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Posted: Tuesday 13 December 2011

A Humble view of our Climbing

Here Hutchesons’ pupil Niall MacKinnon (5G) offers his unique take on the experiences of the S4 – S6 Senior Games Climbing group. The 28 strong group practice their sport every Wednesday afternoon at the Glasgow Climbing Centre and his piece is accompanied by photographs taken throughout the past term.

Omar is halfway up his climb; and the lactic acid is building up in his lower limbs. He wipes the sweat from his brow with a chalk-coated hand. With a groan and the last reserves of his energy, he gives a final last push and he weakly plants his feet triumphant at the top of the overhang.

Around 28 confident climbers are in the hall, raring to go. They get harnessed in and within a blink of an eye; they are already halfway up the walls and speeding up. Within only a few meagre months, pupils who appeared as if they had never so much as seen a rope or a wall are starting to look like professional climbers; leaping back and forth from the holds with gusto. A quick scan around the hall reveals the pupils challenging walls with one hand and conquering various overhangs confidently. The climbing instructors look on in disbelief, along with Mr Macleod.

After all the walls have been beaten, a trip down in the bouldering room is required. Here climbing takes on a much more freestyle approach, without a harness and with gravity looming over the climbers malevolently. Still the fearless climbers laugh in the face of such adversary and proceed to demolish walls lesser climbers might describe as ‘challenging’. With all the walls beaten, the climbers return to the changing rooms, masters of their art.

Can't see the slideshow above? View the gallery here or on Hutchesons' Flickr photostream.

Tags: Climbing, S4, S5, S6, Sports