A group of climbers in London proved you don’t need to go to the mountains to go bouldering. With a hill or rock insight, these climbers scaled a rock wall right near the city’s historic Lambeth bridge. This style of climbing is termed “buildering.”
In the video, you see climber Bobby Gordon-Smith scale the wall that starts in a pedestrian section below the bridge to a sidewalk up above. The post says the top out gives you a nice view of the UK’s Parliament.
If you’ve ever hung out with someone who goes to a climbing gym, you know it’s common for them to scale just about anything, but this video is more than friends messing around. This climb is an official route with a name and a climbing grade. It’s called Priority Hugging and was named a V5 in 2014 by the original climber, a moderate to hard difficulty. However, these climbers say it’s more like a V3. Second to climbing anything in sight, boulders also love to debate climbing grades.
London is one of many places to have urban bouldering. If you search popular climbing apps like Mountain Project, you’ll find climbing routes in cities and college campuses all over the world.
Sometimes, you’ll even find bouldering routes on real rocks in major cities like New York. Central Park has more than 150 different bouldering routes with grades starting from as low as V2 to above V10.
Where’s the most wild place you’ve ever gone bouldering?
Are you new to climbing outdoors? Here’s how to use a crash pad.