While skiing, snowboarding and ice fishing are the highlights in winter outdoor pursuits here, Korea also offers good ice climbing.

The country has both indoor and outdoor gyms, as well as places where climbers can hack their way up natural frozen falls.

For those who want to clip on the crampons and get stuck into the ice, English-language courses are available.

Sanirang Alpine Networks, which runs activities on rock climbing and ice climbing in and around Seoul, is running two sessions of its Ice Climbing School this winter, the first starting this Saturday.

The four-day course takes place on natural ice falls, with a night in a minbak on the third night before the final day. The last day will be a multi-stage climb, in which climbers go up several faces sequentially, setting up new ropes and belays each time.

This will be Sanirang’s third season of running the school, and this year the course is a day longer.

“We only did three outings before. We thought we’d make it into four days and compact the last two days together,” said Peter Jensen-Choi, a Sanirang instructor who has been climbing for 10 years.

“We didn’t do the sleepover before. So you get a bit more time out on the ice ... we decided it would be a bit more fun too.”

Sanirang caters to anybody, but almost all the people who take their courses are expats, mostly in their 20s. The course itself is for beginners and doesn’t require any special physical aptitude.

“As long as you can you can handle a half-hour hike, can handle a little strenuous activity and don’t mind the cold too much, you’ll be alright,” said Jensen-Choi.

“Most of the people that come out have a little bit of climbing experience, but you don’t have to have it.”

Jensen-Choi added that while some people gripe about the amount of exercise, he has never had anyone drop out.

The course teaches basic vertical ice climbing techniques, before techniques for ice walls on an incline, known as “French technique,” the main focus of the course. It will also teach abseiling, belaying and how to make routine checks.

About 80 percent of what is instructed on the course is taught on the first day, which Jensen-Choi said was a lot to take in. But he said it got much easier after that.

“Especially the first day out its pretty full-on for somebody who’s never done it. It’s super information overload,” Jensen-Choi said.

“It will be almost overwhelming the first day, but on the second day it will all make sense. For those who have done a little bit or know what’s going on it’s pretty relaxed.”

It may seem a little unsettling to put your faith in naturally formed ice, when hacking into and hanging from it would seem to encourage it to break. But Jensen-Choi said Sanirang courses were only held when they could be confident that the ice was stable.

“It (breaking) does happen but it generally happens at the start of the season and the end of the season. That’s pretty much why we don’t have courses then,” he said

“One thing you need to bear in mind is that even though it might be quite mild where you are, most of the falls are forming in the valleys where the sun doesn’t get in there so they get a kick-start on what everybody thinks winter is.”

Sanirang’s Ice Climbing School will hold two sessions this winter. The first starts Saturday and continues on Jan 21-23. The second course will run on Jan. 29, Feb. 5 and 11-12. Reservations for the first course must be made by Thursday and for the second by Jan. 26.

The course costs 385,000 won. Equipment hire is available at 25,000 won per session.

Sanirang is also running two open day Ice Group Outings this winter ― one on Sunday and another on Feb. 19. These outings don’t require a course beforehand and are suitable for beginners. Outings cost 85,000 won plus equipment fees.

For more information on Sanirang and payment, reservations and other details, visit Sanirang.net


By Paul Kerry
(paulkerry@heraldcorp.com)