Rock Climbing Course in Bulgaria

Never had I ever thought that I would attend a rock climbing course in Bulgaria. Austria has beautiful mountains and is also very popular when it comes to everything that has something to do with mountains. No matter if we are talking hiking, mountain biking, trail running, Via Ferrates, or the previous mentioned climbing. But when friends told me that they are planning a rock climbing course on the weekend of my birthday near Sofia there is literally no way I would have missed out on that.

How did I end up rock climbing in Bulgaria?

When you chat with a friend with whom you just recently realized that both of you got into climbing and she mentions that her and her partner are attending a rock climbing course in Bulgaria, you are literally just waiting (and praying) to receive the one message that will make your day. “You should come for the long weekend – and we’ll go rock climbing together” was exactly such a message that made me look into flights to Sofia within 3 min.

After moving a few things around I decided pretty fast that it would be an amazing adventure to spend my birthday with one of the nicest couples I have ever known, and treating myself to a rock climbing course in Bulgaria. Little did I know, that it wouldn’t be me treating myself for my birthday but my friends gifted me with such an amazing surprise 🙂

Prerequisites

After trying to read through the Bulgarian website, even with the pretty miserable English translation, I decided to trust Diana & Ivan on that one and went with the flow. I was absolutely 100% sure they had chosen an amazing course with trainers they already knew.

According to the homepage they had a beginner and an advanced course, and would decide on location which group you would be joining. In my opinion, it was pretty cool because even if they decided that I wouldn’t be experienced enough, I could still join the course.

They even would provide us with equipment, except for climbing shoes. But I decided to bring most of my stuff so I ended up having a luggage full of climbing equipment:

harness
climbing shoes
helmet
GriGri

And they also promised that I could attend, although I couldn’t speak even one Bulgarian word.

Rock Climbing in Bulgaria – Day 1

On the first day of the course, we met at 9 am approximately a 2h drive from Sofia, near Sveti Konstantin. Although we had to get up at 5:30 am I have to admit that the spot was breathtaking. The routes were situated directly next to a stream, which made the very hot day not only bearable but also made the whole experience beautiful.

After we gathered at the parking spot in front of the rocks we had a couple more minutes to explore the nearby views until the crew did set up the whole routes for the day.

My private team of translators

The course started with an overall explanation of what we would be doing and with a theoretical part. I have to admit that I was hoping for an English-speaking trainer so that I would be able to follow. But with Diana, Ivan, Dejan, and Ivan (yes, this is a very common name in Bulgaria), who all took over the job of a personal translator I was able to follow along and got approximately 70% of the content 😉

After the intro session, we started immediately with top-rope climbing. We divided into pairs and chose a route to climb. Thankfully Diana was willing to be my partner in crime for the next two days.

The routes

The routes on the first day have been mostly 5a, 5b, and 6a levels. Which for the first time top rope rock climbing was challenging enough.

I have to admit that rock climbing is a different pair of shoes in comparison to climbing in the gym. I don’t know why specifically but in some cases I found it easier and at the same time more challenging than climbing routes in the gym.

If I had to try to explain it, I would guess that climbing in the gym binds you to the route that a route setter has in mind. There are tons of possibilities to climb one specific route. Depending on your height, strength, technique, and obviously your level of expertise you might tackle a specific route with a different approach than another climber. You might use varied movements, such as dynamic moves, heel hooks, or mantles, depending on your skills and preferences. But you still have to stick to the bold-in hand- and footholds that the route setter decided on.

While rock climbing gives you at the same time less and also more opportunities to choose your own route up to the top. Sometimes it might be way harder to find a good grip to move farther up. But from my own experience I realized that although it sometimes took me way longer to find a good grip, I managed to climb every single route (except for one mainly because I was just freaking exhausted) to the top.

From Top Rope to Lead Climbing

After I’ve tackled 6 routes in top rope mode, I decided that I wanted to challenge myself with a lead climbing route including the cleaning of an anchor point.

Because it would be my first lead climb on a rock, I wanted to make sure that especially with cleaning the anchor point I wouldn’t make any deadly mistakes. So I asked one of the guides – Marto – to help me out. So he climbed the route next to me, waited patiently on top until I managed to climb the one next to him, and watched me with hawk eyes, while I de-equipped the anchor point.

A different kind of exhaustion

After 9 hours of rock climbing, the three of us were definitely more than just exhausted. We drove home, grabbed some food, drank our well-deserved beers, and literally fell into bed. Exhaustion is definitely an understatement for describing our state of mind. Don’t get me wrong – it was the good kind of exhaustion where you have the feeling that you did something amazing. But it was also the kind of exhaustion that made it impossible to form a straight sentence without stumbling over your own words.

Rock Climbing in Bulgaria – Day 2

Thankfully we received the night of the first day the message that due to the weather situation, we would stay close to Sofia for the second day of our rock climbing course. This meant that the alarm could be moved from 5:30 am to 7:30 am *whoopwhoop*.

One route, different approaches

A very good example of how different people might be equipped for different ways to approach the same routes was when on the second day next to me another participant decided on lead climbing the same route. The guides told us that there was an easier way to do the route by tackling the route from the left side and a harder way by choosing to take the right side. I wanted to go second to see how the other participant would tackle the route. He tried to go the harder way but decided mid-climbing to switch to the left, easier side. Because he was struggling with the harder choice I decided to go for the easier way as well and tried to climb up the mountain on the left side – according to the trainers the easier choice. After struggling for several minutes and not being able to make it up farther than 1.5m, I decided on trying the right side – according to the trainers the harder way.

I have to admit that it was not easy, but in comparison to the “easier” route option I at least made it up to the top.

The weather dictates the schedule

As already mentioned before, the weather forecast was not the best, so in the afternoon we got hit by some rain. We took the opportunity, found shelter nearby, and had a bit longer lunch break than originally planned.

In the afternoon we did a bit more lead climbing and setting up anchor points and finished the course at around 6 pm.

On our way home we stopped at the supermarket, grabbed some beers, went home, ordered some Indian food, and basically were done for the day.

How to unequip an Anchor point?

We learned so many things and I had a hard time remembering every single step of all the things, so I came up with a system to remember all the tiny but super important steps.

🦎 | 🐍 | 🦎 | 🐍 |🦎 2 🦎2 🦛 | 🦎 2 🦎 2 🦛 🪞 | 🐍 ++ | 👵 🪢 2 🦎 | ☠️ 🎱 🦛 | 🐍 🕳️ 🕳️ | 🎱 2 🦛 | 🐍- – | ✅💪🎱 | ☠️ 🦎🦎🦎🦎2 🦛 | 🛝

Legend:

🦎 quickdraw
🐍 rope
🦛 harness
🪞 flip the carabiner

👵 grandma
🪢 knot
☠️ get rid of
🎱 eight knot

🕳️ eyelets/bolts
✅ check
💪 strength
🛝 abseil

The short explanation of the shortcut 🙂

Take the quickdraw and add it to the top bolts
Repeat step 1. with a second quickdraw
Add a quickdraw to the quickdraw and add it to your harness
Repeat step 3. but flip the carabiner of the quickdraw that you attach to your harness
get a lot of rope
make a Grandmaknot and attach it to your harness with a carabiner
lose the eight on your harness
and take the rope and put it through the two bolts at the anchor point
attach a new eight-knot to your harness
belayer can take in all the rope
and you check the new eight knot and if it holds up
then you can lose the additional quickdraws that were attached to your harness
and you can slowly start to abseil

Wanna check if you can crack my code ;-)?

Setting up an anchor point for top rope

Another shortcut to try to remember how to set up an anchor point for top rope climbing uses some more emojis – go ahead and try to figure out my code.

🦎 | 🐍 | 🦎2🦎2🦛| 🔒2⬇️🕳️| 🎀2⬆️🕳️| ⚖️| 👵🪢🎀| 🔒|🔒🪞| 🐍2🔒| 🐍2🪞🔒| 🐍- -| ☠️🦎🦎🦎🦎2🦛| 🛝