We welcome all levels of climbing here at KCLMC. However, if you’ve never been climbing before, the first time can be pretty baffling. So this section is to outline what climbing is all about and the types that we do. It will introduce you to the basics of indoor climbing, outdoor rock climbing and bouldering.
Indoors
Rope Climbing, 3 types:
- Top roping
- Leading
- Seconding
For all forms of rope climbing 2 people are needed, a climber and a belayer. The climber needs: a helmet, a harness and some rock shoes. The belayer needs the same as a climber PLUS a belay plate. One rope is needed per 2 people climbing.
Rope climbing routes are graded using the French system. A route grade will have a number and a letter. For example, a route might be an F6a. The higher the number, the harder the route, for example an F6 is harder than an F5. For each number band there are 3 subsets using the letters ‘a’, ‘b’ and ‘c’. They increase in difficulty from ‘a’ to ‘b’ to ‘c’.
SO (!) from easy to difficult: F5a, F5b, F5c, F6a, F6b, F6c, F7a, F7b, F7c, F8a etc.
(Also, you can get + signs, for example F6b+. This means it is harder than F6b but easier than F6c...)
Top Roping is the most basic form of climbing indoors. There is a rope already in place with one end at the ground. It then runs up the wall, through a carabiner at the top and then back to the ground. Consequently there are 2 ends at the bottom of the wall.
- The belayer stays at the bottom. They put one end of the rope through their belay device.
- The climber ties into the other end of the rope using a Figure of Eight knot.
As the climber ascends the wall, the belayer takes in rope to keep the climber tight. Once the climber reaches the top the belayer lowers them back to the ground. They can then swap over; giving the climber a chance to rest and giving the belayer a chance to climb.
This is the form of climbing you will be doing on your first climbing session with us. You will learn how to put a harness on, tie in safely and be taught some basic climbing techniques. You will also begin to learn how to belay effectively.
Leading is when a climber ascends a wall when there is no rope in place. The whole rope is at the bottom.
- The climber ties into one end using a Figure of Eight.
- The belayer puts the SAME END of the rope through their belay device, leaving a few metres between themselves and the climber.
As the climber ascends the wall the belayer GIVES OUT rope, allowing them to move upwards. The climber clips the rope through quickdraws on the way. These consist of 2 carabiners, joined by a short section of sling. One end is clipped to a bolt on the wall. The other is clipped through the rope. Normally 6 quickdraws are needed to reach the top of a climbing wall, with gaps of ~1.5m between each one. Once the climber reaches the rope, they are lowered down by the belayer.
This is a more advanced form of climbing, and carries an increased risk to top roping, as there is the potential to fall further. If you wish to learn how to lead a committee member will take you through the process.
Seconding is basically top roping after someone has lead. The only difference is that the rope will run through quickdraws on the way up, which the seconder will need to remove as they ascend the wall.
Bouldering
Bouldering is climbing shorter walls with no ropes. Normally there are big squashy mats below the walls to reduce the chance of injury if a climber falls off. You can boulder on your own, and a climber only needs a pair of rock shoes.
Generally the routes are shorter than rope climbing routes, typically consisting of 6-10 moves. As such bouldering is where climbers get a chance to climb routes of increased difficulty, as if they fall off it is easier to try again.
The routes are normally set in colours, so one route would only use red holds for example. They are normally given a difficulty grade; the most common grading system being the V system. V0 is the easiest, and as the number increases so does the difficulty. So a V4 is harder than a V3.
CLIMBING OUTDOORS
Climbing gets more complicated when you step into the awesome world of climbing on real rock. Bouldering remains much the same, even the grading system. But route-climbing is divided into sport climbing and trad climbing (short for “traditional”). Sport is very similar to leading indoors apart from you must place your own quick draws instead of them being already there for you. The grades are even the same. But trad climbing is a whole new entity and requires much more skill. Unlike sport climbing, there is nothing fixed in the rock at all to help you, and you must have a rack on your harness (a collection of climbing gear) which you use as you climb up to make yourself safe with by connecting the rope to it. The gear used ranges from simple nuts (blocks of solid metal that are wedged into cracks) to more complicated cams (spring-loaded devices that need careful placement) and more. There is a separate section of gear here. It might seem complicated but it isn’t really that bad!
Outdoor climbing introduces another concept – seconding. Once the leader has finished their pitch (section of a climb), the person who was belaying then climbs up behind them (the role of belayer has now been transferred to the leader). The seconder removes all of the gear that was used by the leader so nothing gets left behind on the rock (which is really important both for the environment and for your wallet!).
Grades for trad climbing are quite complicated - there are numerical grades for difficulty (e.g. 4a) which follow the English, not French, system; and there are descriptive grades for protectability (this takes into account how many places there are for the nuts and cams mentioned above). This part of the grade starts "Moderate", "Difficult", "Very Difficult","Severe", "Hard Severe" etc. Don't worry - they sound harder than they are because they got their names back when climbing was a sport enjoyed in hob-nail boots!
This section is just to give you a brief overview of the kinds of climbing we do. Feel free to have a browse of our other sections on winter mountaineering and ice climbing too. Remember that we’ll help you get to grips with the new techniques and skills you need and if you have any questions, don’t hesitate to email This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .
