On Climbing Outdoors During COVID-19

By Michael Santos

The world has changed rapidly and significantly over the past week.

With current bans on gatherings of over 500 people outdoors and 100 people indoors, and advice constantly changing, we encourage people to reconsider climbing plans if they involve travel. Owing to the high number of visitors, Parks Victoria has recently closed certain popular sites.

We love the outdoors and recognise its importance to our physical and mental health. We ask climbers to be mindful of your risk to small towns and communities, and health service workers in the event of an emergency. Put another way by Michael Pang in a recent Climbing.com article, “It sucks to cancel, but climbing is a privilege, and the risk to small climbing towns that have small hospitals, limited resources, and large elderly populations…is huge".

Still get outside and enjoy fresh air, but do so responsibly, by staying close to home, taking social distancing precautions and, if you have flu-like symptoms, remaining at home. As suggested by Tommy Caldwell, this is an opportunity for us all to “practice low-impact living strategies”.

These are short-term sacrifices we can all do to protect our community in the long-run.

Our hearts, thoughts and gratitude goes out to those who are on the front-line of our healthcare system.