There are three lots of sandstone sufficiently close to CH and a small group of us used to climb at weekends on two of them - Tonbridge Wells was not convenient so Stone Farm was the favourite. Everything up to 5B s. I myself had been climbing rocks for several years before I went to CH because of where I lived.rockfreak wrote: My experience of this thing is that some may take to it and pursue it after school, moving on to what we call leader/second climbing on the bigger crags but others are left unmoved and never bother thereafter. I used to hate heights and wouldn't have used a climbing wall at CH if they'd had one. I got to it much later in life through a common route of fell walking and then what is called scrambling.
From teaching I agree that there are those who try it and decide not to carry on - it is a personal decision. As for hating heights I have contrasting problems - a 400' face climb on Idwal and bigger climbs elsewhere were no problem but I could not go near the window of an 8th floor empty office space at Canary Wharf!
Abseiling is purely a matter of confidence. I have had a trainee freeze halfway down a 30 foot face but, like many, have done the 100m charity abseils in London. Speed is not relevent - full control is essential and on the long drops I found sped was impossible near the top. That said I did love being able to kick off and drop several tens of feet before kicking off again; that is NOT something you do on the