Climbing plastic is great but climbing outdoors on real rocks could be an amazing next step in your climbing journey. Fortunately the ESAC organises outdoor climbing weekends many times a year to different places like the Ardennes. Climbing outside is different from climbing in the climbing gym in a number of ways, like: instead of following obvious to find colourful holds, you have to search way more for the best way up the rocks. You also get to enjoy nature, camping, and often get rewarded with a beautiful view when you reach the top of a route.
The ESAC mostly organises outdoor climbing weekends where you need rope to climb but every year there are a few bouldering weekends as well. To be able to go as an independent climber on the non bouldering weekends, you must at least have an OV Single Pitch license (OV SP). Members with only an Indoor Toprope license (IT) are allowed on the weekend if there are enough instructors to guide them. If you do not have an IT license yet, it is unfortunately not possible to go on a climbing weekend, except during the introduction period.
For boulder weekends it is not necessary to have IT or OV-SP. Among the few bouldering weekends the ESAC organises the traditional bouldering weekend to Fontaine Bleau with ascension day weekend. This is a four-day boulder weekend. In addition, the French sun is ofcourse enjoyed as well! Many other SACs also go to Fontaine Bleau with ascension day so this is the ideal moment to make interSACcial friends (friends with people from other SAC's)!
The weekend rules apply during climbing weekends. The weekend rules specify what you can expect from a climbing weekend and what is expected of you. The most important items from the climbing weekend regulations are summarised below. However, this is just a summary and this is not complete.
In the weekend rules you can also find exactly how the rules regarding priority are arranged. The person who arranges everything on the weekend - we call this person the ESAC weekend shepherd - can of course always come along. Instructors and instructors in training generally have priority to guarantee safety. The order of registration is decisive within all categories.
All climbing weekends of the ESAC will appear in the agenda a few weeks before the weekend. This agenda item states information like when the weekend takes place and which climbing area will be visited. The type of climbing and which licences you will need are also mentioned in the agenda item.
You can register for a weekend up to a week in advance via the link in the agenda item. Until that moment you can also unsubsribe by unsubscribing for free from the agenda item itself or by sending an email to the climbing commissioner. After this, costs will be charged. Every weekend will estimate two prizes in advance that are stated in the agenda item:
As ESAC, we almost always travel by car to the climbing areas. If you have a car (or can you borrow one) with which you would like to drive to the locations, this would be very nice. Cars are cheaper than renting vans so we want to use our own transport as much as possible! A participant with a car that drives the entire weekend will receive a mileage allowance of € 0.26 per km for the kilometers traveled to and from Eindhoven.
If you want to come to the weekend with a motorcycle or travel independently in another way, you will not pay any costs for the transport. However, you will also not receive a mileage allowance.
To be allowed to go on a climbing weekend you must have an annual climbing card (if we go to Belgium) and appropriate insurance. The climbing year card can be purchased from the NKBV. If you do not have this, you can also get a one-time weekend climbing card for € 6 and an accident insurance for € 7.50. For this you must send an email to the climbing commissioner. The insurance must cover climbing activities, check your policy carefully! The NKBV insurance is recommended.
Of course you also need material on a climbing weekend. Below there is an overview:
Climbing material (not for boulder weekends)
Camping gear
Clothing and the like
Other
If you don't have any material: don't panic! Climbing material can be borrowed from ESAC. This is free on climbing weekends, but do notify the climbing commissioner in time. For other things you can of course contact your fellow ESAC members, there often is someone who is willing to let you borrow something!
Sometimes when you lose something during a weekend you can get a small amount of money back for it. This is specified in the material regulations. If it is not clear who who was responsible for losing the item the costs will be evenly distributed among all participants.