random intervals when I wasn't at SCA events for the next decade. (Granted, I was at SCA events really often then, so that didn't leave many opportunities to climb, but it was more frequent then than it has been in recent years.) However, I really got hooked on indoor climbing when I lived in Fairbanks. The university gym there has a climbing wall, and the gym was free to all students (well, I suppose since we had paid our student activity fee, it wasn't really free, but that fee was obligatory no matter if we used the gym or not, so it felt free). The combination of free place to climb, plus frequent days of temperatures which are too cold to want to be outside for long meant that I was climbing pretty often when I lived there.
I continued to make time to climb occasionally when I was living in California, but no where near so often, since the climbing gyms there were not conveniently located, and neither was the one in Tassie, so I didn't make it there often, either. Then I never found one in Italy, and since I moved to Luleå I have only gone climbing once. They do have a climbing wall at the uni in Luleå, but it is only permitted to use it when the climbing club is there, which is one night a week (or so they told me when I looked into it when first I moved), and![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
lord_kjar and I managed to make it only once, and were not impressed enough to make time for it again (I prefer to climb in gyms that are open often enough that one can climb at a time where there isn't a crowd so that one needn't wait in line for a chance on the wall).
As a result, other than the occasional tree, or scrambling up a boulder along a hiking trail, I haven't climbed in much too long. Therefore, this weekend, while I am visitinglinda_linsefors in Grenoble, we went climbing, and it was so much fun! I suspect that the muscles I built up with all of the work on the earth cellar have not yet gone away, and the fact that these days I weigh a good 30 lbs less than when last I was doing regular climbing have both helped, because it all went quite well. We climbed nine different routes (I have vague memories of only doing six in a session back then, but since I didn't write stuff down then either I can't check).
All of the climbing gyms I have previously climbed at have ropes provided and always attached to the wall and ready for people to climb. The gyms here in France have some ropes one can rent, but most people bring their own ropes. Therefore it is necessary for people to lead-climb to get the rope up the wall in the first place, and then the second person can top-rope. I have almost no lead climbing experience, so we started the day letting me lead climb up an easy wall, and I didn't even bother paying attention to the routes (the holds are different colours, and to climb a specific route one uses only the holds of a specific colour and ignores everything else on the wall).linda_linsefors was surprised that after I got to the top I climbed down, because the people who introduced her to climbing all just sit down and let their belayer lower them back to the floor when they are done. However, when I mentioned that I thought it was good practice to down-climb, because there are times when out hiking one gets to a spot where it is necessary if one doesn't wish to turn back, and she happily started down-climbing too.
climb #1 Vertical wall, lead-climb, any hold goes, also down climbed ~15 minutes elapsed time (it took a while to get the hang of actually getting the rope into the clips).
climb #2 vertical all, top-rope, grade: 4C. This level of difficulty turns out to mean that there are more holds than I need, located everywhere I could possibly want one, and most of them are good "bucket holds". Climbed both up and down, perhaps 5 minutes total elapsed time. Not feeling the least bit tired yet.
climb #3 vertical wall, top-rope, grade: 5A. This level of difficulty turns out to mean that there are holds everywhere I need them, and many of them are bucket holds, but others are only adequate holds. Climbed both up and down. Elapsed time: 5 minutes.
climb #4 vertical wall, top-rope, grade: 5B+. This level of difficulty turns out to mean that there were fewer bucket holds, but there were usually decent holds where I needed them. climbed both up and down, but noticed during down climb that I had to pause a few times to shake out my arms, because they were starting to notice the effort. Elapsed time: 5 minutes.
climb #5 wall with some vertical faces, some with a gentle incline outward, and an outward projecting corner one can wrap around. top-rope, grade: 5B+. The difficulty of this climb was, in fact, about the same as the last--easy enough to accomplish, despite the fact that part of it I was, technically, on the underside of the wall. However, that was a fairly short stretch, and the incline was gentle. This particular route had the topmost clips for the rope several meters lower than the next set of clips to the side, and a number of the routes that followed those clips looked interesting. Therefore I had thought to simply move over to the side the meter or so to the next set of clips when I got to the top and lead climb only the final third of the wall so that we could then top-rope those routes. However, that section happened to be one of the ones where the wall leans slightly outwards, and my arms were just tired enough from the climbing done so far that when I tried to hook the rope into the first hook it was difficult, so I sensibly decided to ride down and letlinda_linsefors try. However, she couldn't manage that either just then, so we resolved to try that particular wall first next time we come, and see how it goes when muscles are fresh, and we moved on to a third wall. Elapsed time: 4 minutes.
climb #6 wall with a lower vertical face then a gentle incline outward, followed by a final stretch where the lean was towards the wall again. Lead climb, any hold goes, ride down. This one actually turned out to be much easier than I had expected, given the difficulties I had had trying to lead climb the top bit of the last one. Elapsed time: 5 minutes.
climb #7 wall with a lower vertical face then a gentle incline outward, followed by a final stretch where the lean was towards the wall again. Top-rope grade: 6A. This was the hardest grade I attempted today. I managed the first part fairly well, and felt like there was always a hold where I needed one, and there were enough bucket holds between the tiny holds to relax and rest before moving on but, once I neared the top (above the section with the outward lean!) I hit a place where I just couldn't see any more holds of the appropriate colour (pink), so I gave up and switched to any hold of any colour, and finished the climb. rode down, since my arms were really starting to feel it. Elapsed time: 3 minutes.
climb #8 wall with a lower vertical face then a gentle incline outward, followed by a final stretch where the lean was towards the wall again. Top-rope grade: 6A. Same one as last time, but this time I had looked at the difficult stretch from the bottom before climbing, and realized that I needed to be a bit further to the right to get past it, and decided to try, and, indeed, I managed it with no problems at all, but I still rode down, since I was done for the day. Elapsed time: 3 minutes.
We had lots of fun climbing, and plan to go back once more this weekend, and it will look quite good for my exercise log, since it is a 40 minute walk each way, and my total climbing time was about 45 minutes (of three hours in the gym--she did most of the lead climbing, so probably spent an hour on the wall, and we wound up taking breaks between climbing because we kept taking off the climbing shoes when it wasn't our turn on the wall. This was fast for her, since her shoes have velcro, but I bought mine in a day when velcro wasn't an option on climbing shoes, so I had to deal with laces.
I continued to make time to climb occasionally when I was living in California, but no where near so often, since the climbing gyms there were not conveniently located, and neither was the one in Tassie, so I didn't make it there often, either. Then I never found one in Italy, and since I moved to Luleå I have only gone climbing once. They do have a climbing wall at the uni in Luleå, but it is only permitted to use it when the climbing club is there, which is one night a week (or so they told me when I looked into it when first I moved), and
lord_kjar and I managed to make it only once, and were not impressed enough to make time for it again (I prefer to climb in gyms that are open often enough that one can climb at a time where there isn't a crowd so that one needn't wait in line for a chance on the wall).As a result, other than the occasional tree, or scrambling up a boulder along a hiking trail, I haven't climbed in much too long. Therefore, this weekend, while I am visiting
linda_linsefors in Grenoble, we went climbing, and it was so much fun! I suspect that the muscles I built up with all of the work on the earth cellar have not yet gone away, and the fact that these days I weigh a good 30 lbs less than when last I was doing regular climbing have both helped, because it all went quite well. We climbed nine different routes (I have vague memories of only doing six in a session back then, but since I didn't write stuff down then either I can't check).All of the climbing gyms I have previously climbed at have ropes provided and always attached to the wall and ready for people to climb. The gyms here in France have some ropes one can rent, but most people bring their own ropes. Therefore it is necessary for people to lead-climb to get the rope up the wall in the first place, and then the second person can top-rope. I have almost no lead climbing experience, so we started the day letting me lead climb up an easy wall, and I didn't even bother paying attention to the routes (the holds are different colours, and to climb a specific route one uses only the holds of a specific colour and ignores everything else on the wall).
linda_linsefors was surprised that after I got to the top I climbed down, because the people who introduced her to climbing all just sit down and let their belayer lower them back to the floor when they are done. However, when I mentioned that I thought it was good practice to down-climb, because there are times when out hiking one gets to a spot where it is necessary if one doesn't wish to turn back, and she happily started down-climbing too.climb #1 Vertical wall, lead-climb, any hold goes, also down climbed ~15 minutes elapsed time (it took a while to get the hang of actually getting the rope into the clips).
climb #2 vertical all, top-rope, grade: 4C. This level of difficulty turns out to mean that there are more holds than I need, located everywhere I could possibly want one, and most of them are good "bucket holds". Climbed both up and down, perhaps 5 minutes total elapsed time. Not feeling the least bit tired yet.
climb #3 vertical wall, top-rope, grade: 5A. This level of difficulty turns out to mean that there are holds everywhere I need them, and many of them are bucket holds, but others are only adequate holds. Climbed both up and down. Elapsed time: 5 minutes.
climb #4 vertical wall, top-rope, grade: 5B+. This level of difficulty turns out to mean that there were fewer bucket holds, but there were usually decent holds where I needed them. climbed both up and down, but noticed during down climb that I had to pause a few times to shake out my arms, because they were starting to notice the effort. Elapsed time: 5 minutes.
climb #5 wall with some vertical faces, some with a gentle incline outward, and an outward projecting corner one can wrap around. top-rope, grade: 5B+. The difficulty of this climb was, in fact, about the same as the last--easy enough to accomplish, despite the fact that part of it I was, technically, on the underside of the wall. However, that was a fairly short stretch, and the incline was gentle. This particular route had the topmost clips for the rope several meters lower than the next set of clips to the side, and a number of the routes that followed those clips looked interesting. Therefore I had thought to simply move over to the side the meter or so to the next set of clips when I got to the top and lead climb only the final third of the wall so that we could then top-rope those routes. However, that section happened to be one of the ones where the wall leans slightly outwards, and my arms were just tired enough from the climbing done so far that when I tried to hook the rope into the first hook it was difficult, so I sensibly decided to ride down and let
linda_linsefors try. However, she couldn't manage that either just then, so we resolved to try that particular wall first next time we come, and see how it goes when muscles are fresh, and we moved on to a third wall. Elapsed time: 4 minutes.climb #6 wall with a lower vertical face then a gentle incline outward, followed by a final stretch where the lean was towards the wall again. Lead climb, any hold goes, ride down. This one actually turned out to be much easier than I had expected, given the difficulties I had had trying to lead climb the top bit of the last one. Elapsed time: 5 minutes.
climb #7 wall with a lower vertical face then a gentle incline outward, followed by a final stretch where the lean was towards the wall again. Top-rope grade: 6A. This was the hardest grade I attempted today. I managed the first part fairly well, and felt like there was always a hold where I needed one, and there were enough bucket holds between the tiny holds to relax and rest before moving on but, once I neared the top (above the section with the outward lean!) I hit a place where I just couldn't see any more holds of the appropriate colour (pink), so I gave up and switched to any hold of any colour, and finished the climb. rode down, since my arms were really starting to feel it. Elapsed time: 3 minutes.
climb #8 wall with a lower vertical face then a gentle incline outward, followed by a final stretch where the lean was towards the wall again. Top-rope grade: 6A. Same one as last time, but this time I had looked at the difficult stretch from the bottom before climbing, and realized that I needed to be a bit further to the right to get past it, and decided to try, and, indeed, I managed it with no problems at all, but I still rode down, since I was done for the day. Elapsed time: 3 minutes.
We had lots of fun climbing, and plan to go back once more this weekend, and it will look quite good for my exercise log, since it is a 40 minute walk each way, and my total climbing time was about 45 minutes (of three hours in the gym--she did most of the lead climbing, so probably spent an hour on the wall, and we wound up taking breaks between climbing because we kept taking off the climbing shoes when it wasn't our turn on the wall. This was fast for her, since her shoes have velcro, but I bought mine in a day when velcro wasn't an option on climbing shoes, so I had to deal with laces.