A sport to drive you up the wall

GET YOUR KIT ON:This week the sport of climbing features in our series on taking up a new activity

FIRST, A CONFESSION – I have a pathological fear of heights. I can stand on a footstool and get dizzy.

During a spell working on a building site in the 1980s, it became a source of light relief for my co-workers to shake the lightweight aluminium scaffolding I had climbed so as to watch my panicky reactions.

More than 20 years on, I fully intended to give climbing a go for this series, but it’s not going to happen – I’ve broken into a cold sweat just thinking about in the last couple of days.

That said, I’d still love to try this sport. A glimpse at the trailer on YouTube for the astonishing Reel Rock film series (which is at the Ed Burke in Trinity College Dublin on Friday week) gives a pretty good idea of just how exhilarating top-level climbing can be.

It also confirms for me, however, that even trying out the entry-level stuff might well end in the humiliation of having to be talked, even helped, down from a sports centre wall.

These venues are increasingly where climbing starts for the growing number of people who are trying the sport out these days.

Traditionally, climbing has been strongly linked with the universities which had vibrant clubs and, these days, good quality facilities, but things are changing. While UCD and Trinity’s walls are open to the public (at a cost) there is also the potential to visit a sports centre such as Westwood in Clontarf where instruction for beginners is available.

Those involved in the sport dismiss the idea that you have you have to be either young or especially athletic to take it up.

Dave Madden, the training officer with the Irish Mountaineering Club (IMC), only got involved, he says, in his late 30s, while quite a few of those he has met through the sport started much later than that.

“Some of the guys in the club have taken it up in their late 50s and there’s certainly nothing exceptional about the fitness levels of some of the people involved,” he says.

“Good core strength is certainly an asset, but unless you go to the extreme grades you don’t need huge body strength. Good technique makes up for an awful lot, and good decision making is probably more important than that again.”

Given the mention of “extreme” grades, it’s worth noting that these seem to start at “very difficult” and work their way up, while in one article on the IMC’s excellent website, Moira Creedon observes that climbers are “rarely in danger of falling in any serious way” – a remark that contains two too many qualifications for a scaredy cat like me.

“Look,” says Madden, “it has a risk factor but that can be managed and climbing indoors, where there is no issue with loose rocks or the like and where you are generally climbing in a very controlled environment, tends to be very safe.

“Statistically, the sport is pretty safe provided you climb within your limits, but clearly there is the potential to take risks too, and there is no doubt that for some people that is an element of the attraction.”

That it will improve your levels of fitness and strength is beyond doubt, but most climbers are quick to hail its psychological benefits, with almost all viewing it as a particularly relaxing pastime.

“Mental chess” is how Madden describes it. Terry O’Connor of the Winders Youth Climbing Club, which operates out of UCD and Dalkey Quarry, says that despite its collaborative nature it is a sport that can attract those for whom more mainstream team sports hold little appeal.

“You have to be calm and focus on yourself,” he says. “It’s actually a little like meditation when you get good at it. You completely zone out of everything else when you go climbing and you can see that even in the wilder kids who get involved in it.”

WHAT THEY SAY:

“I knew instantly that this, for me, was paradise. This was what I wanted to do. I wanted to climb.

“The combination of supposed ill omens (it was Friday the 13th) and the climbing itself had created an adrenaline rush that I found seriously addictive.”

In her book, Total High, Grania Willis describes her first outdoor climb at Dalkey Quarry. Just 15 months later she got to the top of Mount Everest.

WHAT IT DOES:

“Climbing may have traditionally been viewed as an extreme sport, but it’s become a lot more mainstream over the last few years,” observes DCU exercise expert Dr Giles Warrington.

“Gradually, it’s become something very accessible for the general population, a sport that caters for all ages and abilities and one that, in its indoor form, can provide a great alternative to traditional gym workouts.

“A lot of the better sports centres have walls now and they can provide a place to learn in a safe and supervised environment, one that’s not weather dependent.

“There are loads of potential benefits in terms of upper body and core strength, local muscular endurance and flexibility, but also self-confidence and self-reliance. This is a sport that does as much for the mind as the body.”

WHAT IT TAKES:

Like a great many of the sports covered in this series, you can give climbing a go with little financial outlay.

A two-hour beginner’s course at UCD costs €25 while the IMC’s beginner’s courses take place in April and May and are very popular. Most of the the equipment you require is supplied until you get a feel for things.

To get through a first season, though, it’s reckoned that you’ll have to spend about €200, with boots, a helmet and a harness top of your shopping list.

Club officials and specialist stores such as Great Outdoors provide valuable advice to those buying for the first time. Beyond that, it gets a bit more expensive, but a full range of equipment can be built up over a period of time.

WHERE IT’S AT:

Few sports make better use of the web and there is a wealth of information on sites such as irishmountaineeringclub.org, climbing.ie and mountaineering.ie.

A particularly good starting point is the excellent (and recently updated) article by Moira Creedon on the IMC site which can be found at tinyurl.com/387kxwf.