I noticed a few climbers appear in the arm pain thread. How many climber-surfers do we have here? Where do you climb? How do you decide on swell vs rock or ice?
I'm pretty new to climbing, really only started last fall. There's a pretty solid wall at the university gym that I climb at most of the time but have done a couple trips around Virginia. I really need to start doing more outdoor climbing. My general philosophy is surf first so if there is any type of favorable forecast that will dictate how I approach scheduling climbing or lifting sessions for the week.
I climb 3-4 days a week at the local gym here called Triangle Rock Club. Two locations with tons of terrain. They now have a 55ft wall and both locations have lots of bouldering which is my fav. We also have a local park that has two 8 ft tall boulders and padded ground for climibing and it's free. I live a mile from the gym and two hours from the beach so balancing swell vs climing is no problem. I go to surf when there are waves and climb pretty much any other day. Works out well. I'm up to climbing 5.11's on top rop, leading 5.10's and bouldering V3-V6 routes.
gunks/adk for rock. cats/adk/nh for ice. i find that if i don't have any big climbing projects, trips, goals in the short-term future, that surfing tends to win. but when i do have something big on the horizon for climbing, i'll de-prioritize surfing to focus on training. just back from a trip to the cascades where i had to give up surfing in exchange for stairs for almost 2 months... sucked big time. back in the water now though.
