Harness and Hands

Excellent news reader(s): today I got my very own climbing harness, and she's a thing of beauty!

I'll add a better photo when I get one of me actually using it...hands were too ruined today 

Isn't she pretty? Although my birthday isn't for a couple of weeks my parents gave me the money to go and get a harness and the assorted bits and bobs, so it's a nice little early birthday present for me. To be specific its a Petzl Corax, and it's a wonderfully clever fusion of an alpine/mountaineering and indoor wall climbing harness. The mountaineering elements are thinner padding, soft rear gear loops (to avoid fouling a pack) and fully detachable leg loops. As such it's not perfect in either environment but it makes a damn fine harness that'll do pretty much everything rather competently. It came with a free chalk bag which was nice, too.

I had the opportunity today to also try out this new harness for the first time; because he'd been trapped in Scotland on Monday having completed a winter skills course over the weekend, Charlie had to work on Tuesday (and therefore we hadn't climbed) so after rowing on Wednesday I popped off to Westway to see him, meet his normal climbing partner Tom and get some decent climbing in myself. This turned out to not be the best idea, as rowing can tire out your hands and forearms - parts of the body essential for climbing. By the time we were finished I could only form a claw and couldn't even begin to contemplate untying my knots.

My poor, claw-like, ruined hands. They still hurt now, hours afterwards.

All in all to be honest it wasn't my greatest day's climbing for me but I learned some valuable lessons and got some really good insight; whilst Charlie is experienced, Tom is the far better climber and a teacher to boot, and so is really good at imparting his accumulated wisdom. As I climbed he identified that I was getting tired far too quickly on the walls because I was essentially doing a series of chin ups up the wall. He took me to a slightly lower grade wall and taught me how to concentrate on technique of avoiding using my arms. It was somewhat confusing to begin with having to re-learn my way of climbing but it worked; I was able to do 3 consecutive walls without untying or pause.

I also got to have a close look at some lead climbing for the first time too - whilst it's not overly complicated as a way of ascending a wall, Charlie doesn't reckon I'm quite ready yet (an assessment I'd fully agree with after attempting the same wall but as a top-roper and falling off halfway up) so I've got a little bit of time to wait before I can lead myself. Although I'll confess I'm quite looking forward to it, because it looks like stupid amounts of fun. The only downside is the fact that generally the lead climbing walls are rated at 5+ and higher - at the moment the best wall I've climbed is a 5+ and that was with the security of a top rope. It could be interesting to push it harder...

As a small aside, whilst we were at the center we saw an ad for someone selling £350 worth of climbing gear for around £95. Charlie and Tom are attempting to build a full climbing rack between them so they want all the quickdraws, karabiners and loops, but have offered me a very lovely Mammut 60m rope for £30. That's around 15% of the price of a brand new rope. Yes please.