Adventure Climbing  Rock
climbing is a sport that attracts thousands from all around the world,
but to count rock climbing as one discrete sport would be a mistake. Rock
climbing has many different ‘games’ within the sport. There
are the Big Wall types that throw themselves onto walls kilometres high
for weeks on end. Then there are the types that spend months trying to
link a couple moves to climb a boulder only a few meters high. The game
I am about to introduce to you is one of adventure.
When you were younger you would be forgiven if you believed
that the ‘golden’ pioneering age of rock climbing was dead.
Infact the world of climbing was just opening up, today you can climb unexplored
rock faces to your little hearts content, but you must be prepared for
the odd adventure to come your way and ‘bite you on the ass’
when you least expect it
The whole game of adventure rock climbing is to treat
the climbing as the cherry on top of the cake; the real enjoyment should
be in allowing your self to become immersed within the culture you are
in and being outside of what you are used to. For example:
- You are venturing to a climbing area that instead of being written
about in guide books has been recommended to you from the ramblings of
a blind man.
- Instead of driving to your local climbing area you are tying your
bags onto camels or donkeys.
- When you arrive there you discover instead of being populated by other
climbers the area is populated by opium lords and guards tending to their
poppy fields.
- Then when you start the climb instead of being described within a
guidebook you are left to your own, climbing rock that has not been touched
by any other person before you.
- When you finish the climb and come back down for lunch do not be surprised
if you are then invited by the local opium lord to take part in the closest
thing to a brewery tour a small opium plantation can have.
This may sound a little far fetched, but believe when
I say that it did happen to me, also believe when I tell you that such
a bizarre adventure is easy to come across, you just have to want it.
‘The glow of the rising sun had silhouetted our
objective the massive granite domes in front of us, and the darkness of
night was beginning to leave. We were half up the scree slope when we had
stopped to catch our breath. We were not alone from around the boulders
came the grunts and snores of a troop of sleeping black baboons. We hurried
up out of their way and came to the foot of the domes of Kassala. The domes
are on the Sudanese and Eritrean border; we were told that you must not
descend the Eritrean side, as the slope is full of land mines. We started
the climb and already the heat of the day was causing a good sweat to collect
around the rim of our climbing helmets. The first couple of hundred meters
went without mishap and soon the marauding troop of baboons below us were
more like a bustling collection of ants.
I was fighting my way up a section of the crack and then began to pull
my self onto the ledge. To my surprise I was met by a pair of angry vultures
they spread their wings and advanced with beaks and talons reaching out
for me. I slid back down the rock and we had to start the long abseil back
to the floor.
That night I was ‘talking with one of the local tribesmen about the
baboons and vultures. He pulled his sword off his back and offered it to
me. The next day we went back to the domes of Kassala with the addition
of a 4’ long sword to the normal climbing equipment.’
Dave Lucas is an experienced climber and expedition leader.
Dave runs The Vertical World which is one of the world’s leading
authorities on remote climbing expeditions to some of the globe’s
most far-flung corners.
Links:
www.verticalworld.co.uk VERTICAL WORLD
ORGANISATIONS
www.thebmc.co.uk
The British Mountaineering Council
www.mountaineering.ie
Mountaineering Council of Ireland
www.smc.org.uk The
Scotish Mountaineering Club
www.mountaineering-scotland.org.uk
The Mountaineering Council of Scotland
www.climbers-club.co.uk The
Climbers Club
www.frcc.co.uk Fell and Rock Climbing
Club
www.alpine-club.org.uk Alpine
Club
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