Aside from the low-hanging fruit of ways to describe why we like climbing - the physical and mental challenge, the you-versus-the-wall, the community etc - I’ve always been drawn to the fact that it takes you to places few people can, or have, ever been. This is true both on the rock faces, as well as on the approach to crags as in Northumberland where much of our crags are esoteric and are accessed via paths really only used by climbers. We get to walk through an array of habitats on the approaches to crags, although in Northumberland this is almost exclusively moorland, perhaps recognised by the need for Gore-Tex approach shoes/wellies instead of the lightweight breathable approach shoes sold to the likes of European sport climbers. I’d like to take you through some of the lovely things we might see whilst we’re out climbing in the County.
Moorlands are incredible habitats which are integral for a number of ground-nesting birds. March to September you may be in the presence of nesting curlew, lapwing, nightjar, golden plover, red and black grouse, snipe, meadow pipit and skylark. Keep an eye out on your approaches and at the upland crags during the Spring! Climbers are well placed to see these birds as we’re sitting quietly on our crash pads/belays.
Looking from the sky to what’s perhaps less widely noticed on the ground beneath our feet, you’ll notice that there’s oodles going on there too! We can typically see: Sphagnum mosses, each individual of which can store around twenty times its weight in water; three varieties of heather, which are integral for the nesting birds, bees and other pollinators; dwarf shrubs often sporting berries such as cranberry, bilberry, crowberry, cowberry and if you’re super lucky the aptly named cloudberry. These flora in turn support a multitude of small invertebrates such as the Fox Moth [pictured], which in turn support a host of fauna further up the food chain.
As a side-perk of being climbers (on top of being really cool) we get to spend a large amount of time in some really lovely places, often the same 3 cubic metres for extended periods! So it is nice to notice what’s around us. What’s there and what perhaps is missing.
Looking at the crags themselves, we can see a range of stuff and things growing on the surface. Mostly lichens. Covering around 7% of the Earth’s surface, each species of lichen is defined by a symbiotic relationship between a species of fungi and an algae or cyanobacteria. The fungi root the organism to the substrate - the rock - and protects the algae or cyanobacteria, providing it with nutrients from the environment. In return the algae or cyanobacteria photosynthesise, creating food for the fungi. This allows them to thrive - with enviable ease I think - on the rock surface. We have examples of crustose, foliose and fruticose lichens in the County. Fruticose and foliose pose more of a barrier to climbing but I’ve certainly scrubbed at my share of crustose lichens too.
Lichens are quite tricky to identify down to the species level and I’ve copped out of putting my personal guesses down on paper here. But you can see the variety there is at the crags and hopefully how interesting and impressive they are in terms of their varieties and impact on the ecosystem. However, I will mention one lichen which is easier to identify, Rhizocarpon geographicum, the ‘Map Lichen’ (pictured below). The black borders of each patch look similar to the edges of territories such as those in a game of Risk, and the yellow hue like an aged 18th century map. In the photo at Redheugh is a smaller individual. Other examples can be seen to have spread into a vast patchwork, but it is the same species.
A study was published very recently in the Journal of Applied Ecology (see: https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2664.14785) on the effects of climbing route development on vascular plants versus the subsequent climbing of the routes. It was found that new-routing reduced the species richness by 38%, whereas later ascents had next to no impact. The study calls for the regulation of climbing development, particularly in the interests of preserving currently pristine cliffs, and to ban the establishment of new routes where it is known there are rare, endemic or threatened species present.
Even on already developed cliffs, the study recommends that limitations on the number of routes able to be developed in an area should be introduced. It seeks to mitigate the environmental degradation as a result of climbing and its increasing popularity by setting ‘limits of acceptable change’ after which presumably it would suggest a ban on climbing in the area. However the study was done on bolted routes (not our speciality) in a different ecosystem, and we cannot typically be described as a busy area and so we are likely not the focal point of the study. However, it does present a compelling point not to go too gung-ho on the route cleaning and that what plant life can be left, should be left.
The idea of ‘plant blindness’ is often used to describe outdoor-enthusiasts’ relationships with nature. It refers to people not noticing individual plants or recognising them as important. They’re just in the background despite their importance to the environment.
In summary there are tons of things at the crag worthy of note alongside our climbing interests! And many of them are better at clinging to rock than we will ever be. I’m just glad that the NMC rules for what footholds are ‘in’ or ‘out’ stopped at whether they could hold a twig, and not ‘could it support a lichen’!..
© 2026 The Northumbrian Mountaineering Club
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