On a cold snowy day last fall in the Red River Gorge, while climbing with my friend “Strong Ron,” our conversation turned to Adam Ondra. We discussed, with the sort of bewildered astonishment that one inevitably expresses when discussing Ondra, his recent spate of hard ascents on American turf.
“I think he be might an ‘event,’” Strong Ron declared mystically. I asked for clarification. “I think there might not be another climber like him for a hundred years,” he said more definitively. “It seems like there’s nothing he can’t do really well.”
It’s hard to disagree. Last fall, he came to tour the United States to do some fun, casual climbing before diving into full-on training mode in advance of the 2020 Olympics. During his tour, he damn near onsighted the Salathé Wall, then went to Smith Rock where he actually did onsight one of his goals with Just Do It, America’s first 5.14c. Then he checked out Indian Creek and onsighted one of the longest and most sustained splitters in the area: Conception (5.13b).
Perhaps one of Ondra’s most important contributions to climbing—beyond his superlative strength and skill—is his ability to transcribe the climbing experience and articulate, in a dispassionate, almost clinical way, what it is that makes a climb hard, a move difficult, movement efficient … etc.
Ondra IS an event. And his YouTube channel is giving us climbers front-row tickets. Here is some uncut, handheld video footage of Ondra onsighting Just Do It. This video, from a filmmaker’s perspective, would be barely sufficient for B-Roll in any of today’s top climbing films. And yet … this grainy, shaky footage shot from afar has to be one of the best climbing films of 2018 insofar as core climbers will find it inspiring and useful.
What makes this one unique is that Ondra annotates his 20-minute ascent, dishing up useful bits of wisdom and tips for how to onsight a route at your limit. What’s so interesting is that much of this wisdom is actually useful information that could help anyone at any level.
There’s a universality to what it means to onsight a route at your limit. Whereas redpointing can feel more like an engineering project, onsighting is an art in which your unconscious mind does much of the work.
What Ondra gets at in this video is the tenuous tug and pull of when how to be calculated and when to give in to your intuition, trust it, and go for it. That battle unfolds on this video in a really interesting way. This is a master class in how to onsight.
I’ve been meaning to shout out Daniel Woods and crew’s new(ish) YouTube channel Mellow because it’s filling a sorely missed niche in climbing media: no-frills, uncut climbing footy of the strongest climbers doing some of the hardest problems in the world. Not a bunch of talking bullshit vlogging. Perfect way to start the day.
Here’s one from their “Quick Hits” section, which is my favorite, featuring Jimmy Webb, Guliano Cameroni, and Jernej Kruder climbing in Brione, Switzerland. As one of the commenters on the YouTube feed pointed out, it’s rare to see a clip where Jimmy Webb is climbing the easiest problem in the video.
Down insulation is one of those little luxuries that has always elicted warm, fuzzy feelings for me. Down jackets have always felt just comfier, warmer, and better than any other insulation that dare challenge its reign atop the iron throne of insulation. One problem: it’s expensive. And it compresses when it gets soaked.
Still, every year it seems like better technology and application of these materials makes down feel less essential.
Down Without Being Down
The Micro Puff Hoody has all the characteristics of a down jacket—extremely light, comfortably cozy, and really warm—without actually being down. The synthetic insulation in the Micro Puff continues working even when it gets wet. The warmth generated by this featherweight jacket truly seems like magic, as if it defies the laws of nature.
I happen to own one of those 5-pound canvas and fleece-lined Carhartt jackets that you see being worn by cowboys and day laborers alike and, I swear, this Carhartt bullshit is literally one-fourth as warm as this 9.3-ounce Micro Puff Hoody while also being 300 times the weight.
And yet, the Micro Puff Hoody is not so warm that you can only wear it in freezing temps. Again, the way it works just seems like magic. I’ve never owned a more versatile jacket—ever.
Essential Multi-pitch Jacket
Along with the Patagonia Houdini, the Micro Puff Hoody is an essential part of my multi-pitch rack. Both the Micro Puff Hoody and the Houdini pack up into their own pockets and can be clipped via a single lightweight carabiner to my rear gear loop on my harness. In my view, these jackets are as essential to any trad adventure as bringing a nut tool.
The jacket isn’t so “techy” that it can only ever be worn on climbs. It’s stylish and versatile, and is just as at home on the north face of the Tre Cime as it is around town.
At nearly $300, however, the jacket ain’t cheap. It means that when you tear that tissue-thin nylon exterior on sharp limestone nubbin, it’ll hurt that much more.
DMM makes some of the highest-quality and best climbing hardware—period. I got to tour their factory last summer on a trip to northern Wales (stay tuned for my feature story on Wales), and I was extremely impressed with their entire operation, the company’s ingenuity, and the people’s passion for making useful things out of metal.
The Ceros gets my vote for the best locking carabiner to use with a GriGri.
Function and Form
The Ceros is virtually impossible to crossload, which adds a higher degree of security while belaying. An ingenious little protrusion on the carabiner’s spine prevents the GriGri from sliding down onto the spine, and the mini gate at the base of the carabiner keeps the Ceros from shifting once its clipped to your harness belay loop.
Getting it clipped to the belay loop is easier than other biners of this kind. Just clip the Ceros to the belay loop then pull it, and it’ll automatically clip itself to the belay loop.
Ease of Operation
Compared to other carabiners of this design, I find the Ceros the easiest to operate one-handed. There are three types of gates you can get with the Ceros—one is a manual screw-gate lock, and then there are two auto-locking gates, one requiring an additional action to open. I prefer the red QuickLock gate because it’s the easiest to open and shut one-handed.
Obviously this is a single use item that seems to be meant to work with an assisted-braking belay device like the GriGri. But for what it is, it’s worth having.
The Patagonia Houdini is a thin 3.6-ounce nylon shell with a DWR coating. This windbreaker just adds an extra bit of protection against elements.
Will it protect you at high seas, mid squall?
No.
Does it have dual membranes that breathe water vapor in million-dollar lab tests that also have no bearing on real conditions?
Houdini
No.
It’s not magic, it’s just the Houdini. It’s a little lightweight nylon shell that packs down to fuck-all weight and that you can clip to you harness or shove in your pocket and bring with you ever-fucking-where and you won’t even notice that you’re carrying it around but you’ll be damn fucking psyched to have it when you need.
I’ll sometimes wear it by itself if it’s not freezing and I just want some protection at a belay. Or I’ll wear it over my Micro Puffy Hoody for an additional bit of wind- and weather-blocking protection. (I ordered the Houdini one size larger in order to fit over my other layers.)
At just $99, it’s a no brainer to have this jacket always clipped to your harness
I grew up sitting in $5 fold-up camping chairs from WalMart, which are so cheap it’s inevitable that you end up just buying another one when you forget the one that’s already back home in your garage. Before you know it, you’ve accumulated dozens of camping chairs and all of a sudden you realize that your life has now become a Semi-Rad joke.
The Helinox Chair One is the best camping chair I’ve seen. It’s sturdy, lightweight, comfortable, and packs up into a sack that’s smaller and lighter than a wine bottle. I’ve been bringing this chair out to go bouldering. It’s easy enough to throw in my pack, it sets up in a minute, and it gives me a place to sit to put my shoes on or take them off.
Helinox seems to always be teaming up with other brands to produce new designs, and this fall they teamed up with the blanket-company Rumpl to create an eye-catching design.
How many times have you decided not to bring the #4 because you like the idea of going light and fast, only to find yourself halfway up the wall really wishing you had it?
To bring the #4 or not to bring the #4, is no longer the question/argument you’ll be having with your partner at the base of the route. The Black Diamond Ultralight #4 sheds more than two ounces off its C4 twin, so there’s literally no excuse not to bring this potentially crucial piece. If you’re not willing to update your entire rack to Ultralight Camalots, do yourself a favor and at least get the #4 Ultralight since it boasts the most significant weight savings.
The new Furia S is a softer iteration of the Furia, with some other great improvements as well. Whereas the original Furia had two bulky Velcro Straps, the Furia S has slimmed down to a single, thin Z-pull strap. I really like this change; it just makes the shoe feel even more high-performing and it’s easier to get on. The other big change is the addition of more toe rubber, which makes the Furia S one of the best toe-hookers I’ve worn. The idea that one “toe-hooks” becomes an outdated term since you can actually hook with the entire top-side of your foot.
To compare the Furia S to the sock-like Drago, both are equally soft—or, if there is a difference here, I can’t really tell. The Furia S is a narrower and much more asymmetric shoe, which will make lower-volume feet happier. The toe is also pointier than the Drago, which isn’t necessarily good or bad from a performance standpoint, but just requires getting used to if you’re coming from a different last.
Where the Furia S does seem to have an edge over the Drago, at least in terms of performance, is in heel-hooking. I’ve had some trouble heel-hooking with the Drago. The Furia S offers slight improvement, perhaps due to a better-fitting heel.
All in all, another outstanding offering from Scarpa, who is currently making the highest-performing shoes on the market, in my humble opinion.
This rope is one to rule them all. The Performance 9.2mm from Edelweiss is a solid piece of string that you can use as a single, half, or twin rope. I picked up an 80-meter version of the 9.2mm, and it’s been my go-to sport-climbing cord for the past year. The 80m length weighs as much as some 60m 9.5mm ropes, and the extra length has come in handy on long pitches and rappels.
This rope has sustained some real abuse, and it’s held up remarkably well. It also saved my wife, who took a whipper on a pretty sharp biner and core-shot the rope. After a year of abuse, this is the only time we’ve had to trim the rope down, which might be a record for such a thin rope. This is likely the effect of Edelweiss’ UniCore construction, which bonds the sheath of the rope to the core, for added durability.
Like many climbers on Instagram, I opened the app the other day and saw Daniel Woods’ latest post staring back at me. No, like, literally staring at me.
Wow, I thought. That’s … an aggressive move, dude. Um, Daniel, there’s a really big fucking eye … on your neck. What were you thinking?!
I’ll be honest. My initial reaction wasn’t favorable. I thought my friend might regret this decision at some point in his future.
I texted our mutual friends to see if I way off base. “OMG, this is the only thing people are texting me about today,” Emily Harrington replied. It was clearly a hot topic. All the obvious, cheap jokes ensued.
Does The North Face make turtlenecks?
Will he have to get an eyepatch for his neck?
His girlfriend is going to have to sleep on his left side now.
I checked out his Instagram page again to read the comments more carefully. This is usually a bad idea. Sure enough, some people were shitting on the tat. Daniel, however, seemed to have a great sense of humor about it.
Outside Magazine shared Daniel’s photo in a thinly-veiled shitpost on their own Instagram channel. (It must have been a slow news day in the Lance Armstrong gossip department.) Rawk Tawk and all the other far-inferior climbing-humor accounts took good-natured jabs.
Each time, Daniel was responding with a good sense of humor about it.
I texted Emily again: “Imagine having as many followers as Daniel does, posting this, and just letting anyone comment on it? Gawd. That alone makes me stressed…”
Emily replied, “You think he is an example of how to not give any fucks tho? Like. If he can just take it and be ok maybe it’s a good lesson for us all.”
Hm, I hadn’t considered that maybe Daniel Woods really is an enlightened Buddha, but perhaps Emily is right.
As the day went on, my opinion about Daniel’s tattoo became more and more favorable until I realized that this tattoo is exactly what climbing needs.
You may not remember this, but at one point tattoos were signs of rebellion and outsider status. Now, especially in climbing, it’s as if not having a tattoo makes you the outsider. Tattoos are the norm.
When you look at the long arc of climbing history and culture, it continues to slide away from its origin as a counterculture of rebellious vagrants into a codified leisure sport for aimless millennials role-playing dirtbag in their Sprinter vans and hoping to one day achieve Influencer status on social media.
There aren’t many high-profile climbers out there willing to be different, take a different path, take a strong stance, have an opinion that might go against the boundaries that are increasingly being narrowly set by the most vocal social media mobs.
The sport is changing and growing every day, mostly for the better … but there are also aspects that are being lost. The stakes are high right now. People are making money. Climbing is on its way to the Olympics. Now the biggest rift in climbing isn’t whether you identify as a “trad” or “sport” climber, but whether you’re an “Influencer” or a “Follower.” No one is really sure what it all means, how to behave, how to look, what’s the right thing to say, what’s the wrong thing to say. People understandably want to play it safe.
Well, not Daniel. I like that his tattoo isn’t just another sleeve that would let him fit in with the urban bouldering crowd, the comp crowd, the Olympics crowd, the Influencer crowd. I like that it’s bold and different. I like that people don’t like it. I like that this tattoo is a meme, a throwback to when both tattoos themselves and the sport of climbing were both dangerous and rebellious …
But most of all, I like that Daniel doesn’t give a fuck. The fewer fucks Daniel gives in general, the healthier climbing as a sport will be because he has the power and talent to do something different, something significant, and something worthy of climbing’s counterculture roots.
When you think of Indian Creek, bouldering is not the first thing that comes to mind, and yet it is here in Canyonlands that Paul Robinson hucks a lap on Tom Moulin’s magnificent “Air Wolf,” a striking block that Paul suggests might be the best problem he’s done.
That’s saying something, as Paul is one of the best boulderers in the world. Enjoy this short 3-minute clip of Paul on Air Wolf (V5).
There are two types of climbers: those who take grades seriously and those who pretend not to care.
Most climbers would admit that grades are subjective (“of course!”)… but push them on that point just a little, and you’ll also find that this subjectivity has some reasonable limits. We might quibble over whether something is 5.11d or 5.12a, or whether a route may be harder for taller/shorter people, but no one is going to mistake a 5.11 for a 5.13—unless you’re doing FAs of obscure “R-rated” desert off-widths … but that’s a whole other rant (or podcast).
Most climbers believe there are a set of inarguable characteristics to each and every rock climb—the size of the holds, the steepness and length of the wall, the nature of rest points, etc.—that add up to some kind of objective measurement of difficulty. This calculus may not always be perfect or universal, but it gets us reliably close enough to an accurate, mostly widely accepted grade … or at least to a tight range of grades.
In other words, it would be utterly impossible to mistake a 5.15 for a 5.9 and vice versa, but it is however reasonable that a 5.15a could be 5.14d or 5.15b. Just like with polling numbers, there is a statistical margin of error latent in any climbing grade. We accept that. We know it. And we still like to argue about it online whenever possible.
I more or less agree with this point of view. However, the more I think about climbing grades—and the more I try to understand what the actual experience of difficulty is—the more I begin to view grades as an utter illusion.
Ironically, this insight has only made me less certain that climbing grades are real.
I’ve been meditating a bit recently, which is to say I’ve been learning how to observe thoughts, feelings, emotions and experiences as they arise in consciousness. I don’t want to make this essay about meditation, and I only mention it to explain the preface of some of these ideas. My meditation practice has also unintentionally become a tool with which I’ve begun to observe my own personal experience with climbing difficulty a little bit better and more clearly. Ironically, this insight has only made me less certain that climbing grades are real.
What is “difficulty,” exactly? It’s hard for most of us to explain. There is a direct aspect to the experience of difficulty—it’s the feeling of effort that we expend as we climb move by move, moment by moment.
But there’s also an indirect aspect to the experience of climbing difficulty. Difficulty gets determined in the aftermath of our climbs, the moments in between the climbing. In those in-between moments we consider how much effort we had to expend, how many times a certain move caused us to fall, how pumped we felt, how far away a redpoint seemed, etc. Somehow our internal computer takes all of those direct and indirect experiences, processes them, and spits out a grade.
But where does that mechanism come from?
It’s only through the experience of climbing routes as a beginner and being told by others what those routes are graded—as if those grades are set in stone—that we begin to form a basis of difficulty. This reference point becomes ingrained—and here’s the first moment where we begin to go wrong. We believe that this inner reference point, this little internal thermometer that takes our experience with a route and spits out a number, is ever unchanging. We unconsciously rely on this ingrained thermometer, assuming it to be somehow fixed, to grow more accurate with age and experience, to continue to exist as a reliable reference point for any and all future routes we do.
This can’t be true, however, because we also know that the better and stronger we get as climbers, the more difficult it becomes to rate easier routes. If you want to know whether a route is 5.9 or 5.10a, don’t ask Chris Sharma. Ask a 5.10 climber. In other words, our internal thermometers aren’t reliable; they change without us realizing it. But even to the degree that they are reliable points of reference, they are also restricted to a range that skews toward your current limit.
So now what does this mean?
The implications of how we perform these grade calculations means that the entire grading scale only works if you are progressing as a climber—or at least maintaining a plateau. But what happens if a serious physical regression takes place? The mind is slow to change, and in such a situation, the structure of the entire grading scale might dissolve into the illusion that it actually is.
In other words, say we put Adam Ondra’s brain in Donald Trump’s body.
Consider an experiment in which we take Adam Ondra’s brain, gloriously encyclopedic in its knowledge of climbing grades, a finely tuned thermometer of 5.14-and-higher routes if there ever was one, and we transplant it to an unhealthy, unfit body. Say, it’s a disgusting carcass of unnaturally bulbous flesh; its cellular mitochondria irreparably damaged from a bland diet of fast food and overcooked steaks; its musculature atrophied after a lifetime of undeserved leisure and entitled sloth. In other words, say we put Adam Ondra’s brain in Donald Trump’s body.
For the sake of this thought experiment, imagine the brain had no awareness a transplant had taken place. Even though the brain looks down and now can’t see its own dick, it doesn’t necessarily begin to think that anything is wrong or different. Imagine if this brain with that body tried to climb even a 5.12—a grade that isn’t even a warm-up for Ondra—what would the brain think is the route’s rating?
Probably not 5.12. In fact, that brain might call it 5.16 because the subjective experience of trying to climb it would feel impossible … more impossible than anything logged in that brain’s rolodex of experience thus far.
Fortunately, we don’t undergo such drastic physical changes overnight—and if we do, say by a serious injury or accident, there’s an obvious rationale for why something now feels impossible.
Yet … the subjective experience is undeniably the same. The mechanism by which we evaluate a climb’s difficulty—as much of an illusion as this mechanism is—doesn’t stop functioning just because our bodies aren’t working the way we think should.
It goes both ways. We can all relate to the days when work/stress/sleep make even warmups feel like projects and we’re not always sure why that is. Or there are days where we’re climbing better than we may realize. Think about Jakob Schubert’s recent send of Sharma’s El Bon Combat. That route was given 5.15b/c by Sharma but Schubert thought it might only be 5.15a.
“It very well could be ‘only’ 9a+,” Sharma wrote on Instagram in response to the downgrade, “however it very well could also be that Jakob is in insanely good shape right now and doesn’t know his own strength considering he absolutely smashed the world circuit and pretty much everything is his path.”
The illusion of climbing difficulty also reveals itself on the days we send. The routes that were the hardest things we’ve ever tried often go down easily and effortlessly on the redpoint. If there is any substance to climbing difficulty as an objective and measurable thing, then what explains this phenomena?
All of this suggests that the experience of climbing difficulty isn’t dependent on grades at all. In fact, that experience is only ever same: routes feel impossible and hard until one day they don’t. The great upshot to this is that transcendent climbing experiences are not reserved for the elite—they’re open to anyone willing to try something hard.
It’s hard to imagine John Oliver dedicating 20 whole minutes to Mount Everest, but he does it in a rollicking and typically hilarious expose. It’s also quite accurate and all-encomposing, which is a testament to the great journalists who work on this show as writers.
You have to wonder if this marks the beginning of the end of Everest. How many negative stories shitting on the Everest scene need to be done before people start losing their enthusiasm for going to Everest?
He also created thetopofmounteverest.com so that you can get your own Photoshopped face on the summit. Brilliant.
If you’ve been following the chipping debacle in Ten Sleep Canyon, you will know that the childish skirmish that saw a group of anonymous rogues removing routes and padlocking bolts on routes they don’t like in the middle of the night yielded a predictable result: the government had to step in and place a total ban on all new routing in the area.
“A complete and total shutdown, until we can figure out what the hell is going on,” to borrow the words of an authoritarian.
I’ve been utterly mystified as to why some climbers are cheering for this result. Our ability to self-police/self-regulate our own community has been historically one of our greatest strengths, a lynchpin that has secured tenuous access to so many cliffs around the country.
What should’ve been a quiet, local issue became a viral, international story that was made worse by the actions of a few self-righteous egos on both sides. Now there will be ramifications for us all: the takeaway is that climbers can’t be trusted to regulate themselves and use public lands responsibly.
Although I’ve never climbed at Ten Sleep, and have no personal connection to the area at all, I find this story important because raises so many difficult—and scary—questions that are relevant to climbing and climbers everywhere. The fact that we don’t have good answers to these questions seems to be the reason behind this debacle. A few questions that come to mind:
Who decides who develops routes—and how they’re developed?
Are route developers artists or public servants?
Who writes the guidebook?
Who gets to be a “local”?
If route development is open to anyone who is willing and able, then must route removal also be open to anyone who is willing and able?
And is climbing growing and getting so big that self-regulation is no longer a viable option? And if so … where do we go from here?
The ethical questions about route development are tricky, nuanced, and dependent upon geology and location. I’ve climbed at enough areas and hung out with enough route developers to know that no options are off the table—even among the self-described purists. Publicly, of course, few people would ever admit to their wicked ways if only because so few climbers in the general public actually understand what it means to develop a route.
There are a million little decisions you have to make as a developer, from whether to file down a razor edge to make the climb more comfortable, to whether to knock off a foothold that you think might break anyway; from whether rock should be glued/reinforced or just knocked off with a sledgehammer.
What many people don’t realize about these actions is that, so often, developers aren’t trying to “bring routes down to their level” by utilizing these tactics. They’re often trying to preserve difficulty and keep the routes as hard as possible.
The secret tactics of route developers are nothing new, and they are only surprising to people who are ignorant about climbing. What is more important and crucial is for the route developers themselves to understand when something works—and why.
A developer who has a wide array of tricks and tactics, even the ones that we would consider to be classically unethical, like chipping; who understands the limits and narrow applications of these tactics; and who, above all, has a certain aesthetic vision, is precisely how high-quality routes, especially on rock of suspect integrity like limestone, are created. This is why I’ve argued that route development should be an elitist thing—not everyone should be a route developer!
Louie Anderson
Some developers clearly don’t have all (or any) of these attributes, and Louie Anderson seems to be a great example of a developer who is simply bad at his craft. That is to say, his ethical transgressions aren’t categorically unique; in fact, they’re on the same spectrum of transgressions employed by many other Ten Sleep developers, suspiciously never named during this big public call-out, and who came before Louie and set precedents of chipping at Ten Sleep.
Given the selective nature of the call-out, the takeaway seems to be not that chipping is bad; but that bad chipping is bad. There’s something to this.
Just to be perfectly clear, the pockets Louie Anderson created—if this photo is indeed a fair and accurate representation of his work (which I do not know if it is)—are completely unacceptable.
But why?
These pockets are ugly. They’re obvious. But more to the point, they’re ugly because they’re obvious. Good route development is often far more a matter of aesthetics than ethics, I think. Duping subsequent climbers into having an impression that a route could have appeared just like this in nature is ultimately more important in route development than adhering to any single dogma—especially when those dogmas do not scale across different types of rock and different areas with different local ethics.
Good route development on friable rock can be a well-executed ruse, in this sense, a fact that is proven by the number of chipped, manipulated routes and boulders around the world that climbers laud as five-star classics.
Taking Climbs Down
The instinct to take a rock climb down and erase its existence seems so antithetical to a love and passion for our sport that I have a really hard time understanding why climbers themselves would ever want to do such a thing. But it happens. Over the years I’ve heard Rifle climbers argue that having more rock climbs in our canyon isn’t better because those new routes—typically, the easier “gumby” routes—will ultimately detract from the overall quality of the area as a bastion of higher-end sport climbing.
This is often just elitist, self-righteous bullshit masking as ethics. As much as those gumby routes are a blight on the caliber of elite 5.13d’s in Rifle, I also bristle when I hear people denigrate them. Our ideas of what constitute quality and aesthetics are so subjective to begin with that I have a hard time rationalizing the imposition of one narrow view of it. It’s far better to err on the side of giving climbers the freedom to explore these visions of quality and beauty, I think, than it is to try to control it to your own liking.
Tyranny is in vogue right now, unfortunately, among both fascists on the right and hyper-woke progressives on the left. There is something about route removal that contains elements of a tyrannical instinct to quell unfavorable forms of expression. At Ten Sleep, route removal was rationalized as a way to stop a bad actor from further establishing more poorly chipped routes (although it sounds like Anderson had already stopped chipping, which begs more questions about why this even needed to happen).
So what comes next? Will climbers now be emboldened to remove routes they don’t like for other reasons? Will climbs with names deemed too offensive be removed? What if a route developer is “canceled” because he or she says or did the wrong thing; will that be license to chop his or her routes? This sounds crazy—and it is—but I’m sorry to say that it’s not an unrealistic concern in 2019.
The fact is, the government was more pissed about the route removal and padlocking than they were about the original chipped holds. In my opinion, climbers need to agree that removing routes is almost never a good solution. (This is the position of the Access Fund as well). If we can’t agree as climbers that having more climbs is better than having fewer climbs, then I’m not sure what we can agree on.
Climbing is growing at an exponential pace. It makes sense that the old ways of governing ourselves and regulating our sport may also be outdated. I’m sorry to say that the idea that we can self-regulate our community may not be a viable option going forward.
We need to figure out some of these big questions, however, or else someone else will do it for us. Again, those questions are what is the role and responsibilities of a route developer; how we can regulate those individuals while leaving enough freedom of expression to produce different visions of quality and difficulty.
I’m not sure what the solution is, but I do know that handing over decision-making power to the government is the least desirable option. Yet this is what will happen if we emulate the actions in Ten Sleep elsewhere.
There’s no one like Mike Libecki. He’s not just one of the greatest modern explorers of our time, but he’s an enigmatic sage of joyful living.
This film from Cheyne Lempe is very well done. It captures so much about who Mike is while using so few words. This is subtle, deft, skillful adventure filmmaking if I’ve ever seen it.
Hope this inspires you to get out there and make the most of our short time on earth, while doing it in a respectful, joyful way.
Where women climbers are strapped to find great-fitting sports bras, men are often at a loss to find great-fitting climbing pants. At least that’s been my experience. Too short, too bunchy, too saggy, too techy, too easily torn—and never just right. I’ve yet to find or wear the perfect climbing pants.
I checked out the Foehn Brise Pants this spring and summer with no expectations, and was surprised by how much I liked them given that I usually don’t opt for this kind of high-tech attire. The Brise Pants are stretchy Nylon/Spandex climbing pant, with a DWR finish, articulated knees and a gusseted crotch—all of which gives the pants a feeling of being designed for high-performance, traddy/adventure climbing.
Typically, however, I try to avoid any kind of clothing that reads as being too “technical” a la outdoor Euro fashion. The Brise pants are a bit more high tech than I typically like, but they are rather understated, especially in black —the only giveaway being a bright orange pull cord on the centered mid-thigh pocket. You can pass them off in polite society without looking like too much of an outdoor geek. I liked this understated design enough to not feel too self-conscious wearing them to the gym, crag, and around town.
Performance
From a performance perspective, the Brise are hyper durable. I’m confident they will hold up to just about any conditions, from wet approach trails to kneebarring against sharp rock. Zips at the ankles give you the option of slimming down the pants almost to the point of being tights—perhaps so you can better see your feet? Not sure, but I wish they were a bit baggier. Even with the zips open, it was tough to get my foot in and out of the pants.
The pants are slim-fitting, with ample room around the knees to help with articulated climbing movements. For me, though, they’re just too slim. The nylon fabric doesn’t necessarily “glide” over your skin, so if you have muscular legs, high stepping climbing movements can sometimes feel like you’re fighting your own pants. Yes, they will “stretch” but there is still resistance, which seems unnecessary to me.
Additional Features
You can access the thigh pocket easily while wearing a harness, which is a really excellent feature for carrying a phone, an energy bar, or a topo on a multi-pitch climb. I’d prefer a simple fabric flap closure to a zipper, however. The less metal on my pants, the better, in my opinion. Ditto for the ankle zips.
Ultimately, though, I liked the Brise pants. They’re great for missions in the mountains and long multi-pitch days where you’ll face every condition imaginable. But these aren’t my top choice for day-to-day cragging pants, or high-end sport climbing pants. A bit too techy, a bit too tight, a few too many zippers—close, but not quite just right.
Foehn Brise Pants Review: Bottom Line
This is a high-performance technical rock climbing pant that will hold up to all conditions and the most abrasive rock climbs. The slim-fitting pant may not fit more muscular legs, however, although articulated knees and a bit of spandex definitely help with movement. At $130, these aren’t cheap but they will last a long time.
Hazel Findlay and Madeleine Cope, two of the U.K.’s strongest trad-climbing ladies, take a trip to Sweden for some tasty granite cracks. The culmination of the trip is Hazel leading a heady, difficult route called Electric Avenue (5.13+ R).
This is a nice video from my friend and filmmaker Colette McInerny, which reveals the flavor of what it’s like to be on a trip with these two people, in particular, Hazel’s approach and mentality toward hard climbing. Hazel is a great climber, and a very thoughtful person who really seems to consider her reasons for doing what she does. Hope you enjoy this piece from BD!
My friend James Lucas recently wrote a provocatively entitled article about why no one should ever take dogs to the crags in his recent Climbing Magazine column. I didn’t read it, of course, since I vowed five years ago never to ever again read anything created by any of the climbing magazines, even though I’m sure it’s all high quality. But I did see, with some familiar amusement, the flak that “Peaches” was receiving online. Nothing like being a climbing magazine humor columnist to really channel the ire of the gumbified masses.
“You’ve finally arrived,” I texted James. “Proud of you.”
The idea that dogs—or kids, which are often susceptible to being targeted by the exact same argument—don’t “belong” somewhere in the outdoors is a familiar motif in such declarative op-eds.
And yet, if dogs and kids don’t belong outside … where do they belong?
We have rampant rates of obesity in this country. Simply owning a dog is correlated with lower BMIs and improved happiness and health. People are killing themselves at ever higher rates. And schools are getting shot up across America by disgruntled, mentally ill youth who probably haven’t spent enough time outdoors learning self reliance and overcoming challenges.
Dogs and kids belong outside—be it at the crags or anywhere else. The problem, of course, is not dogs and kids … the problem is bad dog owners and bad parents. Most people seem to be horribly confused about what kind of dog they have, however. Most people’s pets are badly behaved. Why? Because training a dog to be a well-behaved, obedient animal is essentially a part-time job and responsibility for the first year of the dog’s life. It’s a LOT of work. Most people would rather just get a dog, teach him to sit, call it good, and hit the road with Fido in the back of the Tacoma.
People don’t spend nearly enough time socializing their animals with other animals—or kids and strangers. People routinely confuse the happy-go-lucky puppy energy of meeting and greeting everyone with an acceptable—or, at least, tolerable—behavior. The excited dog jumps on your leg, and you hear the owner say, “Oh, down, boy, down!” and because it’s over in a split second, that bad behavior is never actually corrected.
The other day, I was trying to belay my friend while someone’s soaking wet collie was lurking one foot away from foot, beside which the dog had cleverly placed its ball. As I belayed the dog would nudge the ball closer and closer. As I was focused on belaying, I found myself stepping on the ball, losing balance. The dog’s wet fur was getting my leg wet, and my rope wet. I wanted to kick this fucking dog in the teeth. … But really, it’s the dog’s owner’s teeth that I should be wanting to kick.
The easiest thing to do is to put a muzzle and a short leash on your dog. The more important thing to do is to spend the time actually learning how to train your dog to be a good dog. This almost certainly requires a professional’s help. If your dog can’t come on command; can’t stay on command; is “weird” with other dogs/kids/strangers/people with hats/beards; bothers the fuck out of other people; etc.; then the answer isn’t to leave your dog at home, necessarily. It’s to spend the time and money training your dog to be a good dog.
Similarly, bad parents are also giving “kids at crags” a bad name. Now that my daughter is 3, I’m seeing firsthand just how important and beneficial it is for her to spend all day outdoors while mama and papa try to sneak in a few pitches. It’s amazing how just a bunch of sticks, rocks, water, and mud can entertain and build a child’s imagination for hours. You can’t re-create this kind of happiness, curiosity, development, and stimulation being indoors in a room full of the best toys in the world.
And yet, bad parents, like bad dog parents, ruin the reputations of kids at crags by avoiding basic responsibilities, like keeping your kid safe, out of the path of rock fall, away from cars, even away from other people. If the climbing becomes more important than giving your kid what the kid needs, than there’s a potential problem. There’s a guy who drops his ~10 year old son off at Rifle while he disappears to climb. This kid spends a lot of time by me and my daughter because he doesn’t know where else to go or what to do. Am I supposed to be the one in charge of him now? Feed him food? Make sure he doesn’t drown? It’s never been made clear to me. Free-range kids are generally a good thing … but there is a difference between “free-range” and abandoned. This kid often has no clue where his dad is for hours at a time. And his nonstop questions fucking annoy me.
But again, it’s not his fault. It’s the bad parent.
So, there’s my two cents. Take your kids and dogs to crags. Spend as much time outdoors as possible. But take some responsibility, even if that means you get less climbing done.
Having kids is the most gear-intensive sport there is. Not even kayaking, the most cumbersome and clunkiest of all outdoor activities, can compete with “kids.” The amount of stuff you need—no really, you do—is boggling. Make a human, and fast-and-light minimalism will become a vestige of a past life, one in which you never realized had been filled so much time, sleep, and sends.
Now that I’ve got two (2) daughters, I’m an expert at this shit. But the path from witty, beloved climbing journalist to washed-up daddy blogger hasn’t been without a few bumps and missteps along the way. I’ve had to work hard and sacrifice everything important to my selfish ego to level up to this newfound status, which I wear with pride, dad-bod and all.
So let me share unto you, new or expectant climbing parents, the wisdom of my journey thus far, to make what is actually a fairly large and heady transition hopefully go a little smoother. Because despite what some naysayers say, kids belong at crags—and so do you. And if can get in a little climbing, congrats. You’re clearly doing something right.
The path from witty, beloved climbing journalist to washed-up daddy blogger hasn’t been without a few bumps and missteps along the way. I’ve had to work hard and sacrifice everything important to my selfish ego to level up to this newfound status, which I wear with pride, dad-bod and all.
Veer Cruiser Review
Before having child #1, one of the first pieces of advice I got from a fellow climbing dad was, “Just get the BOB. It’s expensive, but trust me, it’s worth it.”
The BOB—the widely known all-terrain stroller—was indeed well worth the investment. To date, it has taken us all over the world. We pushed it to each and every bouldering area we visited in Fontainbleau, France, for example.
With two kids, we needed an upgrade. Enter the Veer All-Terrain Cruiser, a convertible, packable, spacious, rugged wagon that can haul up to two kids and a lot of additional gear around. Our big family shit show has been rolling around in this thing for the past month, and I can’t tell you how many families stop us everywhere we go and say, literally verbatim, “OMG, what is that? Where do I get that? I need that!”
Well, you probably do need it because, like I said, “kids” is the most gear-intensive sport there is. And this thing hauls it all. We can fit a cooler of snacks, giant diaper bag (that is to say, a giant bag filled with normal-sized diapers; not a bag of giant, man-sized diapers), extra clothing, water bottles, a Veer Basecamp Tent (see below), a climbing rope, climbing gear, and the two kids, too.
The great thing about the Cruiser, aside from how much it hauls, is how easy it is to set up and break down. To set it up, simply lift the handle, pop up the two side pieces, and snap the two end pieces securely into place. Likewise, it can pack down and fit in the back of any car or truck in just a few clicks.
The Cruiser has an option of adding a number of accessories, some of them are mandatory. If you have a baby, for example, you’ll need the infant car seat adaptor. Other accessories include a foldable storage basket, which we load up with climbing/kid gear. There’s also sun shades, rain covers, and even a snack tray with cup holders. The accessories absolutely expand and amplify overall utility of this wagon, and are highly recommended.
I wish that there was a more elegant way to store the accessories, however. They end up just getting thrown into the back of the truck and always feel scattershot when not in use. My OCD brain longs for a way organize these accessories; perhaps in a future version they could be clipped onto, or be stored within, the Cruiser itself when it’s folded down.
Cruising around, the Cruiser pulls and pushes with ease. No, it’s not as agile as our three-wheeled BOB … but it’s pretty darn good considering that this is the “F-350 of strollers,” as one of our friends put it.
This is without a doubt the best two-kid rig for a place like Rifle, where climbs exist adjacent to a flat dirt road, upon which I spend many hours of my cragging day just walking up and down while trying to get these kids to go the fuck to sleep so I can get on with falling on my warmup.
I also think that the Cruiser is suitable for a place like Fontainebleau—and we plan to bring it there on our next trip.
However, if you’re trying to haul kids into off-road locations, accessed via tight or steep trails, the Cruiser might not work. The addition of better suspension and inflatable tires on the wheels, as opposed to the plastic ones, would certainly help make the Cruiser even more all-terrain than it currently is.
Veer Basecamp
My friend “Benny” once came out to Rifle with his then 1-year-old daughter for a week—just the two of them. He’d put her in a pack-n-play set up beneath his project, and work out the beta with another belayer. I once saw, clipped to the 7th bolt of his route, yell down to his daughter, “It’s time to go to sleep!”
Sure enough, this obedient unicorn child laid down her head and fell right to sleep on the spot. I’ve never seen anything like this before or since.
Well, needless to say, we didn’t get one of those kids … by which I mean a child who will fall asleep by herself, let alone via a command shouted from 40 feet up a rock climb.
Nor did we get a child who will happily stay in one safe, secure spot for the duration of time it takes to belay a burn.
The Veer Basecamp may provide a solution here for some parents. It’s a big pod of a tent that you can literally set up with one hand in under 3 seconds. Why aren’t all tents this easy to set up? Breaking it down is a bit harder. It requires two hands and all of 10 seconds of your time.
The Basecamp could be useful for some climbing parents as a spot to contain children while climbing gets down, or protect them from nature’s worst. It is certainly a good spot to lay infants if it’s sunny or buggy to keep them protected. Young toddlers that can’t work zippers could be happily corralled in this thing for whatever duration of time they are happy to entertain themselves. Older toddlers, at least mine, likely won’t stay put, but I don’t need to tell you that.
This tent clips to the side of the Veer Cruiser, making it pretty easy to bring along. Although this may be less useful in climbing contexts, I would absolutely put something like this to use at the beach.
Black Diamond Pipe Dream 45
I’d be remiss not to include a piece of gear from an actual climbing brand. The BD Pipe Dream needs no introduction for many.
The Pipe Dream is a big rectangle of thin foam—similar to but thinner than a spot pad. It folds up to hold all of your cragging gear when closed.
Unfolded, it doubles as a place to sit/lie for you, your dog, and of course, even your infant whose diaper needs changing. Plus it can carry all of your climbing stuff, if that’s still important to you.
ErgoBaby Air Mesh 360 Carrier Review
One irony I’ve noticed among parents is how many big, strong men who can deadlift twice their body weight get destroyed when they have to carry around a little baby for hours at a time. When we’re talking about climbers whose shoulders are as creaky as an old floor, it’s even worse.
Something about cradling a baby impinges my biceps tendon like it’s being squeezed in a vice clamp. I feel like whining, “I can’t hold that baby now, I’m trying to send today.” Needless to say, mama don’t give a fuck. She don’t want to hear it, so don’t come complain’.
A baby carrier is a lifesaver. We’ve been using ErgoBaby carriers for both kids, and just upgraded to the Omni 360 Cool Mesh one, which breathes better than others and keeps you less sweaty. This is not only good for getting kids into the crag on approaches, but just saving your shoulders and forearms from getting worked in between climbs. And since I don’t lactate, it’s the only reliable tool I have for getting my baby to sleep.
Phew. Good luck getting out there and getting some pitches in. Now, is it my turn to climb?
Approach shoes need to pull double duty: be burly and supportive enough to carry your fat ass up to the crag, but then be easy enough to slip on and off in between pitches or boulder attempts.
The new Five Tennie strikes that balance really well—and they look pretty fly while doing it.
I’ve gotten more (good) comments about the retro magenta-green palette of my Five Tennie than just about any other approach shoe I’ve worn. I was skeptical about the color scheme in online photos, but they look much better (I think) in real life. Note they also come in far more traditional colors, and if you’re a totally boring person you might like those instead.
Five Tennie Review: Performance
Performance wise, the Five Tennie is a supportive, comfortable, no frill shoe. There’s not a lot of complicated technology to talk about with this shoe. The sole is basic. The tread pattern is basic. The lacing system is basic. Essentially this is just a normal sneaker with a bit of sticky rubber on the sole.
I can slip the Five Tennie on and off without bothering to tie or untie my laces
The one aspect I really like is the sock-like upper that hugs my foot without the need to tie down my laces tight. This simple feature makes it so I can slip the Five Tennie on and off without bothering to tie or untie my laces, which is obviously nice when you’re doing pitches with your partner. Who would you rather climb with, someone who spends 10 minutes tying and untying their shoes while sitting on your rope tarp as you respectfully wait to just pull the damn rope? Or someone who doesn’t do that. Yeah, I want to climb with that person.
Sizing
I normally wear a size 10 street shoe and with the Five Tennie, this size fit perfectly. I’ve read lots and lots of online comments from people who say that this shoe runs really large. Although that wasn’t my experience, I’d recommend you beware. You might want to order your size, as well as the next two sizes down when you purchase online and then return whichever ones don’t fit. (Let’s be honest, no one buys from stores anymore).
Bottom Line
The Five Tennie is a basic approach shoe that hikes well enough and is very easy to slip on and off, which makes it super convenient for all climbing applications. And the retro color scheme has been turning heads at my local crag all summer.
by @savageson 
