Introduction to Climbing course with Female Explorers UK – Peak District
There’s a particular narrative that society seems very keen to sell women once they hit 40.
Slow down. Be sensible. Settle down. Know your limits.
Age gracefully. ACT YOUR AGE.
Apparently, your best years are behind you once you’re no longer young, conventionally beautiful and somewhere near the mythical ‘peak’ years of your twenties and thirties.
Well, I have news for society.
Nah. Fuck that.
I’m 41, and I’m just getting started.
I’ve become increasingly determined to push my mind and body into places younger me would never have imagined. To try things that scare me and discover what I’m actually capable of rather than accepting the increasingly narrow box that ageing women are apparently supposed to squeeze themselves into.
Which is how I found myself standing at the bottom of a rock face in the Peak District with zero climbing experience, wearing a climbing harness, looking upwards and wondering quite how the hell I was going to get myself to the top.
The course was an Introduction to Climbing course run by Female Explorers UK, led by Gemma, Tracy and Ula. I’d done the Winter Skills Course in Scotland earlier in the year, so knew I was in safe, supportive hands. From the outset, what struck me most about the entire group was the environment they created. One of support, encouragement and comradery.
Being a complete beginner at anything can be uncomfortable, and being a complete beginner at something where you’re expected to climb vertically up a sheer rock face while trusting ropes, equipment and your own body can be particularly humbling. While there was certainly every opportunity for the fear and insecurity to take over, or for the body to start screaming ABORT ABORT. WE CAN’T DO THIS. Instead, there was encouragement. Patience. Practical advice. Reassurance when things got scary and genuine excitement when someone managed something they had initially thought was impossible or had struggled.
The whole group was massively supportive of one another, and Instructors Gemma and Ula (backed by the world’s biggest cheerleader, Tracy) were fantastic at finding that sweet spot between keeping us safe, teaching us properly and giving us enough confidence to discover what we could actually do.
And that’s how I discovered just how much my body is truly capable of at the grand old age of 41, while on a vertical rock face and loving every minute of it.
Day One: Stanage Popular. Learning the (literal) ropes.
Our first day took us to Stanage Popular, where we started getting to grips with the fundamentals of climbing including tying in, belaying for others and, more importantly, with trusting ourselves, our equipment and our team.
Our routes included Button Wall and Zip Crack.
Now, to someone who climbs regularly, these names might not sound particularly terrifying. In terms of official climb grading Straight Crack is VD (Very difficult) and Button Wall is MD (Moderate) To a complete beginner who had never climbed before? They looked bloody enormous.
The physical challenge is one thing. Climbing requires serious arm and leg strength, balance, coordination and technique, but there’s also a huge mental component to it.
You have to make decisions while you’re off the ground.
You have to trust your hands and feet.
You have to work out where your next handhold is and whether that tiny crack you’ve jammed your foot into will actually be sufficient to push off from.
And, perhaps hardest of all, you have to keep going when your brain is telling you that bailing would be much easier.
I quickly discovered that climbing isn’t necessarily about being the strongest person on the wall.
It’s about problem-solving, finding the right position, conserving energy, controlling your breathing when you’re scared instead of panicking.
And most of all, it’s about trust and being willing to try something, fail, reposition yourself and try again.
Every small success built a little more confidence.
By the end of the first day, I was tired, exhilarated and completely hooked. But maybe most importantly I’d been reminded about a key fact.
Being a beginner doesn’t mean you’re incapable or crap at something. It just means you haven’t learned the skills yet.
Routes climbed
Day two – Roadside Bay, Lawrencefield (Peak District)
Day Two: Roadside Bay, Lawrencefields. Time to step it up.
If day one was about discovering that perhaps I could climb, day two seemed determined to find out exactly how far that confidence could stretch.
We tackled Roadside Bay in Lawrencefields, where after a 10m sheer drop abseil, climbed The Last Wet Wednesday (VS/very severe) and Straight Crack (VD/very difficult).
These were seriously difficult routes for a complete beginner and really tested not just our freshly learned climbing techniques, but also our ability to belay, otherwise known as ‘how to stop the person climbing from plunging down a rock face and sustaining serious injury or death’. Another reason why TRUST is such a huge part of what we took away from this weekend.
There were moments when I genuinely had no idea how I was going to get from where I was to where I needed to be. On a particular section of The Last Wet Wednesday required a sideways pulling motion that a fair few of us struggled with, and took me three attempts (and two falls) to achieve. With an ever- more encouraging cheerleader squad below the third, successful attempt was easily one of the best feelings of my life, proving to myself that while giving up doesn’t mean failure, pushing past the point of your body screaming at you to give up because it’s too hard should ALWAYS be an option (obviously in a safe, supportive environment with supervision as needed, don’t go testing that theory solo!).
The combination of instruction, encouragement and sheer bloody minded stubbornness definitely came out to play on that climb.
Gemma, Tracy and Ula weren’t there to simply haul us up the rock. They taught us how to work things out ourselves and believe in ourselves.
Sometimes that meant being told where to put a foot, and sometimes it meant encouragement to push yourself just a little further and hearing those magic words:
“You’ve got this.”
Then there was the abseil.
Down a sheer rock face.
As someone with no climbing experience, the idea of deliberately stepping backwards off the top of a cliff and lowering myself down the side of it felt completely ridiculous when you’re the one controlling the descent with nothing but a harness and some rope to stop you testing out terminal velocity heading straight towards the ground.
Naturally, I did it without a moment of hesitation.
Because apparently this is who I am now.
Of course, we had safety lines (I’m sure Female Explorers UK don’t need the paperwork of trying to explain to OSHA while one of their attendees hit the deck), but standing there at the top, looking down a sheer rock face, I had one of those moments where you realise that fear and excitement can feel remarkably similar.
You can either let that feeling stop you or you can take a breath, trust the equipment, listen to the instructions and take the next step.
So that’s exactly what I did.
The power of women supporting women
Perhaps surprisingly, the biggest takeaway from these past two days wasn’t actually climbing. Don’t get me wrong. I immediately started googling my nearest climbing centre, but the most impactful takeaway was the difference that a genuinely supportive, encouraging environment can make.
There’s something incredibly powerful about being surrounded by women who want you to succeed. No bravado. No comparison culture and no competitiveness. No judgement. No eye-rolling when you admit you’re scared, strruggling or taking a bit longer than the rest. No assumption that you should already know what you’re doing.
Just:
“Have another go.”
“Try moving your foot here.”
“You’ve got this.”
“Look at what you just did.”
That support creates space to take risks and push yourself far enough out of your comfort zone to prove to yourself that YES YOU CAN do this.
Because, at the end of the day when you’re given permission to fail, you become much more willing to try.
Huge thanks go out to Female Explorers UK for hosting the course, Gemma and Ula for their instruction and Tracy for the guidance and support.
Would I recommend it to anyone considering joining a future course?
I think that’s a very silly question.
DRONE NOTE: Peak District National Park have byelaws in place which prohibit the TOAL from their access land, and so the TOAL point in this video is from the public highway and all CAA laws were followed with restrictions/potential wildlife disturbances checked prior to take off.
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