climbing

Bouldering in Hove Park

Bouldering in Hove Park
Originally uploaded by Jane Dallaway.

Since Jim broke his wrist, I haven’t been to the climbing wall, and I’ve missed it. A couple of weeks ago I stumbled across information that there is a boulder park in Hove Park, and so today we went for a cycle ride to take a look.

It is about 3 metres high and probably about 12 metres long with areas ranging from scramble, to slight overhangs. We spent half an hour there climbing, traversing and doing the odd scramble. I am really impressed to have something like this so close, and available for free. I’m hoping to start visiting on a weekly basis to have a play.

So, since I last mentioned climbing I’ve progressed well. I finished the course, having a futher 2 sessions, both of which were led by the excellent Ross who taught really well. I’ve continued to attend every week, and so Wednesday evenings will found me in the bouldering area progressing. This evening I had the opportunity to watch a couple of excellent climbers climb elegantly on routes that I’m troubled with. My upper body strength is improving, as is the strength in my fingers but I still have a long way to go to be able to climb with the grace and precision that I’ve seen – still progress is progress and every week I’m managing to achieve more difficult routes.

Evolution climbing wall

Last night Jim and I headed off to the Evolution Indoor Climbing centre to attend the first of a 3 part Centre Induction Course. The centre is about 5 minutes away from work and opens from 2pm so should be a good after-work activity. It has been nearly 20 years since I last did any climbing, and that was very spasmodic, so this course seemed like a great way to get back into the swing of things. The evening started with us warming up by traversing, then moved on to knots and how to connect yourself/your harness to a rope for climbing before moving on how to belay. After the theory was done, we put it into practice and spent an hour or so climbing. The last few minutes we spent in the bouldering area learning how the grading works. A great evening, looking forward to next weeks course.