Dry Tooling At The Foundry, Sheffield

I’ve done plenty of seasons ice climbing over the last 13 years,  I’ve done gully’s and ridges in Scotland and the Lakes, climbed Water Ice in Norway and in the Alps, but so far I’ve never done any of serious mixed climbing, sure I’ve torqued an icy crack on a buttress when the ice has run out in the lakes, or back and fronted a rocky chimney to get to the next section, but that’s about as far as I’ve ventured into this strange new world.

Luckily, there’s now a small selection of indoor walls where you can learn this art of climbing rock with ice axes, I was keen to have a go so booked myself and good pal Rob Gray into a session at The Foundry Climbing Centre. A Bargain at £10 including axe and helmet hire and a climbing session too.

On arrival we were given a pair of Grivel monsters and a Grivel helmet with face cage (you wouldn’t want an axe in the mush would you) and escorted to a sectioned off part of the wall purely for dry tooling.
You can climb in your winter boots if you prefer but I chose to use my Anasazi Blanco’s. Lets not make it harder than it has to be..

The routes were graded between M3 and M4 in the ‘beginners section’. The holds are regular indoor holds that may have notches or dimples drilled / cut into them for you to hook and pull up on and some wooden blocks with sections missing to hook and torque on. Being a bit gung ho, we decided we’d start off on the M4, the hardest and longest route of the 3. We made good progress but both ripped off just before the top on a move where we had match in a shallow dimple.  It took a little getting used to finding the notches and where to hook, but confidence quickly came one we realized what you could hook and pull on next to nothing. By the end of the 2 hour session we’d managed to do all 4 routes cleanly, but the forearms were absolutely screaming and it was a struggle to untie the rope. An excellent workout and a great laugh too.

We’ll certainly be going back to try the routes on the main wall, M5-M8.  I’m sure a few sessions here over the coming months will improve my tooling technique, which in turn will improve my ice climbing – and improvement is never a bad thing. Go give it a go.