Viet Climbing

One of the best aspects of climbing is that it takes you to the most beautiful places; in that respect the climbing trip to Huu Long was no different, though other things were… read on.

Mud on the way to the crag

I don’t usually join ‘group’ trips but climbing isn’t that popular here so rocking up to some crag and hoping to find people with equipment wasn’t really an option. Also foreigners have to rent a car with a driver and the roads are crazy! For these reasons I thought it best to join Viet Climb, the local climbing gym’s, organized trip. There were around 12 of us, mostly from France and the U.S. There were only two Vietnamese, one of them works for the gym. When I asked why there were so few locals I was told that Vietnamese like soccer and swimming but climbing is very new and not popular here.

Anyway, the trip started with a two and a half hour drive in a mini bus, luckily the air con broke down only a few minutes from the crag! The whole way there (at least the points were I was awake) seemed to be filled with houses along the highway and the same small stores you see everywhere.

No hands rest point

The crag itself is situated in the back yard of some farm lands which probably don’t know it but seem to be practicing Permaculture. To get to the crag we had to walk through a mud pool but it was really close to the road so it wasn’t too bad. The heat and humidity were another thing entirely. I really doubted my ability to climb in this weather. My shirt was drenched even before I touched the rock! For those of you who know my aversion to using chalk and are thinking that now I would see its usefulness, sorry I’m going to have to disappoint you. The sweatiness was way beyond what any little bit of white powder can deal with.

I started by leading a really well bolted 5C and flashed it feeling dizzy from the heat when I came down. The rest of the day I top roped some 6a-6b+ but had to rest once or twice on each route. The routes were really fun with big side poles and strange overhanging features with very good jugy hand hold, and a lot of interesting no hands resting places.

Food!

Tired!

We had a great lunch break eating local dishes a local family cooked for us. Getting back to climb after that was a very hard feat indeed. Luckily it cooled down. Unluckily heavy monsoon raining started shortly after. Somehow some sections of the rock managed to stay relatively dry so I kept on climbing in pouring rain and almost slipped on a wet jug. Coming back down from the crag when everything had turned to one big mud slide was a mission of itself but eventually we got back.

We were soaked filthy and all scratched up but all complaining aside it was a good day.