Friday, August 13, 2010

Two in a day and the Eightfold Path of Climbing

Yesterday was a great day. what started with just a couple of us heading out climbing ended up with 12 of us having a blast out at the Chicken Cave. People were pushing their limits all over the place with lots of attempts on things at peoples upper limits coming close to sends. Its was great seeing my friends all trying so hard and having such a great time testing their boundaries. And I had a great day too with a swag of onsights up to 5.11's and doing two 5.12's in a day, something I haven't done in a while! I sent 'Lily' a great, steep 5.12b on my 3rd go and making a repeat of the powerful and super steep 'White Tiger' 5.12c. So I felt great! Hopefull it's a sign of things to come this Autumn as I work at getting fitter for my mega project out at Fuli!

Amoungst all the banter at the crag we also came up with the 'Eightfold Path of Climbing', a list of 8 different aspects of climbing that we think you need to at least experience to become a solid all round climber... for those of you not familiar with what the Eightfold Path of Buddhism is that this idea is derived from looks here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noble_Eightfold_Path

Here they are in no particular order...

Bouldering
Traditional Climbing
Sport Climbing
Ice Climbing
Alpine Climbing
Aid Climbing
Deep Water Soloing
Big Wall Climbing

This is something I have been wanting to do for a long time and now only have Ice, Alpine and Big Wall left to do as I have done all of the others up to what I consider a reasonable level and hopefully this Winter I will be able to go on an adventure up to see my friends in Yunan Province here in China and tick of the remaining 3 styles.
But thats just my opinion of what makes a good all round climber... whats yours?

Much love!

2 comments:

sammy said...

i think that is a pretty fair description of an all round climber. I have only done indoor climbing and bouldering, but am going to be doing some outdoor climbing soon. I am trying to experience as many things as possible.

Duncan said...

Nice one Sammy :)
Get out there and try it all out, trying new things is one of the best things in life!
Psyched!
Duncan