>>2447339>Is it a good idea to just go climb rocks in the forest?Depends on where you are. If you're in the middle of nowhere and there's no climbing scene, basically anything goes - but assuming there's at least SOME local climbing population, climbing random rocks is usually ill-advised because it's a a worse experience than going to known bouldering spots.
Rocks that aren't already on climber radars in your local area tend to be hard to access, ill-situated for climbing safely or comfortably, don't have a lot of climbs in one spot so you have to move around a lot more, are not on existing trails and will probably require bushwacking or manual land navigation, won't have any foot traffic you can shout at for help if something goes wrong, are often "chossy" (liable to break on you while you climb), and will otherwise have issues like bears or rock slide risk.
If you want to climb on the cheap, the only things I'd say are important are to
>get shoes >get chalk and a chalk bag if you're splurging>go find some friends with a crash pad (look on meetup for a climbers meetup and go with them) and lastly buy a local guidebook for your area and install Mountain Project on your phone.
Both will tell you where areas dense with good climbs are, with maps of local trails and the approaches to and from the climbing site, will rate the difficulty of climbs, will warn you of any abnormal risks or features you'll need to deal with while climbing, will have notes on how the sun will be hitting you while you climb for better planning what time of day you'll want to take on certain areas, and will often include reviews from other climbers and beta (tips for how to climb the rock).
Your big problem is that the season is mostly over now though, because of the winter. Either pay for the gym or just train in a normal cheap gym till spring. Practice pullups.
