Notes on beginner's gear

I'm guessing that most people's first experience of climbing nowadays will be at an indoor wall, either for (perceived) safety reasons or because such walls are more accessible than real rock.

Also by going to indoor walls you can avoid the cost of buying equipment, by renting it instead -- usually a harness, carabiner, belay plate and a pair of sticky shoes. All respectable walls should provide a helmet free of charge.

But my advice would be to buy your own gear as soon as you're sure that you will be climbing regularly. You're probably looking at £10+ hire charges per wall visit, and pretty soon that's going to add up to more than the cost of buying your own gear, which isn't as expensive as you might think.

Plus of course, once you've got it, you've got it. You'll get familiar with it. You'll be comfortable with it. You'll know that it has been stored and cared for correctly, so you'll trust it. And you can use it to climb at any wall or real rock route worldwide.

One lucky break I had in choosing my gear was that my girlfriend and climbing partner Katie is the manager of a mountain sports shop. So I was able to spend a relaxed, un-hurried afternoon at the shop, trying out various pieces of kit, listening to the pros and cons of each item, and finding what I was most comfortable with.

Here's the kit we put together:

Helmet
Black Diamond Half Dome

Harness
Wild Country Vision Ziplock Adjustable

Shoes
Five Ten Anasazi VCS (Onyx)

Carabina
DMM Belay Master

Belay plate
Wild Country VC Pro II

The whole package added up to less than £200.

Climbing gear is fairly competitively priced so there isn't much you could shave off that, maybe a few £££ here are there by going for lesser shoes and a more basic belay / carabiner, but really for the sake of a tenner you'd might as well get what's right for you.

If you're only going to climb at indoor walls then you could feasibly leave out the helmet to start with and "rent" one each time, which as I mentioned should be free. So that would bring you down to around the £150 mark to have all the gear you need to get started and avoid rental costs that would otherwise start to quickly build up.

The other major expense in starting to climb is the admission price for indoor walls, probably around £8 for private establishments or £6 for council-owned walls.

So see if you can find a wall that is part of a council membership scheme. For instance, Katie and I jointly pay £22 per month for membership of the Highland Council's High Life scheme, allowing us unlimited access to the large indoor wall at Inverness Leisure Centre, although it costs us around £10 in fuel to get there and back.

It is hoped that the Extreme Dream wall in Aviemore will soon join the High Life scheme, at which point we'll effectively have unlimited climbing training for just the cost of the High Life membership.

Bottom line: Climbing is an addictive hobby / pursuit / passion and you're going to want to do it as often as possible. Cut out the repeat costs as much as possible and it can be reasonably affordable.