Rock Climbing

There’s a difference between rock climbing and wall climbing. In rock climbing, you climb a rock. And in wall climbing, you climb a wall. Obviously. Those colourful vertical tall things at the X-Games? That’s wall climbing. Amateur stuff. You can easily see where to get that foothold you desperately need when your hand’s just about to give up. Rock climbing is something else. Whoever thought that climbing a wall of rocks was easy would better think again. We had guys jumping the gun and giving up just a few feet away from the end point. It all boils down to ‘spidey skillz’ and determination. Hoisting, jumping, footing, wedging, pulling, and all manner of bodily skills come into factor. Arm strength and length isn’t everything in this sport. In fact, we had four able-bodied guys fail to climb a couple of routes!

When we reached Wira Damai (near Sri Gombak), the first thing we did was set camp and pitch our tents on a clearing just beside the big rock we were supposed to climb. Turns out the rock was near a kampong. A Masjid was 400 metres away (that was where we bathed), and there was another field between our campsite and the Masjid. Sundry shops and restaurants were a stone’s throw away. Schoolchildren were enjoying the flying fox as we watched on in envy. That afternoon, we had an outdoor classroom where we learnt the history of rock climbing, the types of rock climbing, basic terms, and knot tying. For the first time in our lives, we had an inkling of what it felt like to be in a war. Amidst shells of bird droppings, we listened distractedly to our instructors–Abang Man and Kak Lili–who went it over with us while we worried about getting bird poo on ourselves.

We had a barbecue that night, a very late dinner, since it was past 11. God were we starved! A snake appeared out of thin air near the barbecue pit, causing a dude to almost get scared to death. We had a brief snake hunt, then there was a botched Ta’aruf session with the students from Gombak. I think we were all on the same mental frequency (I’m citing already strong Ukhuwwah), which was probably how we silently agreed that it was corny and abruptly cancelled it. After dinner, stuffed full of oily goodness, the guys laid down under the stars for a while and the girls retired to their tents.

The next day, we practised our knots–actually, there was only one knot, called the figure eight follow through with double stopper. The climb was very satisfying overall, with everyone averaging 3 routes each. A route, mind you, is just a vertical path on the rock. You climb with a rope tied to your crotch, which extends to the top of a route where it is looped around a ring, and extends down back to another person who holds the rope, called the belayer. This person controls the rope by pulling on it so that you don’t fall if you let go of the rock. So to climb, we had to work in pairs.

The climbing part wasn’t easy. We only had bowling shoes, which weren’t great for climbing, but did the trick for some. Some preferred to go barefoot for better grip, but came down with cuts–the rocks were very sharp (we’re talking about granite here). What amazed us most was the atmosphere and the amount of people there at the climbing site. It was a weekend, and there were families climbing, kids, babies, old people, foreign tourists. And the kids! They had such nimble fingers and limber bodies, they put some of us to shame, scaling the walls at super speed. Talk about mad ‘spidey skillz’!

For first-timers, a lot of us were pretty awesome. A couple of the guys managed to climb one of the highest routes that day. And yet a few others nailed a 5C route (1-4 being the toughest). Someone even managed to climb in a pair of jeans! It’s a wonder his equipment’s not damaged =)