[teestub]

Sounds tricky and tiring, there are 7(?) Depots currently and what 5-6 hours of driving, and you actually only get the 14 hrs the centres are open. Would require a decent pave round a circuit. Might be OK on whites, but reds would be a big day out!

Don't outdoor climbing challenges normally attempt to add enjoyment to an activity that is already an act of play?

I think indoor climbing is more playful than routes at Malham Will!

[Wellsy]

Don't outdoor climbing challenges normally attempt to add enjoyment to an activity that is already an act of play? This appears to add labour to an activity akin to work. I might as well have a challenge where I split my weekly shop between 5 different supermarkets.

Cultural appropriation of rock climbing by indoor climbers must stop!

"I'm gonna do this entire font blue circuit in a day"

Laughable elitism from UKB once more

[Bradders]

Do you have to do the whole thing in a day?! That sounds nails for anything beyond the blue or maybe black circuits.

From Leeds I reckon you'd be best doing it on a weekday so as to get the maximum opening times. Drive over to Manchester at 5am to hit the 6am opening time. Say an hour(?) to do the circuit there. Drive down to Birmingham 1hr 43 plus rush hour traffic you're not gonna get there before 9am. Another hour to do the circuit. Drive to Nottingham 1hr 14 call it 11.30 arrival. Another hour circuit. 12.30 so you'll want some lunch. Half an hour to eat. Then drive to Sheffield which is 1hr so arriving there for 2pm. An hour circuit there, then up to Armley in about an hour so 4pm arrival. Finish there at 5pm, quick bite to eat maybe then Big Depot round the corner finishing there at say 6.30pm. Over to Pudsey (best till last), to finish there at 8pm just in time for a quick punt on the 50 and home in time for tea. Sounds like a good and very big day out to me! Not a lot of margin either. Pudsey closes at 10pm. As Tim says doing it on say reds would be a flipping big effort. I can think of worse things to do on a miserable wet day in November if you have the day off.

Think I might actually be quite keen haha

[GazM]

You could save half an hour by eating lunch on the drive to Sheffield. #marginalgains

[scragrock]

You could save half an hour by eating lunch on the drive to Sheffield. #marginalgains

Kids got you up early today Gaz? 

[GazM]

This would be a lie-in! I'm in Glossop Travelodge, ready for a few days of trad-dad action in the Peak. First days away climbing since last September, I'm buzzing!
Anyway, as you were...

[Dingdong]

This would be a lie-in! I'm in Glossop Travelodge, ready for a few days of trad-dad action in the Peak. First days away climbing since last September, I'm buzzing!
Anyway, as you were...

Hope you find something dry, its absolutely soaking here in sheffield with mist everywhere lol

[scragrock]

This would be a lie-in! I'm in Glossop Travelodge, ready for a few days of trad-dad action in the Peak. First days away climbing since last September, I'm buzzing!
Anyway, as you were...

Good effort, Enjoy

[SA Chris]

I think the Depot should open a wall in Scotland to make this a real challenge. Somewhere like, just south of Aberdeen for example.

[Fiend]

Laughable elitism from UKB once more

Oh come on, indoor "climbing" isn't actually climbing. It is wet weather / dark evening / limited time training and/or rehab / recruitment for genuine climbing i.e. outdoors. It serves a useful purpose in the same way as "driving to the crag", "purchasing climbing gear" and "reading the guidebook", but no-one should pretend it's climbing.

Still, at least GazM knows what to do if he gets ganked off the grit this weekend.

[Droyd]

Oh come on, indoor "climbing" isn't actually climbing.

Impressive mental acrobatics at play to write this on a forum dedicated to talking about a subset of climbing that involves climbing up tiny bits of rock that other climbers have been ignoring for decades due to them being so small, and that since its inception has been referred to as 'not real climbing' by crusty tradsters. But I'm sure there's a very solid argument in place that goes beyond 'I don't like some people or understand their motivations so will pretend that my pointless niche pastime is objectively better than their pointless niche pastime'.

The Depot thing isn't for me in the slightest, but if I had to choose between that and doing the Three Peaks, I'd much rather spend the day climbing than traipsing up hills.

[Oldmanmatt]

Oh come on, indoor "climbing" isn't actually climbing.

Impressive mental acrobatics at play to write this on a forum dedicated to talking about a subset of climbing that involves climbing up tiny bits of rock that other climbers have been ignoring for decades due to them being so small, and that since its inception has been referred to as 'not real climbing' by crusty tradsters. But I'm sure there's a very solid argument in place that goes beyond 'I don't like some people or understand their motivations so will pretend that my pointless niche pastime is objectively better than their pointless niche pastime'.

The Depot thing isn't for me in the slightest, but if I had to choose between that and doing the Three Peaks, I'd much rather spend the day climbing than traipsing up hills.

You know, I’m pretty sure he wasn’t serious…

[Will Hunt]

A friend, insofar as a person who lives in London can be considered a friend, sent me a photo this morning. It is of an innocuous piece of grooved wood, the sort which you can find littered around a particular London climbing wall. Imagine my horror when its intended function became apparent. It is to hold your phone upright to "film your sends".

Please, if you are of weak mettle, I implore you not to reveal this image.

NSFW  :

Graven image

[Dingdong]

Will has a whole chip shop on his shoulder, who hurt you Will? Where did the Depot red circuit touch you? 

[Droyd]

What's the old saying about little boys who pull little girls' hair?

[Will Hunt]

Very good of you to use a photo where I've got a relative abundance of hair 

[spidermonkey09]

We can presumably agree that both the UK 3 peaks and depot challenges are disgraceful wastes of fuel, quite apart from any consideration of aesthetics. The driving for that depot one is grim, and for what?!

[cheque]

  Cycling round London going to all the climbing walls trying to beat your mates’ times sounds like a right laugh though.

[Will Hunt]

To answer your question, Carlos, and to still your wringing hands, Droyd, I actually have no problem with indoor climbing, as I'm sure I've said on here before. It is fun, the people doing it are having fun, so that's great.
When I was a teenager I became completely besotted with an activity which had at its core such things as: adventure, connection to the natural world, aesthetics, romance, risk, beauty, history and the connection of people through place. Of course there were other important elements such as difficulty, numbers, athleticism, ego etc, but these were somewhat dim and distant when you were very publicly bricking it on an HVS at the Roaches. They didn't feel like the core of the activity. Maybe that's a perception unique to me, but I suspect not.
At the point I entered it, climbing had changed to the point of being unrecognisable from what it once was, and it continues to change.  For an increasingly large number of climbers the list of core and secondary elements that I listed will be shuffled around in some combination, with some elements disappearing entirely. No doubt there are some additions. This has changed outdoor climbing because what was once deemed most valuable is no longer. What was once mainstream is now passé.
This is the way of all things, it is inexorable, but that doesn't make me any less perplexed by the new or mournful for the old.

I hope that makes some sort of sense.

To put it a different and much more succinct way, it sometimes feels like Droyd's image, but with the roles reversed.

[Bradders]

We can presumably agree that both the UK 3 peaks and depot challenges are disgraceful wastes of fuel, quite apart from any consideration of aesthetics. The driving for that depot one is grim, and for what?!

Presumably you feel the same about people from Sheffield making a twice weekly 4hr round trip to Malham in season? To pick just one example of how one person's disgraceful waste of resources is another's enjoyable pastime.

[M1V0]

To put it a different and much more succinct way, it sometimes feels like Droyd's image, but with the roles reversed.

The owner of the Arch fancies you?

[SA Chris]

Presumably you feel the same about people from Sheffield making a twice weekly 4hr round trip to Malham in season? To pick just one example of how one person's disgraceful waste of resources is another's enjoyable pastime.

Or for example driving from London to Scotland to shoot wildlifelike a mate of mine does, or another who drives from London to Wales to fish. One man's meat is another man's poisson.

[Dingdong]

When I was a teenager I became completely besotted with an activity which had at its core such things as: adventure, connection to the natural world, aesthetics, romance, risk, beauty, history and the connection of people through place. Of course there were other important elements such as difficulty, numbers, athleticism, ego etc,

You're only allowed to become besotted with those things if you live within a 20 mile radious of a crag. God forbid a Londoner or someone from East Anglia wants to climb outside 

[Catcheemonkey]

One man's meat is another man's poisson.

You should piscine and not herd.

[spidermonkey09]

We can presumably agree that both the UK 3 peaks and depot challenges are disgraceful wastes of fuel, quite apart from any consideration of aesthetics. The driving for that depot one is grim, and for what?!

Presumably you feel the same about people from Sheffield making a twice weekly 4hr round trip to Malham in season? To pick just one example of how one person's disgraceful waste of resources is another's enjoyable pastime.

This is a complete straw man as far as I'm concerned. Doing a journey repeatedly for something which makes them happy (fishing, climbing, even shooting wild animals as per SA Chris' example), and gives joy every time it is done is different. These activities have value beyond the arbitrariness of an invented challenge. This would be the same for people who invented an arbitrary challenge about outdoor climbing as well. It's nothing against indoor climbing, it's a philosophical position taken against arbitrary challenges. If people want to do them then biking is clearly the way to go and keep them localised (London walls, Yorkshire crags, welsh 3 peaks etc).

I consider the 3 Peaks pretty much both an environmental crime and also really dangerous, there's no way you can drive safely after that level of exertion. It very literally puts the public at risk. I haven't done the calcs on how many miles the depot one is but I bet its a lot. (side note, but actively choosing to drive in Birmingham when you don't have to is already a dumb decision). It also doesn't have anything approaching the same aesthetic and cultural value as even the 3 peaks. The 3 highest mountains in the UK has an obvious attraction that far, far exceeds the particular configuration of all the black holds in multiple different industrial estates in the northern half of the country.