Planning a climbing road trip

A climbing road trip is one of the better things you can do with a fortnight and a friend who tolerates your snoring. Done well it is a string of good days at good crags, with enough rest to keep your skin and your friendship intact. Done badly it is a fortnight of driving in the rain, wrecked fingertips and a vague sense that you should have planned more. The difference is mostly in the preparation.

Pick a destination that matches the season and the group

Start with timing rather than the dream venue. Most crags have a season, and turning up out of it means greasy holds or full-on rain. A high alpine sport venue is glorious in summer and shut under snow in winter. A sandstone bouldering area might be best in autumn when it is cold and dry. Work out when a place comes into condition, then check that lines up with when you can actually go.

Then be honest about the group. If you have a mix of grades and disciplines, pick somewhere with breadth, a venue or region that has easy and hard, slabs and steeps, so nobody spends the trip belaying routes they cannot get on. A single-grade destination is wonderful if everyone climbs that grade and miserable if they do not.

It helps to choose a base with options nearby rather than one crag in the middle of nowhere. A region with several venues within a short drive gives you somewhere to go when one crag is in the sun, seeping, or busy.

Build a loose plan, not an itinerary

The temptation is to schedule every day. Resist it. Weather will rearrange your plans whatever you write down, so plan in pencil. What you want is a shortlist of crags, a rough sense of which ones suit which conditions, and a fallback for rain.

• A couple of "main event" venues you have travelled for.
• A wet-weather option: a steep crag that stays dry, an indoor wall within reach, or a sheltered bouldering spot.
• Rest-day ideas that are not climbing, because you will need them more than you think.

Sort out access before you leave. Some crags have parking restrictions, seasonal bird bans, approach walks that are longer than the route, or fees and permits. Reading up beforehand saves you arriving to a locked gate or a nesting closure.

Pack the car properly

The car is your base camp, so pack it like one. Beyond the obvious racks, ropes and shoes, the trip-savers are the dull things: a tarp or groundsheet for muddy bases, a brush kit, plenty of chalk, spare skin glue and tape, and a small medical kit. Sort your sleeping setup before you go rather than improvising at midnight in a lay-by.

Food matters more than people expect. Climbing all day burns through you, and a stove plus a box of simple ingredients keeps you fed without hunting for an open restaurant every evening. Carry far more water than feels necessary, especially in hot, dry venues.

Bring layers for every eventuality. Crags are often higher, windier and colder than the valley, and belaying in the shade while your partner climbs in the sun gets cold fast.

Pace the days so the trip lasts

The classic error is going too hard too early. Three full days on the trot and your fingertips are sandpaper, your forearms are wrecked, and the back half of the trip is a write-off. Your skin is the bottleneck, and it recovers slower than your muscles.

A sustainable rhythm tends to be two days on, one day off, adjusted around the weather. Use rest days properly: sightsee, swim, sleep, let your hands recover. Climb the marginal, skin-eating routes when conditions are best and your fingertips are fresh, and save the big juggy mileage for when you are tired or the rock is greasy.

Pace your ambitions too. Pick a realistic main objective or two rather than a tick-list of a dozen hard routes. If you send the project early, brilliant, you have the rest of the trip to play. If you spend the whole fortnight on it and get it on the last day, that is a story worth telling.

A good road trip is equal parts climbing and logistics, and the logistics are what make the climbing possible. Sort the boring stuff in advance and the days look after themselves. Keeping a running list of the crags and lines you want to hit, ticking them off as you go, is a simple way to keep a multi-venue trip from turning into a blur.