Notes on the Hong Kong climbing life.

Lara tests herself on F7a+. Tung Lung island, Hong Kong.

The weather has taken a turn for the worse in Hong Kong.  I appreciate that if you are reading this in the UK - or even Northern Michigan -  you will have little sympathy for my plight.  And yes, if I’m being honest we’re not experiencing floods, hurricane-strength winds, blizzards or endless days of torrential rain.  But I suppose its all relative - after three months of consistently warm days and blue skies, and a lot of chat about this being the start of summer, a week of persistent drizzle and temps in the low teens has provoked a mild sense of outrage.  It is amazing how quickly perceptions change - in the UK I would routinely accept periods of weeks, if not months, of not climbing outside due to the weather.  Now I find myself irritated that last week's saturday morning trip to the crag - a newly instituted outing for Anita and I that is quickly becoming part of our routine - was thwarted by wind, rain and general dampness. 

High up on any list of Great Things About Climbing must be the places it takes you to. A sea-cliff in South-West England, a freezing blue-sky autumn morning in the Peak District, an alpine north wall in Italy, Yosemite Valley in spring, the Arapilles or Blue Mountains of Australia, Kentucky's Red River Gorge - climbing gifts us opportunities to see all of these places from a perspective generally denied to the masses. Our move to Asia has opened up new vistas - from beach-side limestone sport cliffs in Thailand to newly-discovered areas of China, Vietnam and Laos, to granite crags overlooking central Hong Kong skyscrapers. Being able to share these places with Anita and hopefully, in due course, with Lara and Iliya, is a joy I don’t think I’ll ever tire of. 

When its not raining, Hong Kong is a pretty good climbing venue - at least for a city state of seven million people.  Within a ten minute car ride of our apartment there must be four or five different venues boasting everything from beginner slab climbs at F4 to world class F8a+ sport-climbing test-pieces. There is, at least when its dry, no excuse not to climb outside. I really ought to be climbing in the high sevens. I’d better start trying. 

My efforts to get strong are not helped by the fact that Hong Kong is not a place for morning people.  I officially start work at 9.30am but unless I’m out on my bike I’ll generally try to get into the office around 8.45 to deal with overnight emails from London. I am, usually, alone - it seems that whilst Hong Kongers work long hours that generally means late nights rather than early starts. This mentality extends to my local bouldering wall, which opens for business at noon. In London my twice-weekly pre-work bouldering sessions were a key part of my routine - the unpleasantness of the 6.30am mid-winter cycle to the wall always outweighed by the joy of espresso-fuelled climbing sessions with friends whilst most people were still in bed. Best of all, I could climb for two hours, do a day’s work and still pick Lara up from the child-minder.  Now I generally try to fit in two midweek evening sessions a week at the local wall, where the enjoyment is tempered to a degree by the knowledge that I’ve missed Lara and Iliya’s bedtime. I am plagued by feelings of not having the balance quite right. 

Unless you exclusively boulder, or you are Alex Honnold, then climbing is partly about partnerships.  Since entering the world of live-in domestic help Anita and I have been reacquainting ourselves with our pre-children life, including climbing together.  In London, a night out together meant a babysitter - if we were lucky a freebie from our downstairs neighbour. A midweek night out was for a special occasion, not to be squandered on a night in a sweaty climbing wall.  These days, date night at the wall with Anita - my first and still my favourite climbing partner - followed by a bowl of noodles in our local Vietnamese is a regular fixture. 

It is one of climbing's peculiar paradoxes that grades simultaneously matter and don’t matter.  I climbed F7b in Thailand.  Is F8a really that far away? Then why does F6b+ on my local crag feel so hard? Chasing the numbers is addictive, certainly, as anyone familiar with the Great Grade Obsession will tell you.   What’s your redpoint grade? What can you on-sight? If you’ve climbed one F8a does that make you an  F8a climber?  Do we care? Should we care? I spend two nights a week testing myself to exhaustion against a selection of small coloured plastic blobs arranged on an overhanging wall by a complete stranger. I am currently pushing V5, a full grade below my limit in London. I reassure myself by calculating that grades here are approximately one harder than in London, where I’d be sending V6 by now.  Why this matters is totally beyond me. 

I love that on one level climbing is an utterly pointless pastime, and that may just be the best thing about it.  Of course, technical difficulty is only one part of the climbing equation.  For me beauty trumps difficulty every time. Or maybe the two are inextricably linked:  as the climbs get harder the holds generally get smaller, the faces blanker and the lines take on an ever greater aesthetic appeal.  And whilst I may not be much of an athlete, I am definitely an aesthete. 

Such were the things I pondered as my Cathay flight CX614 began its descent into Chep Lak Kok yesterday afternoon at the end of a three day work trip to Bangkok.  It was warm and it didn’t rain, but there’s only so much time I can spend in airplanes, taxis, restaurants, meeting rooms and hotel gyms.  This morning is saturday and it looks like it’s going to be dry in Hong Kong. Lara has her spanish class, Lea is taking Iliya to the supermarket, and Anita and I have no plans for the morning.  And that can mean only one thing...