Climbing

For several years now, climbing has been one of the growth activities in the Club, and the Climbing group now boasts three different regional centres for its activities, each one of them constituting a GOC group in itself. They are the Northern Group (Peak District, Yorkshire and the North of England); and Glasgow/Edinburgh.

Participants may be at any standard. The average GOC Climbing Group member leads outdoor climbs up to HVS grade but we have members leading and seconding at Extreme grades, and we welcome novices. We also take part in indoor sport climbing and bouldering. So you will find you fit in whatever your level of experience and style of climbing.

Enquiries about joining the climbing groups are always most welcome. It is easy to find training courses for beginners run by climbing walls these days and that is a good way to get started but you can come along to our meets and participate whatever your level of experience and ability.

Climbing events are organised according to the availability of places to climb. Thus in Leeds and Sheffield, for instance, while winter meets are generally indoors at the excellent climbing walls there, most summer meets, even in the evenings mid-week, are at outdoor crags. All three groups offer weekend trips to the crags, quarries, sea-cliffs and mountains of the UK and sometimes abroad - for example to the French Alps and northern Spain.

There is a good balance of men and women who participate in the Climbing Groups.

In London and the South-East, we draw your attention to Not So Trad www.notsotrad.org, a GOC affiliated club. This is a small and very friendly group of climbers of all ages who meet weekly at The Castle climbing wall in North London and also have organised trips away throughout the year. The group is mixed and welcomes all gay, lesbian, bi-sexual and transgender climbers and their friends to enjoy climbing in a fun and friendly atmosphere and to progress in the sport.

The co-ordinators of the climbing group are Justine or Keith. To contact this group by e-mail, phone or letter please use our contact page.