UCD Mountaineering Club

Most people are familiar with the sport of rock climbing, it usually needs little explanation. Climbing requires technical skills learned through practice and experience. This allows a climber to climb safely and efficiently. From a physical perspective, climbing requires techniques that help the climber to position their body to climb the route as easily as possible. These techniques involve; footwork, body positioning, armwork, stability, balance and accuracy. Climbers also require agility, flexibility and strength. Basically, climbing is physically very hard but thoroughly enjoyable!

To those unfamiliar to climbing, every climb can look the same. The uninformed often assume that overhanging climbing is more difficult than climbing on vertical rock, this is not necessarily the case and is incorrect for many reasons but mainly due to the misconception that climbing is primarily about physical strength. This is not the case.

Climbs are graded using various systems that all essentially describe the same thing; the difficulty of the route. For information about grades read our climbing grades page.

UCDMC is involved in a number of indoor climbing events during the year. The Irish Bouldering League (IBL) is a national event held around the country. Although it's a competition, the events are social and friendly. The various rounds of the competition are held at a number of different walls around Ireland, so it's a great excuse to head off for the weekend drinking and do a bit of climbing too.

There is also an annual intervarsities climbing competition, keep an eye on the forum and www.climbing.ie, to find out when it's on.