Climbing wall meet-ups scale heights of romance for dating Brits

The managers say the sport has boomed in popularity since the pandemic, which they mainly put down to its introduction at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, as well as British rock climber Toby Roberts’ win at the Paris 2024 Games.

About 400,000 people climb at least twice a month, according to the British Mountaineering Council. There are more than 400 climbing gyms across the UK.

Climbers say that it’s a “hyper-social” sport where you’re constantly in close proximity with other people.

Gill Peet, manager at Blackburn climbing wall Onyx, likens climbing centres to a “grown-up youth club”. She says climbers are “almost forced” to socialise because of the time spent on the mats between each climb, catching their breath, planning out their next route or asking for advice.

The socialising often continues post-workout, too, with climbers grabbing a coffee or pizza together with many climbing centres having their own cafes.

“I do more talking at the climbing wall than I do climbing,” Rose Henderson says.

Rose met her partner, Mark Garbe, in 2015 at a climbing group organised through the socialising app Meetup. The pair, both 33, quickly hit it off and now live together in Ayrshire.

Mark says their social life is “based entirely around climbing”. They’ve been on group holidays to Fontainebleau, a climbing hotspot in France, and cycled the Hebridean Way with their climbing friends. They choose their holiday destinations based on whether there are climbing centres nearby and watch climbing world cups together.