Why climbing walls should all have bright pink handholds ...
Here at OUTDOORSmagic we indulge in an editorial rant every so often – why do so few soft shells have hoods, for example? Why is so much men’s gear cut for pie-eaters? And why does women’s gear have to be baby blue?
Yes, we really have ranted about all those things in the past. But this time around, the sore point is the colour of climbing holds at the indoor wall. Like blue with white swirls. You what?
Colour-blind climbing
How often have you wandered around the base of a climbing wall and heard shouts from above, along the lines of … ‘mate, is that hold green or blue?’ Indoor climbing may have extra challenges for the colour-blind, but at some walls, we’re all just as badly off.
Try climbing a green route that follows the same line as a mint-coloured route. Then add a pale blue route into the mix, along with a blue-with-white-swirls route, and suddenly we’re all completely stuck. Whatever the grade, you can probably add a ‘plus’ to it, just to compensate for all the time you spend hanging around and wondering which holds are yours.
Dim lighting combined with three colours that are only a few shades apart makes for an unhappy OMer:-(
The chalk-dust effect
It’s not just similar colours that are the problem – it’s pale colours in general. A few chalky hands, with a drip or three of sweat on them, and all pale-coloured holds start looking the same anyway. Basically, they’re all dirty white.
Of course, those of us hoping to cheat, without our belayer noticing, may embrace this problem. Who’s going to suspect anything if you slip a red-with-yellow-swirls foothold into your red-with-white-swirls route, when the holds all look the same anyway? But if you want to climb cleanly, there needs to be a recognisable line of colours to follow that aren’t all chalky-white.
Give me fluorescent green
So, although they might be as far from the outdoor climber’s colour-palette as you can get, we embrace fluorescent green handholds. Ditto brilliant pink. Fluorescent yellow is fine as well. Or a really vivid crimson. Basically, anything that you need your sun glasses to look at, is fine by us.
Many climbing walls contain some of these beacons of route-finding, but alas, they aren’t yet common enough to keep us happy. It’s definitely time to clone a few more fluorescent green handholds, or to make them breed by whatever method climbing holds use.
And in the meantime – route-setters take note – please don’t put the mint-coloured route next to the green and blue ones:-)
