Hong Kong Trad Climbing Trip

Hong Kong, more well know for shopping, food and night life.

Kelly and I decided to take a trip to Hong Kong looking for a relaxing holiday and taking a break from the usual spots that we have been climbing at. We also want to take the opportunity to visit our climbing friends from Hong Kong, Raymond and Nikolai aka Ah Zhai. Met these cool dudes a year back in Tonsai and they are super fun loving ppl who took us to the coolest spots in Hong Kong for climbing.

When we first decided to go Hong Kong was because our ice climbing trip to ChengDu with Kim Boon was foiled by the chinese government who closed the roads. So we had to come up with a backup plan fast and the tickets to Hong Kong was super cheap, so out came the ice axes and in went the trad gears!

Hong Kong is a mega city, every imaginable space that can be used is occupied. The buildings sticks so close to each other that it makes breathing hard at times. When i first got there, I was wondering if it was ever possible to get a ‘relaxing’ holiday here.Hong Kong got more than 20 climbing areas and hidden behind the urban sprawl lies some spectacular countryside, and, nestled within that countryside are numerous buttresses of pristine granite and volcanic rock. There also lies some untouched rocks waiting to be cleaned and get FAs on! With so many climbing areas and only 7 climbing days, Kelly and I had to choose very carefully where to go and what to climb to make the best out of our trip. First up we went to a nearby city crag call Central Crags.

Central crags is a interesting place as Central is the CBD of Hong Kong pretty much like Shenton way of Singapore and if you walked 1 hour up the stairs, you get to a climbing area! Pretty Cool huh? So you do not actually need to talk the stairs or walk to your climbing area, in fact nobody does that (later we found out) only tourist like Kelly and I would walk around the city in a big ass bag like this. Most people just take a cab or if you really want to walk, you can always take the central escalators, known to be the longest escalators in the world !

The walk was super long as we were climbing stairs until we found the longest escalators in the world.. took us about 1.5 hours to get to the crag..If you take a cab from Central it will take you about 5-10 minutes to get to Po Shan Road! Not worth saving that money at all. But it was still great fun to walk around the city a bit and do the tourist thing before heading into the jungle for our climbing fix. Check out Kelly in Central crags..

The second day we head to Monkey Buttress, a small crag with maybe 12 routes to be climbed.. We were looking for mixture of Trad and sports climbing so Monkey Buttress was perfect for us.. There were hard sports up to 7c/8a and trad routes up to E2. We did a HVS crack climb for warm up and a reachy 6c+ for workout.. I wanted to check out the E2 climb but did not have enough big gears so we did not get a chance to climb that.

Raymond met up with us during the mid of the week and took us to other local crags thats is getting popular with Hong Kong climbers. It seems like in this granite heaven, you can always find some sports and trad routes side by side.. over the next few days we were traveling on MTR and cab to get to our climbing areas and walking is just no longer an option anymore since we were getting super tired everyday.

The last place we climbed at was the best place i have visited in Hong Kong and super worth mentioning,  Tung Long Island. This little layback island is nothing like the city, filled with small coffee shops and camp sites, the place have a lazy feel to it. It is probably one of the places that is most visited by Hong Kong Climbers. The climbing area got everything from easy to hard grades sport climbing to bouldering. If you are feeling adventurous can also take a dive into lagoons for a swim. If hiking is your thing.. you can always take a walk around the island. My fav place in Hong Kong so far.. I would be able to camp there for weeks just climbing and chilling..

Overall, climbing in Hong Kong you can expect a lot of adventure getting to different areas to climb, good food, great shopping for cheap climbing gears, comfortable stays and fast internet access. For those who love coming back to the city life every evening, Hong Kong Trad Climbing in Nov/ Dec is for you! Yes, we are running a Hong Kong Trad Climbing trip and if you are already interested to join me for a adventure to this city email or call me to book a slot!