Photos courtesy The Climbing Nomads and Daniel McGrath. Background via Wikimedia Commons. Collage by VICE staff.
James used to start his Saturdays at noon in the pub with mates and stay until 3AM, drinking â he half-jokes â ten pints over the course of the night. Since October, though, he hasnât had a drink. He hardly goes to the pub anymore and now follows a vegan diet.âItâs been a drastic turnaround,â he says, labelling it a part of his life that has âchanged 100 percentâ. The reason for this dramatic shift? About five months ago, a friend invited James along to an indoor climbing wall in north Tyneside where he lives. James hadnât done sports âfor god knows how longâ but enjoyed watching Free Solo, the 2018 documentary tracking Californian rock climber Alex Honnoldâs ropeless ascent of a 900-metre rock face in Yosemite National Park. He thought heâd give it a go. âSince then, itâs been something that Iâve kind of completely been obsessed with,â he says.Soon after this first session, James was going to the climbing gym three or four times a week. âItâs not only the physical aspect of it but the brain work that you do with it, in terms of reading routes beforehand,â he explains. âItâs also really good for setting goals in a friendly competition with the people youâre with.âJames isnât alone in his newfound obsession. For the past two years, climbing has been enjoying a boom in popularity. In 2018, the Guardian declared that the sport had gone from niche activity to âworldwide sensationâ, with users of indoor climbing centres growing by as much as 20 percent each year. Last year, The Cut asked, âWhy is everyone I know bouldering all of a sudden?â, citing Zac Efron and Brie Larson as celebrity fans of the sport. The success of Free Solo and other high-octane climbing docs â including The Dawn Wall, which sees climber Tommy Caldwell fight off terrorist kidnappers and lose a finger, all before completing a world first in free climbing â have also helped bring climbing to a mainstream audience. Sit back and chart its transformation from outdoorsy pastime for nerds in Mountain Warehouse fleeces to hobby du jour.âA few years back at house parties, I used to just absent-mindedly bore everybody by talking about climbing,â says Pez, who lives in London and has been climbing for more than eight years. âBut now, you mention that and the person whose eyes would have glazed over before pipes up, talking about The Dawn Wall.âWhile women are well represented in professional climbing (bouldering World Cup champ Shauna Coxsey competes for Team GB when the sport makes its debut at the Tokyo Summer Olympics), as a hobby, it seems to hold particular allure for millennial men. You probably know at least one guy, in his late twenties or early thirties, who will not stop talking about the sick overhang he did at The Castle last weekend. He turns up to the pub in a Patagonia Triolet jacket, follows a select few Californian climbing bros on Instagram and has intimate knowledge of the Joshua Tree mountains, despite living in New Cross. He just spent 100 quid on a pair of La Sportiva climbing shoes. Oh, and he has biceps now. Please meet: the climbing guy.Brett Ffitch and Sophie Cheng are UK-based mountaineering instructors who teach outdoor climbing here and in Europe, as well as running the Climbing Nomads YouTube channel. In the past few years, they tell me that they have seen an increase in indoor climbers attending their sessions.âA lot of courses that we run are taking people who have learned to climb indoors and want to apply those skills outdoors,â says Ffitch. âItâs definitely the trend now that everyone starts indoors and learns the very basic skills and then goes outside.âIndoor bouldering, which involves scaling a wall no more than a couple of metres high using colour-coded plastic holds, is the type of climbing that James and most city-dwelling climbing guys do. Unlike top rope or lead climbing, it doesnât require ropes or harnesses, so can be undertaken fairly easily â you just show up at your local wall, rent some shoes and get started on a beginnersâ route. According to the Association of British Climbing Walls, an estimated 1.5 million people visited an indoor wall in 2018, while the London Climbing Guide website lists more than 20 walls in London alone. âItâs just more accessible for them,â Cheng says. âThey can do bouldering at a climbing centre, rather than getting in a car and driving somewhere.âAdam, who lives in London, first went to an indoor climbing gym about six months ago, after a break-up. âI had this image of loads of nerds in an enclosed space making tiny movements on these little bits of plastic stuck onto walls,â he says. âI thought it would be really easy. It turned out to be a challenge, both physically and mentally.âHe was soon hooked â thanks in part to how easily he could start â and now climbs regularly at indoor bouldering walls across London, including Arch Climbing Wall in Bermondsey and Mile End Climbing Wall.London-based Robin also got into indoor bouldering through friends and quickly adopted it as his own hobby. âAfter about three to six months, I bought some shoes,â he says. âI started going more regularly, realised I really liked it, and now I get up at 5.45AM to climb at 6.30AM, two or three times a week.âLike cycling or cast iron pans, climbing offers men an opportunity to geek out about equipment and technique â Robin compares it to doing âan interactive 3D puzzle with your body.â The r/climbing subreddit overflows with advice on how to prevent climberâs elbow, and dizzying selfies posted by climbers after âsendingâ a route (AKA completing a route without falling or stopping to rest). Popular climbing vloggers like Magnus MidtbĂž, a former competitive climber from Norway, post training advice videos to hundreds of thousands of subscribers.âYou get completely obsessed with everything around it,â says James, who watches climbing videos when heâs not at the climbing gym. âItâs bizarre; itâs a very nerdy aspect of my life at the moment. Something Iâve been boring my family and friends with.âScrambling up a wall also has the added benefit of being exercise without feeling like exercise. Which, if youâre a twenty-something lad who used to play football before he fucked up his hamstring and doesnât fancy taking up running, is ideal.âItâs very interesting when you look at different male climbers,â says Pez. âThe presumption might be, âThe guy with the biggest guns is going to be the best climber.â But actually thatâs not always the case. If youâre doing an overhang, then you need a lot of back muscle and chest muscle but you also just need to be very delicate on your feet. The presumptions of what makes a âpowerful maleâ kind of get overturned in climbing.âHowever, climbingâs appeal among millennial men goes beyond exercising mind and body. Unlike regular gyms or team sports, it has a strong social element. You can spend lots of recovery time on the crash mats between climbs, opening up opportunities to start conversation â both with friends and strangers. âClimbing naturally lends itself to being a very chatty sport,â Pez says. âThereâs a lot of sitting there, thinking about what youâve just done. If youâre both trying the same route and youâre strangers, and youâre both making the same mistakes, then youâve got a reason to start speaking to someone new.âRobin agrees: âIâve gone to the gym loads in the past and Iâve just stopped now. Iâve realised that I just go to the gym, lift some weights and don't talk to anyone. Whereas if I go climbing, I get to have a bunch of people that Iâll meet up with and they cheer me on.âMuch has been written about the difficulties men have in maintaining friendships in their twenties, whether due to long working hours or a lack of awareness about their own emotional needs. A 2015 YouGov poll found that 12 percent of men over the age of 18 didn't have a close friend they would discuss a serious life problem with. Climbing, with its space for conversation and the excuse it provides to meet up with a group of people every week, provides a valuable antidote to this.
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Robin says: âFor a large chunk of my twenties, I lived with six of my closest friends and now weâre nearing 30, thatâs stopped. Itâs been very difficult to see a group of friends three times a week â like, that just doesnât happen. With climbing, itâs an excuse to see people because youâre exercising as well as it being this really fun thing.ââFor me,â Adam says, âthe big thing was finding something sociable that doesnât involve booze.âAll the climbers I speak to are aware of the âclimbing guyâ stereotype (âSomebody whoâs taken their top off unnecessarily at the climbing wall,â Pez says; Robin notes that many climbers work in tech: âTheyâll be the people wandering around with a Dropbox t-shirtâ) but it doesnât bother them too much. None climb to emulate the daredevil antics of Alex Honnold, nor for the excuse to buy an Arc'teryx Proton hoodie. Getting together with mates and challenging yourself â mentally and physically â is the biggest driver. And yes, theyâre aware of how earnestly wholesome that sounds.âClimbing completely has changed my lifestyle,â says James. âItâs certainly something Iâd recommend to anyone, to even just give a try, because it makes a hell of a lot of difference for some people.â With that, itâs clear his days of numerous pints stretched out over several hours in the pub are over. Thereâs always water to be drunk at the wall, after all.@phoebejanehurst