Why always climb high when the good is so close? Why always sweat seven hundred metres uphill when the boulder is in the flowery meadow on the valley floor?
Bouldering is not about wall height and safety techniques, but about maximising climbing enjoyment with minimum effort. Bouldering means climbing at jump height, with a boulder mat (a so-called crash pad) placed under the boulder as a safety device. This is also ideal as a seat cushion for enjoying an espresso between attempts on the rock, because boulderers have one thing above all else besides toned fingers: a cosy, chilled lifestyle.
This is climbing in its purest form, people who call sport climbing their favourite discipline might say. Only the natural holds and footholds in the rock are used to move vertically, and a solid bolt is clipped every few metres to provide protection in the event of a fall. Because only with sufficient safety can the limits of what is humanly possible be explored. If you never fall into the rope, you are not climbing at your limit.
The vertical arena is the climbing garden, a piece of rock with a certain number of routes of varying degrees of difficulty. From very easy to very difficult, from manageably short to endlessly long, from granite to sandstone: climbing gardens are as varied as possible, and that's the great thing about them: the variety, because no two routes are the same!
For people who like to hang high up on the walls, the real adventure only begins after a two-and-a-half hour ascent. Anything less counts for little. For them, only the wall counts; Walter Pause's "In extremen Fels" is their bible. And bolts, reprehensible, nobody really needs them! There's nothing like a well-hammered "nail", a good old bolt, like the ones Emilio Comici and Riccardo Cassin used. Oh, unforgotten heroes!
One minute it's too cold for your fingers, the next it's too hot for your head, or the rock is wet and the base of the wall is muddy: When you're climbing, you can have a lot of things happen to you out there. The indoor climber takes it pragmatically and appreciates the safe comfort of the hall, where you always know what you're getting. The synthetic resin holds are beautifully coloured and easy to grip, the piton protection complies with standards. What's more, there's a cool reward beer less than ten steps away in the cafeteria - what more could you want?
The climbing hall is the place where most people make their first vertical metres. And with good reason, it's a safe place to learn the necessary techniques and build up the necessary body tension. The step to the rock is then usually a big one, and "retraining" by experienced colleagues or a well-founded climbing course is essential!
Climbing a 15 metre long 6b+ route in under 6 seconds? Sounds unthinkable, but it's not! Speed climbing is regarded as the sprint discipline of the World Cup circuit. A standardised route that is always the same is climbed, with the time measured in hundredths of a second - similar to a ski race. The only motto: shoot up the wall as fast as possible! For most climbers in other disciplines, this format remains out of reach, but it is all the more fascinating to watch. Most people would probably take longer to cover the same distance horizontally than these athletes do vertically.
