Forty Eight Hours

How about hauling yourself up a sheer rock face using only your own strength? Or working your way into the hopefully solid boughs of an ancient tree? Or perhaps climbing within the deep frozen heart of a glacier?

Don't look down...or should you?

The latter, of course, isn’t really on offer in Surrey or Sussex; unless you fall headfirst into a deep freeze at the supermarket during your Saturday afternoon shop. But you can train to do that in this area – because you can learn the skills of climbing at a number of special centres .

You don’t have to be Sylvester Stallone hanging off icy precipices in Cliffhanger, or Clinte Eastwood dangling heroically in The Eiger Sanction.

Instead you can learn in the peace and warmth of a local leisure centre.

We went along to K2 in Crawley to see how it’s done:Watch the film here; Just click the In Video link to see what happened....

There are many different sorts of climbing - rock climbing and mountaineering are perhaps the best known kinds, but enthusiasts also enjoy climbing ice and snow and tree climbing as well as buildering – climbing buildings and other structures – and clmbing ropes at speed.

Pole climbing is another sort; gymnasts climb poles and lumberjacks take each other on at another sort of pole climbing where they try to scale trees in the fastest possible time.

The view back down...

But before you depart for the mountains with the aim of emulating our great mountaineers like Sir Chris Bonington, make sure that you get some training. Britain’s accessible wild places give you lots of opportunities to climb, but a fall is still a fall.

Alton Sports Centre in Alton, Hampshire, Basingstoke Sports Centre, The Arena in Bognor Regis, Chichester College, the Evolution Climbing Wall in Crowborough, Craggy Island and the University of Surrey in Guildford, the High Sports Indoor Rock Climbing Centre in Redhill, Surrey and the Adur Outdoor Activities Centre in Shoreham by Sea.