Gideon Harrison, one of our apprentice robot technicians, reports back on the climbing antics Labman employees get up to.
Climbing is enjoyed by many here at Labman, we have our own indoor wall which is regularly used during lunch breaks along with our ongoing climbing competitions.
After work, some week nights, we venture further afield to various climbing walls around the North East. The closest one to us is in Middlesbrough, Rock Antics, there is also a wall in York, Red Goat, and a wall in Durham
Recently we decided to go a bit further to Newcastle, to see what their climbing wall has to offer, we went to a wall called “The Valley Bouldering Centre”, and we were not disappointed. It is an amazing wall, is very new with lots of space, light, and full of friendly people! We worked our way around the routes, mainly climbing the purple routes, as these were a good grade that all of us were challenged by.
One of the best things about climbing is the sense of community, everyone is always up for a chat, people love to help others who are struggling to figure a route out, and it’s generally a fun and friendly atmosphere. Climbing is also extremely good for your body, it makes you strong, you discover muscles you didn’t even know you had and it builds core strength. It also exercises your brain! Some routes really get you thinking, you have to think carefully about how to get from one hold to the next, trying to make the moves as easy as possible.
A cool thing about climb valley is the “Top Out” boulder, this means that in order to complete the route you are climbing, you have to climb on to the top of the wall or “boulder”.
The valley also has a large overhanging cave section which runs the entire length of the far wall, it’s full of particularly hard routes that have you upside down all the way along them. It was no challenge for Jon, who is probably the most accomplished climber among us.
There were plenty of overhangs to get your muscles pumping, with big sloping holds that felt impossible to hang on to, I personally managed to complete a few pretty hard routes, overhangs are my favourite style of climbing.