An Intro to Dry Tooling with the Scottish Dry Tooling Club

I wrote this a while back pre-winter season about a Scottish Dry-Tooling Club but it sat un-posted and with winter coming to an end and wishing you could be using axes still it reminded me of this article and I wonder if the event Helped me in the season?

An Intro to Dry-Tooling

Last November, on a Saturday evening in Glasgow, the Scottish Dry Tooling Club put on their Youth Fundraiser Event at the Glasgow Climbing Centre. A dry tooling event event aimed at raising funds to help send the Junior Climbers to the European Cup competitions this season. It raised £2250 in the end!

As a complete beginner to dry tooling, having only ever seen the videos of amazing looking competition routes, I had been meaning to go to an event for a while. I dabble in low grade winter & thought it could be good for that as training or even just something different to try if not.

Intro Session

Finally, I got myself organised & booked a space for the Youth Fundraiser as well as a place on the additional introduction session prior to the start of the main event. This intro may be the best £5 I’ve spent in a long time? Willis, the club president & GB team climber, with the assistance of Rory another strong climber, ran us through the basics down in the bouldering basement area. A pre-set traverse route gave us something to have a go on, starting with no instruction to see how we react with axes. This quickly highlighted that the 10 or so of us on the intro, climbed unnaturally with axes in hand compared to if we were using our hands. But from then on, it was all quick & positive progression. Time was spent talking about & trying the different dry tooling specific holds, how to use them & some different techniques with the axes such as grip types. The Stein Pull was a highlight, aptly named as you literally appear to be pulling a pint of beer! A few more tips & tricks around swapping axe hands, and the traverse was becoming possible, even in such a short space of time.

From the basement, we headed to the auto belays. We had been allocated half an hour of pre-climbing time on some auto belay routes before the full event started proper, to really have a go at what we had learnt. With Rory on hand giving us more tips and to critique our new technique as we had a go. A few dropped axes during hand swaps (trickier than they seem) & falls, soon made it extra clear why we wear helmets the whole time & definitely don’t stand under anyone!

Main Event

Then it was on to the main event, with the full safety briefing for everyone who had arrived while we were on the intro. The atmosphere was electric as everyone was waiting in anticipation to get on the routes.

Safety briefing over and the GCC was flooded with the 100+ climbers who had turned out for the event. This meant some waiting for routes but allowed me & the other beginners to watch on as everyone started climbing the sheer variety of routes.

Routes

I’m used to seeing variety in routes from an indoor climbing perspective but dry tooling takes this to another level! Maybe this was my the lack of knowledge, but there seemed to be some crazy looking routes. For instance, who knew having a single vertical chain could be a route? Or floating wooden boxes suspended in the air that move and sway with a couple of holds on them? They had even managed to have a couple of routes with ply kickboards for ‘Fruit boots / Mono point crampons’ as if you were climbing on ice. This was alongside all the routes that used the GCCs holds for feet but with purpose built try tooling holds on the walls for the tools to be placed on. They seemed to have it all.

With the intro session fresh in mind, it was great to try as many of the different routes as possible even if you felt like you had no chance as the vibe was all about giving it a go. I even got convinced into jumping on the floating boxes, something that I probably wouldn’t have chosen as a beginner but you get wrapped up in the excitement! And after making a complete hash of a fig 4, the inevitable falling off happened, quickly followed by watching on in awe as someone cruised the route after my attempt.

The People

If the variety of routes & intro session aren’t enough to sell you on giving dry tooling a go, the hosts & people in attendance must be mentioned.

The excitement and hype for dry tooling was brilliant! Everyone was incredibly friendly, chatting away while waiting for routes, sharing their axes, helping with route beta & the general chat about climbing. I certainly didn’t feel like I was in the way as a new comer or an inconvenience, everyone wanted you to have a go and enjoy the climbing and just give things a try. It felt like a community and you were part of it right from the get go!

So, if you haven’t heard of Dry tooling, check out the Scottish Dry Tooling Club and get yourself along to one of their events. Its loads fun & you’ll be made to feel welcome from the get go. It also has the bonus of no suffering in a blizzard while you play with your axes!

Winter Season

As for winter, did it help? I was lucky this year for the first time since I moved to Scotland to get some consistent climbs in. Certainly, using my axes pre-winter, along with the coaching was a huge benefit to me. I was straight away moving naturally & less stiff and trusted the axes more than I have previously. This has a huge benefit in making the climbing more efficient and less energy sapping. Less hanging on for a dear life even on the easy stuff! I would also say if you did it regularly it would certainly aid your strength ready for winter as well but from the one session that’s not enough.

Now to keep up the dry tooling through the year as like everyone else, I’m already missing winter and want it back.

Check our the Scottish Dry-Tooling Club for more of their events.