TL;DR Outdoor bouldering is scary as hell but pretty neat, definitely recommend.
So for those unaware, this past year I picked up indoor bouldering. I’m a huge proponent of exercise that’s disguised as fun (because lifting and running are miserably boring), so I fell into bouldering pretty easily. It also helped that indoor bouldering tends to involve a highly-padded floor, meaning it’s an endeavor to hurt yourself. I got started on this back in May of last year, and it feels like I’ve gotten better at a pretty decent pace, so this year I decided I was going to try climbing outside. I did it, and spoilers: it is absolutely nothing like being inside.
First and foremost, being outside is just straight up scary. Bouldering is a form of rock climbing where you follow specific routes (problems) up the side of a boulder with no ropes involved; just your hands and feet. In the gym, the floor is covered in pads so that when you inevitably bite it, you fall onto a soft surface. This is obviously not the case outside. It’s more or less required for you to bring a crash pad with you, but those only cover a small surface, so the risk of falling onto rock or gravel is nerve-wracking. Once you get past that mental hurdle, you’ll find that outdoor bouldering is just really fucking difficult. Bouldering problems are graded on a scale from V0 up. In the gym, the hardest thing I’d ever climbed was a low V6. Outside I was struggling to finish V1’s.
We went in January in Austin when it was a dry 40° F (weather was also a new factor to consider), so the morning was spent working our way up frigid rocks with numb toes trying to top out before our fingers also went numb. Something I didn’t realize when considering the differences was that at the gym, most holds are protruding from the wall, whereas on a real boulder you’re working much more frequently with pockets that you stick your fingers into, which is much more brutal on them than gripping a protrusion. Finally, once comfortable with all of these factors, you have to get comfortable topping out.
At my gym, as with most, you complete a climb by either placing both hands on a designated finish hold for the route or by gripping the top ledge of the wall with both hands. On a real boulder, you have to get on top of it, which adds a whole new layer of struggle. When you reach the top you are tired and terrified, and having to essentially do a pull up/push up to close out does not do anything to ease the stress.
(What an in-gym top-out looks like)
At this point, it probably sounds like I’m doing a ton of complaining and that I hated the experience, but the truth is that I had a blast. Going back to struggling on low level-climbs totally reset the way I look at bouldering as a whole. Each climb I completed felt like a huge achievement, and the workout was really tough and rewarding. Plus, spending the day outside at Bull Creek Green Belt was a nice change of pace compared to being inside of a crowded gym. I was able to take long breaks and enjoy the day, and I also finally found some use for my DSLR camera taking action shots of the other guys (gallery at the bottom of this).
All in all, outdoor climbing is absolutely terrifying but it feels great to overcome that trepidation and crush a solid route. Definitely going to start (cautiously) incorporating this aspect of the sport into my life. I think the next milestone is to take a belay/lead climbing class and start working some ropes into my practice. TBD if I have the stones to handle those heights, but if you’d asked me a year ago if I could climb a slabby granite boulder, I would’ve needed you to explain what you meant and then laughed in your face, so I guess anything is possible or whatever!
(Tap the edges of the gallery to scroll to the next picture)