scarpa.

com/phantom-guide

You only get 26,320 days, more or less. How will you spend them?

issue 321

ReadeRs
choice
6

Flash
The winning shots from our
2014 Reader Photo Contest.

skills
22
Dissecting the Dyno
The physics, skills, and knowhow to master climbings
most dynamic move.

53
38
Its All About You!
Funny but true: Snatching
food from a dumpster and
skipping your wifes birthday
to climb arent unusual for
our tribe. Neither is choosing
climbing over sex! This and
more in our inaugural
Climbers Choice Survey.
By the Editors (and You!)

Guide to Redpointing
Matt Samet explains the ins
and outs of working a hard
route, with tips on how to
train, resting, and why you
should never give up.

59
Double-Rope
Technique
Best practices for smooth
and safe belaying with a
two-rope system.

46
62

Winds of Change
Our editor and 12 readers
went on the trip of a lifetime
to the Wind River Range
and helped fund wilderness
trips for urban teens in
the process.

Passing Lane
A guide gives the lowdown
on how to properlyand politely!pass a slower party
on a crowded route.

destinations

health and
tRaininG

17
Gills World
Father of modern bouldering
John Gill has established
dozens of areas and problems. Take a power trip that
follows in the footsteps of
this climbing legend.
By Leia Larsen

60
The Art of Taping
Protect your skin, tendons,
and ligaments with these ve
taping methods.

GeaR
31
Pufes!
Crisp sending temps in
winter bring another bonus:
wrapping yourself in the nest of puffy jackets. Here are
our top ve picks.
Santiago ESpinoSa

ON THe COveR:
Mike Perkins on
Heisenberg (5.13a), Little
Cottonwood Canyon, Utah.
Photo: Casey Hyer

Reader Philipp Peters enters

a wide section high up on
the 2,000-foot Regular
Northwest Face (5.9 C1),
Half Dome, Yosemite.

4
Editors Note

17
The Guide

31
Gear

36
Semi-Rad

59
Clinics

contents
climbing.com

|1

LEADInG SInCE 1970

whAT GAVE yOU POwER ThIS MOnTh?

My boulder Rock Club
membershipand stout beer.
knowing my cleanse is
almost over, and theres
coffee and wine in my future.
My moms home cooking
while she visited and
daydreams of Indian Creek
splitters. Also, whiskey.

editorial

Editor
Shannon daviS
Art Director
Jacqueline mccaffrey
Gear Editor
Julie elliSon
Destinations Editor
amanda fox
Editor at Large
dougald macdonald

Senior Contributing Photographer

andrew Burr
Images of Tony
Staff Photographer
yaniros biceps.
Ben fullerton
Outdoor Group Associate Producer
cryStal Sagan
Intern
devon Barrow

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Copyright 2014 Cruz Bay Publishing, Inc.

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Green smoothies in
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watching my daughter laugh at the

altitude and hammer up kili.

EDITORS
NOTE

Summit for Someone

BY SHANNON DAVIS

PICTURE YOUR FAVORITE PLACE. No judgment if its that

funky cofee shop down the street or the bouldering cave
at the gym (at least not too much), but Im willing to bet
what youre imagining is outside, at a crag or peak far from town.
This is the type of place that feeds our passion, teaches us about ourselves and
the world around us, and makes us better people and stronger climbers. But far
too many folks never get to experience the transformative power of the outdoors.
Thats something the group of readers in the photo above (in my new favorite
place: Deep Lake Cirque in Wyomings Wind River Range) sought to change.
Each raised $4,000 for Summit for Someone, to fund weeklong wilderness
expeditions for under-resourced urban youth through Big City Mountaineers.
Their eforts covered direct costs for 70 kids, many of whom have never been
outside of the county where they were born. Hows that for change? As a reward,
these readers joined me and Jackson Hole Mountain Guides for their own fully
supported weeklong climbing trip into the Winds. Read their moving reports
starting on page 46.
Then join us! Were doing it again in 2014, and I know we can raise even more
than we did in 2013. Go to climbing.com/sfswinds to learn how. Theres great
joy in doing good by doing what you love.

COLD KILLERS

Kineboard

150

NEW
Shapes

ON MY BACK Full conditions? The Crux Plasma has you coveredin a hearty layer of 920-ll
down protected by a 40-denier eVent shell. With
welded interior bafes and industrial-strength
zips, its true winter armor. $650, crux.us.com
IN MY HAND Stanleys One Hand Vacuum
Mug is spill-proof and leak-proof with a big
glove-friendly button to open the spout. $35,
shopstanley-pmi.com

SIDNEY TROGDON

ON MY FEET Whether youre chasing early-season ice or south-facing rock, staying warm starts
with your toes. The mostly wool FITS Expedition Boot are the best-tting heavy-weights Ive
worn. The secret: just the right amount of nylon
and Lycra. $19, tssocks.com

PHOTON An evolutionary advance in carabiner design. The Photons

sophisticated shape produces a large gate opening and the wide range of biner
styles and draws (keylocks, wires, straight, bent, nylon, and Dyneema) means
climbers can find the perfect combination of functionality and lightweight for
any style of climbing in the Photon line.

camp-usa.com

flash
The Grand Prize Winner graces our cover, and the runners-up
create one of our most engaging galleries of the year.

Bligh Gillies

Flakes (V1),
The Buttermilks, Bishop,
California

When I saw this boulder, I immediately realized it had huge

potential. The whole scene
is beautiful with a striking
foreground element and massive
mountains looming in the background. When Gabe Cervantes
started climbing, I sprinted off
to nd a high point and began
shooting. At that moment, the
sun happened to disappear
behind a small cloud, which
provided great light and made
the sky super dramatic.

ClimBing.Com

|7

flash
Brendon Salzer

Little red riding Hood

(7a+/5.12a), Little red
Wall, Waterval boven,
South africa

When we came back to this

area, I brought along quite
a stack of photo gear to
experiment with. I just really
wanted a cool picture of Tiffany Wells on a route, and
we decided this pitch would
be pretty perfect. I used
two ashes for this shot:
one at the base of the crag
and one hanging off the top
of the climb attached to a
light stand. The one at the
top was directed through
an umbrella to my right. Its
probably the most effort
I have put into a climbing
picture, but it paid off.

8|

De cem ber / january 2014

Chase Taylor

License to Thrill (5.11c),The

Membrane, American Fork
Canyon, Utah

Theres almost nothing better

than the pocket-pulling and
jug-hauling found in the
limestone heaven of American
Fork. Clay Van Liere sends one
of the best and oldest routes
in the area. For some its a
project, for others a warm-up,
but the versatile climbing with
big moves between big holds
makes it a favorite for all.
Check out more of my work at
albionrose.com.

CLiMbing.CoM

|9

flash

George Bruce Wilson

atomic Stetson (5.13c), rodeo Wave Wall, Wild Iris, Wyoming

Wilson got this shot of wunderkind Cameron Hrst during his onsight attempt
of the routeafer he had already climbed Rodeo Free Europe (5.14a). They
were in the area lming for an unreleased lm about the Hrst family.

AJ ODonnell

The Gym arte (5.12a), Shelf road, colorado

Miriam Aloisio and I heard great things about this crimpy, vertical line, so on
our rst trip we went straight for it. I grabbed my wide angle, found a good
viewpoint, and let the climber, scenery, and light do the rest of the work.

Congratulations!
Each Reader Photo Contest winner will
receive a pair of shades from Optic Nerve.
Thanks Optic Nerve!

10 |

De cember / january 2014

climbing.com

| 11

flash

Paul Van Benschoten

Frogland (5.8), black Velvet

canyon, red rock, nevada

Michael Warren (pictured), Bill

Napier, and I were on the fourth
pitch when I took this picture
with my point-and-shoot. Bill and
I were more than a little confused
by the topo for this pitch, but
luckily Michael was on it. He later
explained, I remember saying
to myself as I was pointing to
the blunt arte, What the f***
is he talking about?! The route
is clearly right up there! One of
the huge benets of climbing in a
group of three is that it allows for
one climber to take photos without the distraction of belaying.

12 |

De cember / january 2014

facebook.com/olightworld

YOUVE GOT TWO HANDS.

NOW USE THEM.

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hands-free mode. Simply swipe your hand in front of

get the H15S Wave rechargeable headlamp. With 250

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lumens of white light, three output modes, and 36

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hours of useful runtime, its the perfect choice for

first aid, be prepared with the versatile H15S Wave.

any challenge you face in the outdoors. For the

Dominate your night environment.

ultimate hands-free experience, switch to the infrared

www.olightworld.com/H15S

flash

Clinton Lewis

urus este, cordillera blanca, andes, Peru

We climbed the peak, which is considered an

acclimitization peak for larger summits, in two
teams. From front to back, David Byrne, Michelle
Hoffman, and Michael Coote were on the rst
rope team and summited before my team. As
they were descending, I had the perfect shot
lined up as clouds started rolling off nearby peak
Tocllaraju, which added drama to the photo. Urus
Este is not technical, but low snowfall this year
lef a lot of exposed rock to climb, which is always
tricky in crampons. This is one of my favorite
shots because it really shows the scale of the
range, the exciting clouds, and stark contrast of
the rock and snow.

Dom Channon

corbets couloir, jackson Hole, Wyoming

Although Corbets Couloir is one of the most

famous ski runs in the country, in the warmer
months its also home to some quality rock
climbing. I shot Senior Guide Christian Santelices
on location there for a portrait shoot with Exum
Mountain Guides. With almost 25 years of
guiding experience, Santelices hands have taken
him all over the world, and I tried to capture their
unique look with a single ash set up on the
models lef.

14 |

De cember / january 2014

NOMIC
Strike the perfect balance
between power and precision

www.petzl.com/NOMIC

Introducing the Stance Belay Parka

BlackDiamondEquipment.com

Andy Anderson
Associate Content Editor
Joes Valley, UT
Photographer: Andrew Burr

ISSUE 321

Power
Not to be confused with pure strength,
endurance, or mental boldness, power
is the facet of climbing that can be
characterized by a pop and a grunt. It
involves high-intensity movements
that combine strength and speed in a
supercharged fashion, which allows
you to do big moves like dynos and
lunges. While it can be employed on
long routes, this quick force is the
foundation of bouldering. Turn the
page for a pebble-wrestling history
lesson, as well as some training advice.

Only a few decades ago, a roof like

this might have been completely
passed over as impossible, but
this problem instantly became
a neo-classic, falling just above
the moderate grade level. Zach
Fletcher harnesses the power on
The Gerbler (V8), Lost in Space,
Tahoe, California.

THE GUIDE
DEAN FLEMING

CLIMBING.COM

| 17

the guide
Power

ian achey cuts his feet in a

quintessentially powerful style
on Right eliminator Prow (V4),
which is just to the right of gills
Right eliminator at horsetooth
Reservoir, colorado.

By Leia Larsen

When Bouldering
Became Real
the archives

How john Gill changed

the sport forever

The someTimes-dubious hisTory

of AmericAn bouldering*
18 |

de cember / january 2014

The early years (3) the boulders at stoney Point, northwest of los angeles,

became the training ground for the likes of Royal Robbins, yvon chouinard, Bob
Kamps, and a host of incredible climbers. (2) the yosemite bouldering scene
*1 =

,3=

alton RichaRdson

It was the mId 1950s, and a

young college student was
tooling around the nations
more popular climbing
hauntsRocky mountain
National Park, the tetons,
devils Lake, Yosemite.
the kid was unusualtall,
with 150 pounds of pure
muscle, toting around a
bag of chalk, spending his
time on small boulders
that real climbers only used
for training. It was difcult
to take him seriously,
except for one thing: the
guy could move. with
sheer power, he used his
momentum for controlled
releases, perfectly dialed
lunges, and precise landings. It was the dawn of
dynamic movement and
the demise of the three
points of contact school
of thought, left over from
alpinism rooted in military
safety techniques. It was
these very moves that
would evolve climbing into
an extension of gymnastics, rather than the extension of hiking it had been.
word began to spread
about John Gill, a young,
mild-mannered guy from
the south, who was
behind this renaissance in
climbing movement.

Touchstones

Three iconic Gill problems

The Thimble
black Hills, South Dakota
The iconic Thimble formation in the black hills is a paragon of sustained highball goodness. The crystal-covered
30+ foot pillar is host to a few routes, most of which are
easier than Gills unroped rst ascent of the line of which
Pat ament said in his book, Wizards of Rock, was likely
the hardest short free climb in the world at the time. it
was an incredible ascent in a bold style, and still stands
out today as an accomplishment even with the increasingly pedestrian V4 price tag.
Eliminator Boulder
Horsetooth Reservoir, colorado
Though he put up more than a few problems on this iconic stand-alone boulder outside of Fort Collins, Colorado,
the standout is Right Eliminator, which clocks in at V4.
Though a number of holds have broken over the years,
the original aesthetic of the problem remains, highlighting Gills eye for lines. The crimpy beginnings lead to an
off-balance toss for a layback above the deck, making for
another unprecedented ascent in an era where gymnastic
movement was not the norm.
gill in the mid 1960s on double clutch
(V4), dougs Roof, shawangunks, new
york. he would draw small white arrows
pointing to problems he had done.

couRtesy john gill

Gill had been scrambling

up rocks since his reckless

high school days when he
soloed the Flatirons above
boulder, Colorado, and
made a ballsy ascent of
longs Peak alone. Then,
Gill fell into gymnastics almost by accident. he had
enrolled in the mathematics program at Georgia
Tech in the fall of 1954 and
signed up for a mandatory
gymnastics class.
i was over six feet tall
and weighed about 150
poundsa far cry from an
athletic appearanceand i
knew nothing about gymnastics, Gill remembers.
but my rst day in class
Coach Welser had one of
his gymnasts perform for
us newbies so we could see
the potential of the sport.
Then the coach introduced the class to chalk.
Gymnasts use it to keep
their hands dry and ensure

a reliable, sweat-free grip.

Gill immediately thought of
using it in rock climbing. he
found he had a natural ability to do the 20-foot handsonly rope climb, eventually
reaching a top ascent time
of 3.4 seconds.
i also began to visualize
a combination of gymnastics and rock climbing, and
saw that if i worked hard
at it i might become an
athlete after all, Gill says.
Gill did become a formidable athlete, mastering
dynamic movement and
experimenting with free
aerialslater dubbed
dynoson rock. he
preferred smaller rocks
and shorter lines. They
allowed him to completely
hone his focus on difcult
holds, body tension, and
awless movement.

as he Toured the country

perfecting his new

method of rock climbing,

he met the likes of Yvon
Chouinard and bob Kamps.
When i introduced
chalk and a more gymnastic style, they didnt really
know what to think, but
were accepting and some
were interested, Gill says.
usually they just smiled
and shook their heads.
during the 1950s, most
climbers stressed threepoint suspension, meaning
a climber had to have three
points of contact with the
rock at all times, whether
it be hands or feet. Most
credit that notion to being
an old holdover from the
u.s. army instruction manual. Gills contemporaries in
climbing associations like
the american alpine Club
also placed high importance on summitinga
true climb nished atop a
formidable peak.
Gills style didnt begin
to be taken seriously

Double Clutch
Shawangunks, new York
on the left side of dougs roof, a long boulder withyou
guessed ita roof capping the exit, is Double Clutch.
originally climbed in 1964 by dick Willams, John hudson,
and Pete Geiser, Gill managed to tack on a more direct
start to the line, bumping the grade from 5.9+ to 5.12.
Though you can climb on a rope through the roof and
onto the 5.4 sections to complete the pitch, most will
drop off at the ledge after the crux.

until a decade later, he

remembers.
in 1967 after obtaining
two degrees in mathematics, the 30-year-old Gill
moved to Fort Collins,
Colorado, to work on a
Ph.d. in complex analysis.
about a year later, he
received a phone call from
a bumptious young local
named Pat ament.
at 21, ament was
among a small group of
budding climbers who had
started to take bouldering
seriously. They knew of
Gill and were in awe of his
abilities.
hed leave little chalk
arrows sometimes that
pointed to a route that
he did, ament says. We
hadnt met him, but there
were incredible routes we

couldnt even touch that

had a little chalk arrow at
the bottom. it was kind of
mysterious.
among those routes was
Acrobatic Overhang (V5),
a mean overhanging bulge
in boulder Canyon. ament
followed Gills arrows to the
route with his friend royal
robbins. although they
were both strong climbers
with several respectable
rst free ascents under their
belts, including boulder
Canyons Supremacy Crack
(5.11b) and Athletes Feat
(5.11a), they stared at the line
in disbelief.
There was no way
anyone could climb this
overhang, ament says.
You couldnt even see a

ramps up, but there are still no full-time devotees. (3) john gill begins the movement to legitimize bouldering and adds a gymnastic touch to the way boulders are
climbed. || 1970s (2) the stonemasters develop the bouldering scene in yosemite by establishing and repeating harder problems, but still largely consider it to be
an inferior practice compared to longer climbs and hard free solos. (3) Midnight lightning sees its rst ascent by Ron Kauk in 1978. || 1980s (2) the emergence
climbing.com

| 19

the guide
Power

andrew burr

heath lillie gets a taste of gills bold

30-foot line on the thimble, black hills,
south dakota, which took even gill a few
visits before he got the nerve to top out.

of sport climbing emphasizes the value in pure, hard movements, which also gives bouldering validation. (1) lycra dominates the fashion world. (3) bouldering mats make their rst appearance, which leads to the development of crashpads. || 1990s (2) john shermans publisher forces him to grade every problem
in hueco for his forthcoming guidebook. this is the birth of the modern-day V-scale. (3) in 1998 the international Federation of sport climbing debuts its rst
20 |

de cember / january 2014

*1 =

,3=

courtesy john gill

way to make an upward

move on it.
In 1968, Ament knew
Gill lived in Fort Collins
and decided to call him
out of the blue.
I called him up one day
because Id heard about him
for a number of years. I got
tired of not being in touch
with him, Ament says.
Gill then invited
Ament to meet him for a
climbing session. The two
bouldered together and
instantly became friends.
They immediately recognized a shared gymnastic
approach to climbing. Gill
taught Ament an appreciation for uid body movement. Ament showed Gill
his one-arm mantel.
The two frequently
climbed together on Fort
Collins boulders that
became legendary, like
the Eliminator Boulder
at Horsetooth Reservoir,
where Gill rst ascended
Left Eliminator (V5), a
tough line requiring a
controlled swing with a
dangerous fall zone. Many
climbers opt to use a
toprope rig on the route.
But for Gill and
Ament, difculty and
danger werent primary
motivating factors. They
looked to bouldering as
a form of mental and
physical meditation, a
place to nd freedom.
Sometimes theyd have
days where they didnt
do a hard problem all day
long. Theyd just do long,
mellow traverses in their
tennis shoes, enjoying the
Colorado mountains and
their bodily connection
with the rock.
Those were some of
my happiest days, Ament
says. The purpose of
bouldering was to enjoy
climbing and go outside,
with the freedom of being
able to climb at whatever
level you wanted. But also
push your limits without
any reservations. It just had

that freedom of soul to it,

of expressing yourself.
As Aments strength
increased under Gills
mentorship, bouldering
also began to slowly catch
on as a legitimate form
of climbing. Not only
did it offer an interesting new philosophy and
way of thinking about
rock ascents, it was also
a great source of training
for longer routes. It gave
climbers the strength and
technique needed for
difcult moves, unlocking
routes at 5.11 and beyond.

wHEN BouldERINGS

popularity as a training
tool ourished in the
late 1980s, it began to be
accepted as an end itself,
rather than a means to becoming a better climber.
Thats how I pursued
it, says John Verm Sherman. I found the rewards
of bouldering were greater
than any other climbing I
was doing.
Sherman also began his
bouldering career chasing
elusive Gill ascents, trying
to follow in his footsteps.
we just thought of
Gill problems as being
these unattainable things.
He was so far out there,
Sherman says. He was
the man.

Sherman grew to
become one of the most
prolic boulderers in
North America. He put
up hundreds of ascents at
Hueco Tanks in Texas and
introduced the V-scale rating system, which we use
today. He was also popular
among fellow climbers for
his crass sense of humor
and image as the quintessential vagabond dirtbag.
But as he was taking the
bouldering world by storm
in the 1980s, the sport
was evolving and moving
away from Gills kinesthetic
philosophies.
like many new
boulderers on the scene,
Sherman didnt have a
gymnastic background
like Gill and Ament. while
fueled by the movement
and difculty behind
bouldering, he was less
apt to work problems
over and over again to
develop the muscle
memory to perform them
awlessly.
Instead, I was always
looking for something new
to do, particularly with regards to rst ascents. Thats
what really turned me on,
Sherman says. That was
always a big draw to me,
having that extra degree
of uncertainty going into
a problem, having it all on
me to gure out where

and how the problem was

going to go. Still, aesthetics factor heavily into Shermans climbing philosophy.
If you pursue it merely for
difculty, whats difcult
today is not going to be
difcult ve years from
now. But the aesthetics,
theyll always be beautiful,
he says.
Into the 2000s and
beyond, climbers began to
focus less on the aesthetics
Gill and Sherman championed. The driving force became a numbers game, with
climbers chasing harder and
harder problems. The focus
became difculty rather
than precise movement.
No matter how bad
you thrash at something,
as long as you get a bigger
number, youll get the acceptance and congratulations from your peers,
Sherman says.
This represents a
signicant break from
Gill, he says, who was so
far beyond his peers that
their approval was never
pushing him on. That
independent thinking is
what allowed Gill to break
barriers and take climbing
to the next level.

IN THIS dAy, were so

inundated with the media

that its very hard for the
gill demonstrates a difcult
core-training exercisethe
one-arm leverin Fort collins,
colorado, in the late 1960s.

independent-thinking
climber to remain independent-thinking and not be
inuenced by the pressures of sponsorship or
ego gratication through
being talked about, Sherman says. I think if we
do see another superbly
talented boulderer whos
a generation ahead of
everyone else and people
are scrambling to catch up,
that person will come from
some very obscure place.
Maybe hell be Amish and
not have a computer.

GIll oFFICIAlly retired

from climbing in his early

70s after injuries and arthritis became too painful
and restricted movement.
Some old guys keep
it up with a toprope, but
I wouldnt have, he says.
you have to know when
to quit.
Now 76 and living in
Pueblo, Colorado, Gill still
follows developments in
the climbing world with
great interest. As for the
current bouldering trend revolving around numbers, he
offers some perspective.
Current climbers
understand quite well the
contemporary interpretation of the sport: a
quest for difculty. Very
few seem to appreciate
the moving-meditation
aspect, he says. But difculty is a poorly dened
concept. At some point in
the future there will be a
reassessment of difculty,
but we are not there yet.
Even with difculty
aside, climbings scope
would not have its
gymnastic element
without Gills dramatic
advancement. He melded
mind with movement
and power, laying a new
groundwork for the way
we think of scaling rock.
Its on this foundation
that perhaps another
athlete, somewhere, will
help us move into the
next realm.

bouldering competition called the top rock challenge. that comp eventually became a world cup in 1999. || 2000s (3) bouldering reaches widespread acceptance and grows in popularity, forwarding progress in pads, shoes, and access. (1) hueco tanks famed Mushroom boulder is closed in 2007. (3) daniel woods
and Paul robinson send V16 in 2010. (2) their V16s are downgraded, and many climbers speculate that V16 may never exist in consensus.
climbing.com

| 21

the
guide
Power

technique

Dissecting the Dyno

master climbings biggest and most powerful move
By Andrew tower
A well-executed dyno is a beautiful thing. The setup and release.
The uid and controlled ight
that ends with latching the holds
above. Learning how to dyno can
also open up your climbing to new
possibilities. Perform it correctly
and your reward is typically a
good stance above hard-to-cover
ground. Do it poorly and youre
off the wall faster than you can
scream Save me, Sharma!
Dynos didnt gain popular-

brett Gottdener sticks it on Planet

X (V6 r), Joshua tree, California.

22 |

De cember / january 2014

ity until John Gills gymnastic

inuence validated bouldering
as its own type of climbing. (See
p. 17.) As routes and boulder
problems with more acrobatic
movement were recognized as
completely feasible projects, the
dyno became a real weapon in
the climbers toolkit. Conceivably,
sticking a dyno seems easier than
climbing statically. But launching
yourself upward and completely
disengaging from the rock while

trying to control your ailing

legs and torso is a technique that
requires practice and precision.
Think about it.
Before you do anything, survey
your objective and scope out your
landing zone. If you know youll
be dynoing sideways for a sloppy
hold on an overhanging wall, take
care to place pads and spotters
in the areas you may fall into. If
youre on a rope, note how far

and where you may fall, including

where youll end up when the
rope goes taught. It could very
well give you the boost in condence you need to really execute
when the time comes.
Plant your feet.
Nearly all of your upward power
comes from your legs, and without
a solid point from which to launch,
you wont go anywhere. Though
the best-case scenario will vary

WHEN SELECTING
A TENT

Training guidelines:
Look around. When youre in the gym and its busy, dont go
buckwild with dynos in the bouldering area. The uncontrolled
nature forces everyone around you to be on guard.

CHOOSE WISELY

Be rope aware. If you encounter a dyno on a route that will

take you more than two tries to complete and youre not using
your own rope, see if you cant pull past that move to clip up
before dialing it in. The repeated big falls on your partners rope
is undue wear and tear, and its downright rude.
Get a spot. The only thing worse than accidentally getting hit
by a dynoer is getting hit by a dynoer, and then carrying him out
of a climbing area because he broke his ankle.

problem by problem, try to nd

the most solid foot on the side of
your body that is in the general
direction youll be dynoing. Pick
feet that arent too high and close
to your hands. If you cant pull your
body over your feet before you
launch, youll end up shooting out
from the wall instead of up.
Line it up.
Take careful consideration of how
you want to catch the hold above.
If youre on a steeply overhanging
wall, try to minimize the outward
force from the wall, and concentrate all that power upward.
Dont waste energy on pumps.
Moving your body up and down
over and over again to get a feel
of what the dyno is going to
be like just wastes energy. Get
into position. Find your objective. Pump up once, lower, then
commit and dyno with everything
you have.

robert miramontes

Let your arms guide you.

Sink low before you dyno. Use
your arms to pull your body into
the optimal launch trajectory. Your
legs will be the driving strength to
get you to your goal, but your arms
are essentially the steering wheel.
Keep your eyes on the prize.
Stay focused on where youre
headed. If you lose sight of your
goal, youll miss every time. Theres
no magic tip for this one. Be conscientious of where on the hold
you need to be aiming for, which
hand youre going to be grabbing
it with, and which way youll be
swinging. Theres no great rule for
which hand you ought to lead
with when dynoing, but if you can
leave one of your hands on while
your feet cut, youll have that

nammatj
Lightweight, versatile, tremendously
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much more stability after you grab

the next hold. (See photo at left.)
Get a grip.
Your body is going to swing away
from the wall after latching. Dont
let go. Its a natural inclination to
release when your entire body
weight is only being held by one
arm, but if youre warmed up and
dont have a shoulder injury, grab
on for dear life. You know those
videos where professional climbers
arent swinging around like orangutans in a zoo? Their bodies are
calm because they immediately use
their core to slow their outward
swing and bring their legs and feet
back to the center in control. As
soon as youve latched your hold,
focus on tightening your core to
control the swing.
Have a plan.
Know where youre going to put
your feet and hands as soon as you
control your swing. There are few
things more heartbreaking than
sticking an insane dyno mid-route,
then melting off the next moves
because you couldnt nd the right
footholds to move forward.
Go for it.
No, seriously. Have you ever
watched someone try a dyno
repeatedly only to fall off and
be facing you when they land
on the crashpad? That spin is a
telltale sign of noncommitment.
Most climbers, when they know
they are going to fall back to the
ground, will instinctively spot
a landing before theyve even
fallen. Unfortunately that lack
of commitment robs you of the
precious power and drive that
might otherwise be the difference
between sticking a difcult dyno,
and crashing to the Earth.

Joe Stock/www.stockalpine.com

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THE
GUIDE
Power

TRAINING

Stairway to Hell

Build and use the unbelievably simple and overwhelmingly effective Bachar Ladder
distance based on your
personal preference and
height. (The ideal length
is the distance you can
reach with a free arm
while locking off at jawlevel with the other.)
7. After your last rung, tie
each strand into a gure
eight on a bight.
8. Attach one end to a
ceiling or tree, and secure
the bottom of the ladder
to the ground or wall
at your preferred
campusing angle.
9. Start getting power!

24 |

DE CEMBER / JANUARY 2014

ladder without the use of

your feet, the instability
of the tool forces you
to use your entire core,
shoulders, and back for
stability.

Get
10 Wooden dowels (1.5 in
diameter) cut into 12- to
14-inch sections
1 Retired climbing rope,
about 40 feet

4. Thread the two rope

ends through the previously drilled holes in the
rst dowel until the rung
is resting snugly on the
overhand knots.
5. Measure 16 inches
above your current rung
and tie an overhand knot
in each rope strand.
6. Repeat steps four and
ve for each of the remaining rungs. If 16 inches
is too far or too short for
you to campus, adjust the

Build

Train
Ladder Ladders
1. From the bottom of
your Bachar Ladder, campus up one rung, match,
and then campus back
down to the bottom rung
and match there.
2. Step off and rest.

Safety: Be sure to have

a spotter. Take care to
monitor your elbows
and shoulders for pain
during trainingor if
you feel labored gripping
items, shaking hands, or
lifting things with your
shoulders. Tendonitis and
soft-tissue strains and
tears are not uncommon
with this type of intense
training. Gaining power
will serve no purpose if
youre injured.

John Bachar
March 23, 1957 to July 5, 2009

rope
1. Drill parallel holes one
inch from the ends of
each of the dowels that
are wide enough to pass
your rope through.
2. Find the middle of the
rope and tie a gure eight
on a bight. This will be the
grounding anchor point.
3. Tie overhand knots
equal lengths from the
bight with each strand.
Consider the height
and steepness youll be
hanging your ladder when
tying your rst knots, as
this will be where your
rst rung hangs above the
ground.

dowel
knot

What he did: As the undisputed godfather of

free soloing, Bachar established and soloed groundbreaking routes throughout California in the 1970s
and 80s. Among his accomplishments is Astroman
with Ron Kauk and John Long, the 11-pitch 5.11c
up the east face of Washington Column in Yosemite. This practically ushered in a new era of longroute climbing. In 1981, he once ofered a reward
of $10,000 (about $25,000 in todays economy) to
anyone who could keep up with him for a day. No
one took him up on the challenge.
Why he matters: Bachar was obsessed with
training. His usual spot in Yosemites Camp 4 was
littered with training tools, and he relentlessly committed to developing power and strength through
a structured regimen, which was pretty unique for
the time. It paid dividends, though, and Bachar remains one of climbings most heralded gureheads
for the advancement of the sport.

ANDREW BURR

YOU CAN FIND a ngerboard bolted to the top

of at least one door frame
in nearly every climbers
house. Our ngers do a lot
of the work while were
out climbing, and many
climbers are obsessed. But
all the nger strength in
the world isnt going to
translate to harder sends
if you havent worked on
developing the power and
body strength to pull your
weight up off the tiniest
holds your iron tendons
might be capable of
crimping.
John Bachar, freesoloing pioneer and
all-around groundbreaking climber who made a
name for himself in the
1970s and 80s (see right),
was forward-thinking in
his training techniques
and developed the Bachar
Ladder in order to develop
stronger upper-body and
lockoff strength. A Bachar
Ladder is comprised of
evenly spaced dowels (or
PVC pipes covered in grip
tape) tied to a rope that
is hung at a steep angle.
By ascending the dangling

3. Without matching on
the second rung, campus
to the third, match, and
then down-campus back
to your starting position.
4. Step off and rest.
5. Repeat incrementally by
adding one rung with each
set until you get to the
top, then go back down,
subtracting one rung at a
time like a pyramid.

Pint-Sized Power

EDDIE GIANELLONI

Climb like Ashima Shiraishi to engage beast mode

A SHORT FIVE YEARS
ago, Ashima Shiraishi
was merely a blip on the
international climbing
radar. Bouldering with her
dad in Manhattans Central
Park and at local climbing
gyms, she jumped into
prominence with her
2010 ascent of Power of
Silence, a stout V10 in
Hueco Tanks, Texas, at the
age of 8. Since then, she
has ticked off a new grade
nearly every year and
currently holds court with
the top female boulderers
and route climbers in the
world with multiple sends
of V13 and 5.14c. Not to
mention shes the youngest person to climb V13 as
well as 5.14c.
This tiny powerhouse
isnt your average image of
climbing powershe may

not even be able to ride

whatever roller coasters
she wants. On the surface,
it seems more appropriate
to peer into the training
schedules of storied
climbers like Daniel
Woods, Chris Sharma, Alex
Puccio, or Angie Payne,
but despite her relative
size and stature, Shiraishi
still packs the serious
punch necessary for these
types of elite sends. Wed
be remiss if we didnt
gure out her secrets.
As a climber, Shiraishis
biggest limiting factor
currently is her size, which
some might happily
dismiss as an excuse not
to climb the hardest lines.
With a wingspan dwarfed
by adult climbers, she has
to compensate by ratcheting up her power to pull

through moves that may

be really big for her, or by
climbing dynamically to
match taller folks lengthwise. Since I am short, she
says. I usually have to jump
on most climbs to start.
On hard routes, especially
bouldering, there are moves
that you have to use power
to get through. I try to lockoff on a lot of climbs with
long reaches so I can avoid
jumping through.

Train
Dont be intimidated by
the thought of training
specically for power; its
not as hard as you might
think. Kris Peters, personal
trainer to a dozen pro
climbers (and half the
training duo Team of 2
Training, along with climb-

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ing coach Justen Sjong)

gave us this workout to
tack on to the end of a
gym session. It will help
you attain real power and
generate lockoff strength
that will be key on those
reachy moves.
6-Second Death Drop
1. Find a pull-up bar, set of
rings, or a hangboard.
2. Do a pull-up and lower
down slowly on a sixsecond count. You should
not be at the starting position until the six seconds
are up.
3. Once you reach the
bottom, pull back up as
fast as you can and repeat

the lowering process.

Sets: 1 to 6
Rest: 3 minutes in between each set
Reps: 5 (or scale down to
your ability)
Its safe because the
lowering helps relieve
stress off the tendons in
the elbow. Thats why I do
negatives after a climbing
day because it stretches
the tendons after pulling
all day, says Peters. This
type of eccentric training
focuses on elongating
the muscles, which trains
the body to have greater
control and focuses on
building lockoff strength.

the
guide
Power

fuel

By Andrew Tower

DeciDing which fooDs

to pack for a day of climbing
isnt always obvious. on
one hand youre looking for
clean, energy-packed foods
that wont weigh down your
pack or drop like a brick into
your stomach. And wouldnt
it be nice if they tasted good,
too? on the other hand, you
dont want to succumb to
the wallet-draining, grass-fed
hemp wraps at your local specialty grocery store. Luckily,
a sensible answer lies in your
own pantry. cheap, energypacked snacks that are easy
to make and lling are just a
few steps of prep away.
Dr. Allen Lim of skratch
Labs in Boulder, colorado,
is spreading the philosophy
that clean, whole, real foods
are leaps and bounds better
than processed foods and
bars. its not a groundbreaking food ideology of fueling
yourself at home by any
means, but in a world where
convenience is king, its too

easy to grab an imperfect

something at the store on
your way to the crag, instead of making something
better for you before you
hop in the car.
An average sports bar has
about 18 different ingredientssome bars have up to
30 listed ingredientswith
only about 60 to 70 percent
of those ingredients being
real food, says Lim. The
average moisture content
is only about four percent,
making them dry and difcult
to eat. At an average calorie
count of 22332 percent of
which come from fatmost
people are better off eating
an unfrosted cupcake. Most
cupcake recipes use fewer
than eight real food ingredients, have a moisture content
of 40 to 50 percent, making
them easier to eat and digest,
and have the same calorie
count and fat content as the
average sports bar.
Lim gave us recipes
that require no baking, no
next-level kitchen skills, and
use ingredients that every
dirtbag has in the pantry to
create a packable food that
delivers all-day energy.

Better crag food will lead to

more sends and more climbing

Almond Butter & Jelly Rice Cake

Super
Snacks
26 | de cemBer / january 2014

Ingredients
3 cups sushi rice
4.5 cups water
Salt
1 cup almond butter (or any nut butter)
1 cup fruit preserves
Directions
Cook rice per instructions and salt to taste. Spread
half of the rice about 1/2 thick on a baking sheet. Use
a spatula to evenly spread almond butter over the rice,
and then place several dollops of preserves on top.
Gently press the remaining rice over the top to create a
sandwich. Let it set for a few minutes, and then cut into
about 15 squares and wrap in Martha Wrap (a foil/parchment paper combo) or equivalent.
Nutrition Facts
One rice cake provides approximately 300 calories (27%,
or 81 calories, from fat ), 49 grams of carbohydrates, 7
grams of protein, and 100 milligrams of sodium. The moisture content is about 60%, making them easy to digest.

Even Easier
A more potato-y alternative

Boil or roast a few baby potatoes. After theyre cooked, season with
salt and olive oil to taste. Theyre portable, super easy to make, and
not including the oil, ve small potatoes will give you 263 calories (51
calories, or 19 percent, from fat), 50 grams of carbohydrates, ve grams
of protein, and about 150 milligrams of sodium, depending upon how
much salt you use. Moisture content is about 70%, which also aids hydration. Dr. Lim made these snacks for Tour de France cyclists he works
with. It quickly became a favorite when they didnt cause the stomach
cramps that the typical dry, hard bar caused.

Breakfast for lunch

FACT: 61% of climbing gyms have seen an

increase in participation/membership by
adding TRUBLUE Auto Belays*

www.autobelay.com
877-565-6885
Designed for climbers, engineered for safety.

If you make oatmeal in the morning, take the leftovers and let it sit in a
pan. Add some additional fruit or nuts. With enough time, the oatmeal
will set and turn into a portable bar that you can eat later in the day.
Or just put a lid on it and pack a spoon.

Better choices for when you have no other choice

ChipsPork Rinds
Pork rinds, as you may very well know, carry a distinct stigma.
Each of those deep-fried strips of pig skin wouldnt seem like a
very healthy food source, and youre mostly correct. But, when
compared with their sister snack, the ubiquitous chip, youll nd
a slightly better alternative to the carb- and fat-loaded bags of
crisps. Pork rinds, by comparison, have about nine grams of fat
per serving and 17 grams of protein. With chips coming up short
at only 1.9 grams of protein and 11 grams of fat, in a pinch pork
rinds are better than chips. However, dont plan on making them
a major part of your regular diet.
GatoradeCoconut Water
In the morning, always coconut water. Coconut water has about
ve times the potassium than Gatorade, great for preventing
muscle cramps. But at the end of a vigorous day, you need to
replace the sodium you lost, which is where Gatorade shines, offering 200 milligrams to coconut waters 30.
Roller FoodJerky
You know the food were talking about. You shouldnt eat it, but
how can you help it when theyre two for $1.19 and delicious?
Easy, Kobayashi. Take two steps back and walk on over to the
refrigerator section. There you should nd blocks of cheddar or
string cheese. Grab one of these and some beef jerky and feast
away. Youll get protein to aid muscle recovery without all those
saturated fats, not to mention half the cholesterol and sodium.
Try to nd jerky with less sugar and preservatives. Strike out?
Grab a tin of tuna and some crackers.

fill up!

Much more than a cookbook,

this guide to nutrition and onthe-go energy for athletes has us
obsessed. And eating better than
ever. $25, skratchlabs.com

Scan the code above to see how Santa Barbara Rock

Gym incorporates auto belays into their facility.
Or visit http://www.autobelay.com/climbing-gyms/

THE
GUIDE
Power

CULTURE

The Grid: Power

A handy reference guide to where its at
BY ANDREW TOWER

BEAST

Campusing

Summit beers
Especially in Colorado.
More Great American Beer
Festival medal winners
than any other state.

Downgrading
One-arm pull-ups
Not that useful, really, but demands
respect. Get there: Throw a towel over a
bar and do pull-ups gripping said towel
with one hand and the bar with the
other. Begin building resistance to your
bar arm until you can go towel-free.

Torched tendons
Tape to prevent injury. Find
three ways on p. 60.

Climbing gym membership

Rainy day
But then you hit the gym
to turn weaknesses into
strengths. Get new training
ideas free on the iPad.

NO!

YES!

Rest days
A necessary evil, but
youll return to the game
recharged. Have fun!

Climbing gym buddy pass

Take.
Learn to climb through
the pump in our guide to
redpointing on p. 53.

Zumba
How about some CrossFit
Consolation instead, there, Steve?
Beers

Making it easy for faster

parties to pass
Advice on p. 62
CLINICS

GUIDES TIP

Guidelines for Passers: 1. Kill them with kindness. 2. Make sure the route is safe to pass on. 3. Choose
the right pitch on which to pass. 4. Conrm that you are the faster team. 5. Respect the others ability level and risk tolerance. Guidelines for Passees: 1. Do everything you can to make it easier for faster
teams to pass. 2. Write the name of your intended route on the back of your car before heading out.
3. Communicate clearly when and where you want to be passed. 4. Keep your ego in check.

PASSING LANE
By Jeff Ward

PROPER TECHNIQUES AND COMMUNICATION TO PASS A SLOWER PARTY ON-ROUTE

belay stance instead of running the rope out

the full 60 meters. Combining pitches can
slow you down if you end up at a bad belay
stance with the wrong gear. If you are unsure
of whats ahead and youre more than 100
feet out, dont pass the low-hanging fruit
that is a nice ledge with good cracks.
Leading in blocks (one person leading
a few pitches in a row, and then swapping)
will also speed up your day by allowing
the second to sprint up the pitch without
worrying about saving gas for the next lead.
But make sure to polish your changeovers
between blocks: Flipping the stack, clipping the second into the anchor, passing
gear, and getting the new leader on belay
shouldnt take more than a few minutes.

After spending the last two decades working as a climbing guide around the world, Ive had plenty of opportunities to witness and be
part of teams passing each other on popular climbs. These experiences have been anywhere from impressive to embarrassing and humorous to downright dangerous. If you plan to spend any time on the classics, you are bound to run into a party or two (or three...) all moving at
diferent paces. Here are a few experience-driven tips to help you smooth out the passing process and make the whole operation go quickly
and safely for both parties.

name of your intended route on the back of

your car. This gives the teams behind you the
ability to go somewhere else. If you are racking up at the base of the climb and you know
you will be pushing your limits and moving
slowly, talk with the other team to nd out if
they are in the same boat. You may nd out
that they are a couple of send-bots on a sixroute link-up. Probably best to let them jump
ahead at the start.

Arnold Schwarzenegger
(now)

DE CE MBER / JANUARY 2014

is moving much faster than the other. Work

together and be friendly and accommodating to avoid route rage. Dont go for the
pass right out of the gate. Show the slower
team that you are much faster by staying on
their heels for a few pitches. Once they realize you can pass and not slow them down,
they will be more willing to let you go by,
which makes the pass much faster.
If you are the slower party, know that
just because you woke up earlier and got
on the route rst doesnt mean the route
is yours for the day. Be gracious and let
faster parties pass; tell them directly youd
like them to pass, and provide an opportunity at a good spot. Be comfortable sharing
anchors and do what you can to make the
pass safe and efcient. There will always
be someone that climbs harder and faster
than you. Its not the end of the world. On
the other hand, if you are on a route with an
abundance of loose rock or a narrow, steep
ice climb, you could argue that you do have
the right to stay in front.
If you are the passing party, consider
how your actions and interactions afect
the other team, both in terms of their
safety and their enjoyment. If the team
ahead of you is only marginally slower, its
probably best to hang behind. You dont have
the right to jeopardize their safety just to

| DE
CEM
/ JA
RY 2014
62CEM
BER
/ BER
JA NUA
RYNUA
2014
62 | DE

LEAST

28 |

GET IN POSITION
TO PASS WITH
MINIMAL
DISRUPTION
TO THE OTHER
TEAM.

COMMUNICATE
AND WORK
TOGETHER AS
ONE TEAM.
It is usually obvious to see when one group

pass. You had the ability to choose another

route when you realized there were other
parties; they did not. This party may be in
the middle of the best climb of their life;
dont ruin it for them.

PASS IN
APPROPRIATE
SECTIONS.

Climbing a variation on the route is

optimal, but that option isnt always available. The next best alternative is to pass

at a belay stance, which is fairly easy and

safe. The slower party can take a little rest
while the faster party goes into overdrive
to make the pass as painless as possible.
Share bolted belays or try to nd a diferent belay station when building anchors
with gear. Avoid hanging belays and look
for ledges large enough to stack your rope.

WORK ON YOUR
TRANSITIONS.
This is important whenever youre multipitch climbing. Always stop earlier at a solid

SKIP STERLING

Poor spotting, partner lands bad

Dial in the basics here: climbing
.com/skill/spot-on.

g. 1

SUPERCORN

Government shutdown
Right when conditions
are perfect!

FIGURE IT OUT
BEFORE THE
CLIMB.
For routes with long approaches, write the

On many routes this often means leading

a pitch while the other teams leader is still
on the sharp end. This is inappropriate on
many types of pitches (loose, hard to protect, narrow ice climbs, etc.), and one team
needs to be considerably faster. Work as two
teams to get your leader behind the slower
leader. Give the slower leader enough
space to fall without hitting you. On bolted
climbs, clip your draw onto the spine side
of the top biner of the leaders draw (g. 1).
This keeps the biner from being torqued in
the hanger; plus, it is easy to clean.
As you ascend the pitch, stay outside the
other leaders rope; dont duck under their
cord. This is fairly easy on vertical or slabby
face climbs, but it gets tricky in chimneys
and roofs; consider that when deciding
where to pass. On trad routes, clip directly
into the other leaders gearbut only after
getting express permission from the other
team. Make sure its well placed, too, instead
of just blindly clipping it. Dont unclip the
slower leaders rope from the gear, as that
could put him in danger. These tactics will
put you at the next belay right behind the
other leader. Get your second up quickly and
speed through your transition so you can
start leading the next pitch and gain some
ground on getting as far in front of the other
team as possible.

ONCE YOU PASS,

GET OUT OF THE
OTHER TEAMS
WAY QUICKLY.
Dont run pitches together until youre a
full pitch ahead. Take the rst easy belay
stance you can and transition quickly. This
will get your belayer out of the other teams
way sooner and cause less disruption.
Continue to move quickly throughout the
climbtheres a reason you passed in the
rst place!

BE SENSITIVE
TO THE OTHER
TEAMS ABILITY
LEVEL AND RISK
TOLERANCE.

I once witnessed a faster party pass while

the slower team was still leading a pitch.
The faster leader unclipped all but one of
the slower leaders draws and clipped his
own rope into them. When the slower leader
nally realized what was happening, he was
irate. He voiced his opinion about what he
thought of this passing technique, and the
passing leader said, Whats your problem?
I left one draw clipped. Needless to say, this
didnt go over well.
Understandably so, the slower leader was
not that comfortable pushing his limits 500
feet of the deck while being clipped to a
single bolt. The faster leader didnt seem to
understand why (or more likely didnt care).
Make sure you dont project your comfort
level and ability onto the slower party.
Chances are they are moving slower due to
a lower risk tolerance and/or ability level.
Respect that and try to work with them. Cut
them some slack as you pass, be nice, and
dont forget to thank them profusely!
One of the best experiences I had being
passed was in Yosemite many years ago.
We were climbing as a party of three and
moving relatively quickly, but a party of two
came up behind us moving much faster. We
reluctantly let them pass, which slowed us
down a bit, but when we nally got back to
our car at the end of the day, the passing
party had left a couple of cold beers on our
windshield and a quick note of thanks. Now
thats how you pass with style.

62

63

ASK A GUIDE
What is the diference between a prusik,
Klemheist, and an auto-block? What
are the pros and cons of each one as a
backup in a rappel system? Andy
The auto-block, Klemheist, and prusik
can all be used as a rappel backup on
the brake strands of the rappel. Just
remember to extend your belay device
so the belay device doesnt unintentionally release the hitch. (See how to do it
here: climbing.com/skill/pre-riggingrappels.) The preferred hitch is the autoblock because of how easily it releases,
but consider that the number of wraps
needed for an efective rappel backup is
directly related to the length of the loop
used. The bigger the loop, the more wraps
needed. The Klemheist is preferred if you
only have slings (instead of cord), but
remember slings contain material like
Dyneema, which have a low melting point.
Having a sling or cord that is a dedicated
rappel backup isnt a bad idea, and products like the Sterling Hollow Block ($11,
sterlingrope.com) are very useful for this
purpose. A prusik will work in a pinch,
but it is harder to release once loaded, and
its often more difcult to dress properly.
Without a properly dressed prusik, the
holding power can be unpredictable.

Jef Ward is an AMGA-certied and

IFMGA-licensed guide and co-owner
of North Cascades Mountain Guides
(ncmountainguides.com). He works as an
instructor for the AMGA and serves on the
AMGAs Technical Committee.

Climbing (USPS No. 0919-220, ISSN No. 0045-7159) is published ten times a year (February, March, April (Gear), May, July (Photo Annual), August, September, October, November, December/January) by SkramMedia LLC, 2520 55th St., Suite 210, Boulder, CO 80301. Periodicals postage paid at Boulder, CO, and additional mailing ofces. Canada Post publications agreement
No. 40008153. Subscription rates are $29.97 for one year of postal delivery in the United States. Add $20 per year for Canada and $40 per year for surface postage to other foreign
countries. Canadian undeliverable mail to Pitney Bowes IMEX PO Box 54, Station A, Windsor ON N9A 6J5. Postmaster: Please send all UAA to CFS. Retailers: Please send correspondence to
Climbing c/o Retail Vision 815 Ogden Avenue, Lisle, IL 60532-1337. Climbing magazine is a division of SkramMedia LLC. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to: Climbing, PO Box 420235,
Palm Coast FL 32142-0235.
CLIM BING.COM

| 63

ANDREW BURR (DABBING); BOB DORAN / COURTESY WIKIMEDIA COMMONS (SCHWARZENEGGER, NOW); MICHAEL ARTHUR WORDEN EVANS COURTESY WIKIMEDIA
COMMONS (SCHWARZENEGGER, THEN; COURESTY BOULDER ROCK CLUB (BUDDY PASS); JONATHAN SACKHEIM OF HTTP://GROUNDSFORPROMOTION.COM (GYM
MEMBERSHIP); ISTOCK (ZUMBA); BEN FULLERTON (2); COURTESY OSKAR BLUES (DALE'S)

Arnold
Schwarzenegger
(then)

Dabbing

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2013 adidas AG. adidas, the 3-Bars logo and the 3-Stripes mark are registered trademarks of the adidas Group.

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available at rei

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ISSUE 321

Pufes
Theres an insulation
war afootand youre
the winner. Down, traditionally the lightest,
warmest, and lofiest
for the weight, has
always had an Achilles
heel: It wont keep you
warm when its wet.
Now, new treatments
protect precious down
plumes from wilting
when water creeps
in. Synthetics, which
do insulate when wet,
have rarely compressed
or breathed as well as
down (and many of
our testers have said
theyre not as toasty),
but new production
methods have upped
breathability and
altered their physical
structure to increase
packability. Learn more
about the performance
qualities of these newcomers in the following
reviews. Here, nd a
primer on the basics of
both insulations.

Down is comprised of spherical plumes that exist under the

outer plumage (or feathers) of
waterfowl, like a duck or goose.
The three-dimensional shape
traps body heat in tiny air pockets
for insulation. Its breathable and
allows moisture to escape.
Down insulation is measured
by ll power, which refers to the
lof and how much air can be
trapped for heat. Higher ll power
means ufer lof and therefore
more warmth.
If lof decreases over time,
wearing jackets or lying in a sleeping
bag can increase lof, according to
the International Down and Feather
Testing Laboratory (IDFL). Regular
shaking, washing, and drying will

THE BASICS
also recharge ll power.
The highest quality down (750
to 900+ ll power) comes from
mature geese who grow larger
down clusters. Goose down has
also been proven to have stronger
individual plumes than duck down,
and it lasts longer.
As a by-product of the food
industry, most down comes from
birds that are raised for ve or six
months and then sold for meat.
According to IDFL, as of 2010,
nearly 80 percent of the worlds
down came from China, where
duck and goose meat is eaten
more per capita than any other
place in the world. Turn to page
33 for more information on down
sourcing.

Synthetic insulation is made

of ultrane polyester threading,

which can take the shape of long,
continuous strands (several inches in length), or bundles of short
staples (two inches or less). Both
styles of synthetic insulation are
designed to intertwine and create
pockets of air, which trap heat
and insulate.
When searching for a waterresistant, man-made substitute
for down to ll sleeping bags and
military clothing, the U.S. Army
approached Albany International
Corporation, a textile company, in
1983 to develop such a product.
PrimaLof One was patented
in 1986 for military use; L.L. Bean
brought the rst synthetic jacket

GEAR

BEN FULLERTON; DOWN COURTESY PATAGONIA, SYNTHETIC COURTESY POLARTEC

to the commercial market in 1989

(Beans Mountainlight Jacket), and
PrimaLof One can still be found in
dozens of modern jackets.
Short staples of synthetic
insulation tend to be sofer and
more compressible, but can
migrate and create cold spots.
Long strands are typically stiffer
and less compressible, but
they do not rip as easily or shif
around.
When synthetics get wet, the
moisture lls the pockets of air
between the bers instead of
being absorbed into them, quickly
drying by sun or body heat.
Synthetics are less expensive
than their down counterparts,
and theyre hypoallergenic.

CLIMBING.COM

| 31

Gear

The big review

Elite Heat

Warm up with our favorite 5 pufes of the season

By Devon Barrow anD
Julie ellison

A perfect insulated jacket is one

that lets you enjoy
climbing more. It
should go above
and beyond the
basics of comfort,
warmth, packability, and style. It
should withstand
several seasons of
wear and tear as
well as the unpredictable elements
of Mother Nature.
It should be the
one piece of
apparel you cant
wait to unfurl
from your pack.
With advances
in technology,
hybridization, and
discipline-specic
features, it is way
beyond just comparing down to
synthetic. Armed
with more than a
dozen jackets, our
tester crew experienced everything
from the Colorado alpine to the
harsh Northeast
winds and the
snowelds of
the Bugaboos in
Canada. After
almost 120 days
of testing, they
emerged with ve
top picks.

32 |

Puffy

Adidas Terrex Korum Hoodie

Outdoor Research Halogen Hoody

$260; 14 oz.; adidas.com

$199; 13.3 oz.; outdoorresearch.com

Performance

While working hard on long approaches in

the Adirondacks during unseasonably cold
fall mornings, our testers forgot they had this
breathable but pleasantly warm piece on. A
diamond-shaped panel of stretchy eece in
the armpits not only allowed for big reaches
and twisting while climbing, but it also kept
them from overheating. It was really impressive how well it kept warmth in but let
moisture out, our Canadian tester said. The
700-ll goose down made it instantly warming and extremely packable, which was great
for all-day outings when space was limited;
it compressed down to the size of a bag of
ground coffee. This piece is multi-functional,
as one tester stated, Its intended as an
outer layer, but is so light and slim-tting that
it easily ts under an outer shell. After three
months of testing, packing, and unpacking,
the down kept its loftiness, shape, and positionno shifting so that certain areas were
bare while others were pufftastic. Another
great feature: a smooth and snag-free zipper.
Even obsessive-compulsive zipper operators
wont nd issues with this jacket, which is
rare for any puffy.

Climb in it, belay in it, and then don it for

the hike out, and this jacket just ows right
along with you, one tester said. Crisp mornings during shoulder season at Cathedral and
White Horse ledges that turned into muggy
afternoons proved to be the ideal situation
for the Halogen. It kept testers toasty with
60 grams of PrimaLoft One insulation in
the body, arms, and hood, but let air ow
through the stretchy Schoeller panels in
the pits and sides of the torso. This jacket
laughed in the face of muggy and wet conditions that are common in the Northeast. The
synthetic insulation still kept me warm when
the jacket got damp, and it dried quickly
within about 15 minutes when I was active
and moving, one tester said. Water-resistant
Pertex Quantum fabric on the outside
repelled light water and protected from
abrasion, resulting in zero rips throughout
three months of testing while climbing ice
and rock in New York. I havent noticed any
degradation; it still looks and feels new, said
another user. A versatile hood stretches to
t over a helmet, but has elastic around the
face to keep out wind.

Cons

With thin ripstop nylon, some testers

thought this piece was fragile, so its not
ideal for bushwhacking or sharp puppy claws
for fear of rips and tears.

Hand-warmer pockets were positioned low

so they were covered by the harness and
hard to access at belay stations. Its designed
as a performance midlayer, so dont expect
super-duper and instantaneous warmth.

Conclusion

Pure awesomeness is how one tester

summed the Korum up for its style, coziness,
breathability, and warmth. This is great for
all-around use, from an alpine approach to
frontpointing up the third pitch.

If eece just isnt enough for a cold climb,

the Halogen will give you added warmth
with similar breathability and top-class coziness. Extreme packability (the size of a small
cantaloupe) means take it everywhere.

Airy Warmth

Jack of All Trades

de cember / january 2014

Bottom Line

THe LowDown

The sourcing of down has become a hot topic in the outdoor industry in the last several years. Rumors of
widespread live-plucking (a process that strips an unsedated goose or duck of its feathers) by down farmers for well-known brands spread, and
understanding where your down came from and how it was attained became paramount. Down has been used as insulation for centuries,
particularly for bedding, and live-plucking during the molting process when birds are shedding was common practice until about 50 years ago. now,
many outdoor retailers have reexamined the sources of their down and increased efforts to make them environmentally and ethically sound. Allied
Feather & Down, supplier of major outdoor retailers, has since pledged the highest standards of quality and ethical business practice, doing the best
they can to prevent their suppliers from live-plucking, though it can be tricky to monitor. look for labels on your down pieces that indicate ethical
awareness, such as bluesign, a stamp that veries clean manufacturing, or mountain Equipment co-ops Ethical Sourcing Program.

Millet Trilogy DownTek

The north Face ThermoBall Full Zip

$299; 13.8 oz.; millet.fr

$199; 11.6 oz.; thenorthface.com

Mountain Hardwear Thermostatic

Hooded
$250; 10 oz.; mountainhardwear.com

The Trilogy is the epitome of a uffy,

maximum-warmth, instantly cozy jacket
with one major technical advantage: water
resistance. During a cats-and-dogs thunderstorm in the Bugaboos of Canada, one tester
was without a shell for about 20 minutes:
When we got back to camp, everything and
everyone was drenched, but I couldnt have
been warmer! Thats thanks to the DownTek
hydrophobic treatment applied to the down
plumes, which prevents them from absorbing water; instead, it just runs off. The Trilogy
outshined others because of its features: a
butt-covering length that rode comfortably
over or under a harness, extreme packability,
a voluminous, adjustable hood that t over
a helmet, an integrated and stiff visor, and
snag-free zippers. One tester also lauded
the piece for how seamlessly it moved, It
didnt restrict my movement like other puffy
jackets this warm can. From climbing Grand
Teton in Wyoming to alpine conditions on
Mount Baker in Washington and then ski
touring in Chamonix, France, the Trilogy always compressed easily, lofted immediately,
and kept its original shape and puff.

It feels like down, looks like down, warms

like down, packs like down, so it must be
synthetic? The North Face took PrimaLoft
insulation, shaped it into small cotton ball
like pieces that mimic the lament clusters
of real down, and made an instant classica
jacket with the best qualities of both down
and synthetic. These small clusters trap
heat in the air pockets between them for
warmth, giving it heating capabilities that are
equivalent to 600-ll down. One tester said
it best, When wearing this jacket, I forget
that I dont have to baby it like I would
down. It really is the best of both, after
taking it bouldering in Colorados alpine and
then to the Wind River Range in Wyoming.
Since its synthetic, its water-resistant and
keeps you warm when wet, but the air
pocketlled design makes it breathable
and faster-drying. Plus, it packs down smaller
than traditional long-strand or short-staple
synthetic pieces, so theres almost no downside. One tester afrmed, This jacket is as
versatile as it gets. It gave me a thousand
reasons to never take it off. The North Face
offers a lifetime warranty.

When Im not sure if Ill need an extra layer

or not, this is the piece I keep putting in
my summit pack, one tester said of this
synthetic full-zip jacket with new Thermal.Q
Elite. While most other synthetic insulations
need another binding fabric to stay in place,
Thermal.Q Elite is stable on its own, and
without a second binding material or stitching, it reduces weight and adds breathability.
Mountain Hardwear is claiming 35 percent
more warmth at the same 60-gram weight
of other fabrics, and testers found it did feel
warmer than other jackets with comparable weight. Combined with a lightweight
baselayer, testers kept warm when climbing
in temps down to about 40F: Id normally
have to dig out another midlayer or shell,
but the Thermostatic was just enough.
The additional airow and increased heat
combine to offer comfort in a wider range
of temperatures, which means doing the
layer-changing dance less often. The jacket
was excellent to climb in, too; it felt light on
the body and didnt restrict any movement
when stemming and scumming on long
routes in Lumpy Ridge, Colorado.

The technical look means you might not be

rocking this around town. The high level of
warmth and puff makes it less versatile than
others in our test.

Thinner and lighter face fabric means this

jacket could get shredded more easily, so
testers were wary of actually climbing in it.
A slick outer fabric made this a bit clammy
next to skin.

Testers found it was cut a bit short, so

without a harness on, it tended to lift up and
expose the midriff. A hanging liner on the
inside caught on gloves, pulling the lining out
through the sleeves.

From chilly belays to frigid ice climbs, the

Trilogy will be your go-to jacket throughout
the cold months of winter. Its ultra-warm
and ber-cozy with the technical advantage
of being water-resistant.

This piece takes the best qualities of down

and synthetic (without the caveats) and
merges them into one gold-medal jacket
that promises warmth, packability, water
resistance, and even a cozy feel.

If other 60-gram synthetics just arent warm

enough or youre an ounce-counter, the
Thermostatic is for you. Get more heat,
added comfort in a wider variety of temperature ranges and less weight.

Belay Buddy

Best of Both worlds

Temp-Swing Master

climbing.com

| 33

ADVERTISEMENT

GEAR
Tested

Crag Sundries

A few cutting-edge extras for the perfect climbing day

BY JULIE ELLISON

OUT WITH THE OLD.

IN WITH THE NEW.

Restoring Americas
crags one bolt at a time.

In 2003, Climbing with the support of The North Face

and Petzl launched the Anchor Replacement Initiative
(ARI)a movement to replace worn-out xed hardware
at popular crags across the country. Leading into 2011,
we are proud to announce that nearly 500 routes
have received ARI support and more than 1,000 bolts
have been replacedthanks to dedicated climbers
who spend countless hours volunteering their time
replacing hardware.

MEET CLIMBER
BEN BRUESTLE,
ONE OF ARIS MOST
DEDICATED EQUIPPERS
Hometown: Pueblo, CO
Favorite local crag: Tanner Dome
Number of years youve been climbing: 18
Number of routes youve replaced as
part of ARI: 11
Here are a handful: Bam Bam, 5.10a, Wild Side;
Newlin Creek KC, 5.10c, Wild Side; Newlin Creek Tuff
Turf, 5.10d, Titanic, Hardscrabble I Did It My Way, 5.9,
Titanic, Hardscrabble
Learn more about the Anchor Replacement Initiative,
future projects and how to get involved at
climbing.com/community/ari/

IN PARTNERSHIP WITH
SUPPORTED BY

In Focus

SPORTRX PRESCRIPTION
SUNGLASSES
For four-eyed climbers who
dont wear contact lenses, buying
sunglasses is far more complicated
than pulling a decent-looking
pair off the rack. Prescription
sunglasses can cost $500 or more,
and your local optometrists might
not know much about the needs
of mountaineers, skiers, and rock
climbers in terms of UV protection, t, and durability. Enter SportRX, a company that stocks major
brands of performance sunglasses
and gogglesSmith, Rudy Project,
Oakley, Spyder, etc.and custombuilds a lens/frame combination
for even the most extreme frame
shape and prescription. An optician will consult with you to make
sure your prescription, frame,
lenses, and preferred sports are a
good match. Our tester submitted
his blend of myopia, astigmatism,
and vergence dysfunction to SportRX chief optician Rob Tavakoli, a
self-professed glasses geek who
only got excited when he heard
the complicated and unique prescription. A pair of Oakley Jupiter
Squared frames with high-index
progressive lenses arrived two and
a half weeks later. The prescription was spot on, our myopic
tester said. They nailed it, and
the frames were ideal for climbing:
They didnt slip or even move, but
they were comfy on my noggin
for all-day routes. Big bonus: If
you dont love them from the getgo, SportRX will redo the glasses
until they get it right. Prices vary;
sportrx.com
Dougald MacDonald

Watch This

GOPRO HERO 3+ BLACK

EDITION
Point-of-view cameras have revolutionized what is possible when
it comes to capturing our adventures, and the newest additions
to the tried-and-true GoPro line
take it a few steps further. In fall
2013, GoPro released a free app
that turns your phone into a camera command center; it becomes
a remote control for the camera
and allows you to instantly share
photos and videos through your
various social media. The camera
unit puts off a Wi-Fi signal (not
strong enough for Internet use)
that the phone connects to. The
app immediately syncs the data
on the camera with your phone,
so you have access to all the photos and videos without having
to separately plug in the camera,
upload images to your computer,
and then share. Boomtheyre
right there in your hand. One
of the coolest features for our
testers was the fact that the app
also turns your phone into a liveview screen, so if youre standing
on the ground at the base of a
crag and theres a climber wearing
the unit up on a route, you can
see exactly what she is seeing. (As
long as she isnt too high; connection distance depends on device.)
The new Hero 3+ is also 20 percent smaller and lighter at only
2.6 ounces (4.8 with housing), so
you can strap it to a helmet even
when youre counting ounces
for a hard send or a long day.
Testers were excited about the
possibilities it has for projecting
hard routes, too. Forget a video

P. Tournaire

Mighty Light

PATAGONIA ROVER
Judging by the burly aesthetic, I
couldnt believe how airy these
were when I first put them on,
one tester said who chose them
for short, sandy approaches in
Joes Valley, Utah, and five-mile
slogs in Rocky Mountain National Park alike. They feel and
breathe like summer trail runners, but they pack the stability
of a shoulder-season boot.
Thanks to a low-to-the-ground
midsole design, you get surprisingly stable planting and twisting
in a light, minimalist package. A
flexible four-millimeter drop in
the midsole provided an easy
stride and comfortable foot
strike, but an added forefoot

plate protected testers abused

feet from rocks and roots
sticking up out of the ground.
Designers hybridized the outsole
with flat edging rubber in the
forefoot and lugs in the back, so
you get traction on edges and
slabs on the ups and purchase
on dirt trails on the downs, and
the outer rubber was sticky on
all types of terrain. I experience instant comfort as soon
as I slip these on, but they have
a stiffness that prevents foot
fatigue when Im moving all day,
another tester said. A rounded
toe with rubber that wraps up
and over made jamming and
climbing feel natural and easy;
plus, it protected tired toes from
kicking rocks, which is a must
after a long day of climbing in
tight rock shoes. To-the-toe lacing meant testers feet werent
slipping and sliding around in the
shoe, and wearers felt secure on
all terrain. (Note: The Rover fit
slightly wider feet best.)
$125; patagonia.com

Philippe Batoux - Cogne, Italy

shot from behind to work out

the beta; instead, you can create a visual POV beta map that
makes you feel like youre in the
moment. Watch it a few times,
get it dialed, and go send. $400;
gopro.com

TRILOGY GTX JACKET

GORE-TEX Pro jacket.
Thermo-sealed seams. Helmetcompatible hood. Zip vents.
Flex ComfortTM ergonomic build.

semi-Rad

The Relentless Pursuit of 5.Fun

Ask
SemiRad

Brendan Leonard

Hes lived on the

road for three
yearsand hes
got opinions.

What are the best and Worst

parts of living on the road?
Steve rutherford, allentown,
PennSylvania

The good parts certainly always outweigh

the bad. I think when you talk to people
and they nd out you live in a van, they assume youre out climbing six days a week and drinking beer by a campre every night.
This is a noble goal and one that you might have a greater likelihood of achieving if you live in your van, but this is not always the
case in my particular experience. Im running a dirtbag mobile
ofce, with just a few days of climbing a week. That said, you
can sit in a cofee shop hammering away on a Wednesday, and
then decide to up and leave just like that. If youre in Las Vegas
one afternoon, you can be in Salt Lake City by the next morning,
or Flagstaf. The best week I had was ve straight weekdays of
climbing three to four routes every morning in Joshua Tree, then
heading into the ofce immediately afterward for a full day of
work, and parking the van for free on BLM land every night.
The worst part is you live and die by outlets, Wi-Fi, and public

36 |

de cembeR / januaRy 2014

restrooms. Every time you open a door, its literally a crapshoot. Ive
shaved and bathed in some pretty nice bathrooms in national parks
and cofee shops, but I am still frequently bafed by peoples ability
to soil the upside of a toilet seat or otherwise foul up a public place.
So thats not so awesome. But obviously people are ghting bigger
battles in life, so I dont complain too much.

hoW can i be more semi-rad?

erica gonzalez, duluth, minneSota
Do you ever catch yourself complaining about pretty insignicant
things? Stop doing that. Remind yourself every once in a while that
you are climbing rocks for fun, and there are people who work in
diamond mines seven days a week until they die. Thats not fun.
Carry your phone in a pocket on multi-pitch climbs and surprise your partner at the belay by ring up Rappers Delight by
The Sugarhill Gang. There is also a disco ball app. And a candle
app. Bring way more food than you can eat to the crag and share
it with strangersespecially cookies. Cheer for everyone else,

especially people you dont know. Its a proven scientic fact

that doing cool things for other people makes you feel good, so
be nice to everyone.

Im leavIng for a huge road trIp next sprIng. What

should I not forget to pack?
sammy eidson, petaluma, california
Do you own a can opener? Take it out and put it in the glove box of
your car right now. Then spend some time over several weeks curating a playlist of at least 800 songs. Get renters insurance in case anyone breaks into your car and steals your stuf. And scratch making
an itinerarytake of on the rst day with some ideas in mind, but
no rigid schedule. That way, when the road presents some opportunities, you can say Hell yes! Also, pack a big water jug.

WIll I get fat and Weak lIvIng on the road?

sara Beth KinKennon, raleigh, north carolina
I am fat and weakif I compare myself to other climbers. If I
compare myself to, say, people who spend all their leisure time
watching TV, Im a crusher. My advice: Dont worry about it. Its
harder to get out of shape on the road than navigating the 9 to 5.

do you thInk you WIll ever clImb harder than 5.10?

camelia durand, durango, colorado
Does 5.10b count? I did that a couple times this summerbecause of circumstances beyond my control. I have never projected a route before, and I think I might try to do that in 2014,
so that might bump me into the 5.11 range on bolts. But I dont
really have a climb on my dream tick list that is harder than 5.10.
I mean, can you imagine how many climbs that would immediately add to the list?

Whats been your most fun day of clImbIng?

vish patel, iowa city, iowa
I took my pal Mick up this spire of the North Rim of the Grand
Canyon a few years ago, Mount Hayden. He had climbed two
days his entire life, and I had to review how to belay with him
at the base of the climb. The spire is visible from the viewpoint
on the rim, and you have to hop the railing and do this nasty
bushwhack down to it, climb the backside, and top out on a perfectly at summit that maybe 50 people a year climb. And youre
above the Grand Canyon. We bushwhacked back up to the rim
and hopped over the railing just as it got dark, and Mick was
so stoked. He died of heart failure two Thanksgivings ago, and
his son Dan mentioned the climb during his eulogy at Micks
funeral. It was a big deal for him, and since Ill never be able to
take him climbing again, it became a big deal for me.

Brendan Leonard is a contributing editor for Climbing. He lives in

his van, crashes on friends couches, and writes at semi-rad.com.

40 |

DE CEMBER / JANUARY 2014

*Maybe not the smartest one, but whatever works

42 |

DE CEMBER / JANUARY 2014

*Proof that climbers are wise-asses

CLIMBING.COM

| 43

browse areas, routes,

photos, comments, etc
offline, at the crag, on
the rock.

mountainproject.com/mobileapps
iphone anD anDroiD

DownloaD your local

areas, trip Destinations,
or all 100,000+ routes.
once DownloaDeD, you no
longer neeD to be online!

Below Camp 3 on Ama Dablams SW Ridge. Photo Guy Cotter

The high altitude and Seven Summits

expedition climbing company
mountaineering courses ice climbing
ski touring guided ascents in New Zealand
and Europe polar expeditions
Everest Cho Oyu Ama Dablam
Manaslu G2

www.adventureconsultants.com
1-866-757-8722, info@adventure.co.nz
Box 739, Wanaka, New Zealand

TOM MACDONALD

46 |

DE CE MBER / JANUARY 2014

10

11

12

CLIMBING.COM

| 47

This pasT sepTember,

our editor and this group
of readers raised $60,000
for big City mountaineers,
which will fund weeklong
backcountry expeditions
for 70 urban kids. here are
their stories.

Growing up in the concrete

jungle of Los angeles, i did not
have many opportunities to experience nature. The paved streets of
my neighborhood included both
gangs and police ofcers. i could
have easily pursued the life of a
gangbanger, but at an early age i
decided i wanted to make a positive impact in my community and
become a police ofcer with the
LapD. To stay out of trouble, i also
took up surng and was instantly
hooked to both the thrill and peace
of the outdoors.
For the past nine years, i have
proudly served the residents of Los
angeles as a civil servant. being
a young, bilingual, Latino ofcer
provides me the opportunity to
really connect with the residents
in the neighborhoods that i patrol.
The job of a police ofcer is not
glamorous, and the stress of it can
be overwhelming. in order to stay
balanced, i have found outlets to
relieve the stress.
i pursue these outlets to
their full potential. For example,
afer my rst scuba diving trip,
i obtained my Divemaster certication, and afer ying with a
friend, i decided to acquire my
pilots license. recently, i took up
rock climbing, which led me to
complete a basic rock climbing
courseand now i am hooked! The
lifestyle is a perfect complement
to my career in law enforcement.
Growing up as an inner city
kid myself, i know how important
and rare positive role models and
life-changing experiences can be.
This was my chance to take kids
like me out of their own concrete
jungles and introduce them to
the thrill and peace of nature that
helped me.
Cesar Osorio

48 |

de ce mber / january 2014

It takes a
vIllage

if Tuolumne meadows and Lake

Tahoe got together and had a
babya really big babyit would
look like the Wind river range, a
beautiful, unscathed expanse of
amazing climbing above gloriously
sparkling lakes. im not usually
the kind of person that gets to the
mountains and sits and reects
about how Oh my God! This is so
beautiful! i tend to shrug off awe
for action. my usual response is
along these lines: Cool, so anyway, whats good to climb around
here? but the Winds hit me hard.
i was rendered speechless by both
the amount of climbing and the
heart rate-spiking beauty of the
mountains and lakes.
another part of the experience that lef me moved was the
generosity of others. During my
fundraising efforts, i had an incredible response from people that
i hadnt connected with in years,
people that i talk to everyday, and
even people who id only met for a
few minutes at the crag. Friends
were selling possessions, throwing
parties, and pooling their efforts
together for this amazing cause. it
was heartwarming and really reignited my faith in the community.
amara Larpthaveesarp

Its never
too late

For a novice like me, this was by

far the most aggressive climbing i
had ever attempted, and at age 65
i had doubts my body could handle
it. but it was all good! This was a
bucketlist item in the bag for me.
my most deeply seared memory
was when i stood at the bottom of
the North Face (5.6) of haystack
mountain looking up. No way can
i do this, i thought. hours later
at the summit, i stared back down

with pride and disbelief. man,

its a blast being all the way up
there! For any climber or would-be
climber over 60, i want you to
know that you can do this, just like
i did. i worked hard in the gym for
months, focusing on the climb for
motivation.
in a way, i learned a similar
lesson to what we hope the kids
benetting from our climb will
learn: to be faced with a difcult
situationno matter what it
isand realize there is a solution
inside yourself if you put forth the
effort, work hard, and have the
right mind-set. imagine thatthe
lesson intended for the kids became a positive lesson for me, too.
We need more stuff like this.
Clardy schwarz

Pay It forward

i never thought i loved anything

as much as the outdoors and climbing until i started teaching. im
in my second year of teaching in
small-town New Jersey. Now on my

(FrOm TOp) TOm maCDONaLD (3); shaNNON Davis

Power to the
Peaceful

OUR WINDS
CLIMBERS CAME
FROM ALL OVER
THE COUNTRY, WITH
WILDLY DIFFERENT
BACKGROUNDS.

1.
42, Silver Spring, MD
IT Programming, Testing,
and Support
I survived a 60-foot fall at
the Red. You might have
read about it in the 2011 Accidents in North American
Mountaineering.

2.
26, South Lake Tahoe, CA
Vagabond
I have a miniature poodle
named Zeppelin who does
Tyrolean traverses to get to
climbing crags with me!

3.

TOM MACDONALD

list of people who inspire meright

up there with Chris Sharma and
Katie Brownare the seventh and
eighth graders that walk through
the doors every day. I wanted to join
this trip to Wyoming to fuse two
of my greatest joys in life: climbing
and helping our youth.
As a young female whose
parents are Cuban immigrants,
I have been at the bottom a lot.
Climbing gave me the chance to
feel like I was on top. I strive to put
that feeling into my students every
day. Knowing that raising money
for this trip to Wyomings greatest
mountain range would help urban
teens to have a potentially lifechanging experience is something
Ill never forget.
Lauren Leal

COMBINING
PASSIONS
I was in my senior year of college studying sustainability and
how people interact and live within
their environment. Because of my
environmental conscience, I for-

went subscriptions to printed publications (although I have to admit

that I love to hold a magazine or
brand-new book in my hands),
and Id stand in the longest line at
the grocery store so that I could
peruse the latest magazines and
topics of health, wellness, and
climbing. When I should have been
studying for the next exam, I would
go to the library and sit in a lounge
chair, ipping through climbing
or yoga magazines, occasionally
seeing what my winter-driven
friends were up to in Snowboarder.
Then came the March 2013 issue
of Climbing.
I am not particularly driven to
follow the successes or failures of
climbers in the limelight, although
there are a few who inspire me.
Steph Davis, in particular. She is a
pure soul, driven and motivated by
true passion. She was on the cover
of that March issue, displaying her
distinctive poise on a 5.13 desert
sandstone splitter in Utah. I am
fairly new to the climbing world,
and I nd comfort in her composure, earthly consciousness, and
peace. I decided to meticulously

read each and every article.

The rst thing I read was
Shannon Davis invitation
to fundraise with Big City
Mountaineers, which provides
wilderness-mentor experiences
to under-privileged urban youth.
In exchange for the time spent
earning donations, those chosen
would embark on a wilderness
experience of their own: a fully
supported trip to the Wind River
Range. It was perfect: fundraise
with an amazing organization,
bringing my personal interests
into a philanthropic light; venture
to the Wind River Range (my
interest in backpacking had highlighted this region, and little did
I know of its climbing history);
and do it all under the umbrella of
Climbing magazine.
Growing up in Lake Tahoe
basin allowed me endless moments of wonder and awe in deep
forests and meadows, sitting in
streambeds, staying out until
sunset, returning home covered
in dirt. Every kid should have
these formative experiences. My
own fundraising effort will send

23, Sacramento, CA
Neonatal Stroke Researcher
I paint my toenails coral
whenever Im scared or
nervous about a climb. It
makes me crank harder and
giggle more.

4.
47, Chicago, IL
Wine Bar/
Restaurant Owner
After a knee injury ended
my hockey career, my wife
convinced me to start
climbing. I thought she was
nutsnow I know I was
nuts for waiting so long.

5.
38, Chambersburg, PA
Lineman
After living in Washington state for seven years, it
wasnt until I moved back
to central PA that I started
rock climbing.

CLIMBING.COM

| 49

eight urban youth on a weeklong

expedition. What positive energy!
It also sent me to the Wind
River Range, a spiky string of
soaring granite peaks, uninhabited
trails, and trout-laden alpine lakes.
We camped near the base of Haystack Mountain, which presented
climbs from 5.6 to 5.11. I targeted
Central Corner (5.9), a ve-pitch
trad route up the center of a face
that stretched nearly a mile wide
and a 1,000 feet high. Each of the
ve pitches felt true to the grade
transitioning from a dihedral crack
to small roof pulls, from wedging
in the crack to utilizing knobby
face features. As we approached
the summit, the route eased in
both difculty and angle.
Three of us sat on top, overlooking Deep Lake Cirque, our
camp for the week. We could see
our new friends being guided up
other routes on Haystack and others resting on the boulders at the
base, napping afer a days adventure. I could have watched time go
by from this vantage forever.
Briana Valorosi

The Big Payoff

will drag my hufng, out-of-shape

self to the base as soon as the fog
clears in the morning.
The climbing is again, of course,
fantastic.
Sidney Trogdon

whaT i needed

I joined this trip intent on exploring and climbing in a beautiful alpine

setting, and I didnt realize that Id
leave with a group of great friends of
different ages, from different places
and all walks of life. Each member
of our group was linked through the
fundraising efforts we had undertaken for Big City Mountaineers, but
I dont think any of us realized the
extent of the friendships that would
form in the four days we spent
camping and climbing around the
Deep Lake Cirque.
From day one, we talked climbing. As all climbers do, we shared
our favorite spots and discussed
what and where wed climbed. As
we hiked farther into the Winds,
the scenery expanded, and our
conversation shifed to the future,
and what each of us hoped to climb
in the next few days. We came
from a wide spectrum of climbing
experience, and each of us had our
sights set on different objectives.
I was apprehensive as we set up
camp and discussed the next days
plans. I worried that I wouldnt get to
accomplish what I wanted.
We woke up early the next morning, and each team lef to get climbing. The days climbs went smoothly,
and most of us made it back to
camp before the afernoon storms
(FROM TOP) AMARA LARPTHAVEESARP; SIDNEY TROGDON; TOM MACDONALD (2)

What a great chimney! I am

scufng up the fourth pitch of the
North Face (5.8) on Steeple Peak
and have been swallowed by the
huge chimney that splits the top
of the whole pinnacle. It has beautiful, clean rock, perfectly placed
chockstones, and nothing but fun.
As we come out to the base of the
last pitch, it gets even better. A
long corner with great jams that

tops out to a view that cant be

beat. Our little party is sitting on a
granite spire surrounded by endless cirques of wild granite peaks,
each one hiding a crystal-jewel
lake. Blue sky stretches forever.
Abbey has the same wide-eyed
look I feel on my own face, and
Shannon just keeps smiling. Then
the clouds and wind move in, and
we have our small adventure of
a questionable downclimb and
rappel along an uncertain course
in the blowing rain. But even this
is a blast.
This was what the Wind Rivers
trip was about: fantastic climbing,
heart-stopping scenery, and what
I will remember most, the people.
It is ofen said that climbing takes
you to great places where you
meet great people; that was our
trip. We were all ages, experiences, backgrounds, and hometowns
from New Jersey to Los Angeles
and all points between. I climb in
the Red River Gorge, so I am used
to seeing a variety of nationalities
and backgrounds; but I have never
before had the privilege of climbing with such a great group.
Back at camp, pasta is cooking
and we are munching welldeserved cookies in our beautiful
site. The Jackson Hole Mountain
Guides are doing a stellar job of
making the trip memorable, including adding some local avor
to the dinner pot (pine needles).
I am staring up at Haystack that
towers over us, right beside our
camp, and eyeing Central Corner
(5.9). Five pitches, roof to pull
in the middle, tops out on the
pinnacle. Yes, thats tomorrow. I

50 |

de cember / january 2014

rolled in. Time in the tent during

the rain gave us a chance to learn
more about each other and to
recount the adventures of the
day. As we began planning for our
second full day, my thoughts once
again shifed to what I wanted.
We talked amongst ourselves,
and my climbing team decided to
do one of the routes I was most
excited about.
I went to sleep anticipating
the coming day and climb, but
we woke up early to hard rain. It
continued through the morning,
and our whole group changed
plans, opting to hike to the top
of East Temple Peak, an acute
summit visible from our campsite. My spirits were low, but as
the day progressed, I started
to realize the real reason I was
on this trip. Each person I was
with shared a common love of
climbing, adventure, and building friendships in the outdoors.
This is exactly the message
that Big City Mountaineers
aims to spread to urban teens,
and why we had all signed on to
help make that possible. Even
though I wasnt up on the route
I had been aiming for, I was experiencing the bonds that form
through shared adventure and
accomplishment in a backcountry setting. I slowly put aside my
personal itinerary, focused on
the hike, and relished the new
friends that surrounded me.
The process of backpacking,
camping, and climbing is inherently one that forms relationships built around reliance on
each member of a small group.
I walked out of the Winds with
friends across the country who
shared this adventure, and with
the realization that I want to continue to create more experiences
like this throughout my life. Big
City Mountaineers helped to
make this understanding and
growth possible, while fostering
these experiences for youth who
might otherwise never have the
opportunity to see what the
outdoors has to offer.
Chris Miller-McLemore

6.
54, Union, KY
Physician/Surgeon
I love solitude, but I work in
a people profession and value my time with family and
friends above anything, even
climbing. Go gure.

7.
25, Murray, Utah
Wildlife Guide/Server
One of my favorite places to
climb is in Hawaii. You can
climb in your bathing suit,
throw of your shoes, and
jump into the ocean.

8.
27, Florissant, Colorado
Outdoor Educator
My car was once totaled by
a bear. It opened the door,
crawled in, and shut the door
behind itself. The bear then
freaked out and destroyed the
whole interior.

9.
65, Myrtle Beach, SC
Yacht Broker
I have sailed more than
10,000 miles and backpacked
sections of the Appalachian
Trail in four states. Amazingly, this was my rst outdoor
climbing experience.

10.
24, Chester, NJ
Math Teacher
I live on a farm!

11.
31, Venice Beach, CA
Police Ofcer
I love camo. I even have a
camo-colored loveseat.

12.

Learn how to join

Climbings 2014 Summit for Someone Winds
expedition at climbing
.com/sfswinds.

25, Atlanta, GA
Systems Design and
Implementation
Im working on an app to enhance the social interactions
that happen in climbing gyms
everyday.

Redpointing is an art, a performance, a blizzard of sequences

linked at your limit with little margin for error. Nothing is more
fascinating than learning every last nuance of timing, resting, and
foot and hand placement on a route that initially feels impossible,
and then putting it all together. This handful of unique, craggingspecic tools and tricks from Crag Survival Handbook: The Unspoken Rules of Climbing (mountaineersbooks.org) will improve
every aspect of how you redpoint, or project hard climbs, including
the mental approach, endurance training, and unlocking beta.

We climbers spend a lot of time failing. Some days our ngers

are tired, some days our heads kaput, some days the conditions
are execrable, and on the worst days, nothing clicks. You become
frustrated, and then climb even worse. Its a vicious cycle and
might even get you so wound up that you pitch a t, which only
fosters your worst, most childish emotions. Any longtime climber
will conrm that you must fail upward to put a climb together.
Consider Beth Roddens February 2008 rst ascent of the 5.14c

crack Meltdown in Yosemite Valley. If Rodden hadnt learned to

embrace failure, the route never would have happened. It took
her 40 days of efort to send this 70-foot crack, barely wide
enough for ngertips. At rst, Rodden struggled to do the hardest moves, so she bouldered to increase her power. She soon began to put sequences together, but then the Sierras winter storms
raged through, dumping feet of snow. At one point, Rodden and
her then husband, Tommy Caldwell, headed up with shovels. She
excavated the base of the crack, while he did the same up top.
Rodden came painfully close to sending around New Years
2008, but then she was sidelined by more storms, a ligament injury in her right hand from trying the crux repeatedly (turn to p.
60 for Samets tips on taping ngers for injury), and ongoing wintry conditions. Still she persevered, falling and failing and dealing
with the cold, training on her home wall, and heading to Meltdown
when conditions permitted. On Valentines Day 2008, Rodden
redpointed Meltdown, the culmination of one of the most heroic
eforts in U.S. climbing history. While were not all going to have
Roddens perseverance, her redpoint campaign ofers lessons we
can apply to our own projects.

climbing.com

| 53

Instead of focusing on failure, notice any advent that

smacks of improvement. If I made a slight amount
of progress, like pulling an inch higher on the crux
holds or taking my foot of a foothold and thinking
about moving it up, that was a victory, says Rodden. Those kept me coming back. Each time you
reach a new high point, thats a victory. Each time
climbing through a crux feels a little easier, thats a
victory. Each time you grab that tiny crimper and it
feels a little bigger, thats a victory, too.

to nd the most efcient sequences. Each time you

overlap small parts, lower a little farther so youre
that much more pumped at the crux. Eventually,
you will be starting on the ground.

Your best shoes with

a solid, stiff midsole and
toe rubber with a sharp
(not rounded) edge.
A newish, lightweight
dynamic rope around 10
millimeters (or less).
A brush and your
favorite chalkbag loaded
with plenty of chalk.
One lucky article of
clothing: T-shirt, hat,
shorts, pants, etc.
Pare down by removing extra draws, belay
devices, cords, etc., from
your harness.

We tend to focus on a climbs hardest section and

gure that, if we cant do it right ofor do so reliablythen theres no point in trying the route. This
thinking, however, is backward because often youll
become stronger and more comfortable with a routes
style while working it, until eventually you can do the
crux. Or you might incorporate specic training to
prepare for that crux. In the earliest phase, dont be
shy about pulling past cruxes to work the rest of the
climb. On Meltdown I would go up, try the crux for
a bit, get frustrated, achieve a little victory on another
move somewhere, and that would keep me coming
back, says Rodden. The crux didnt come for a long time, so I tried
to take in the rest of the route. I gured if the rest is doable, then
maybe I should focus on that for now instead of beating my head
against the crux forever.

If youre unable to hang on piss-poor crux grips, boulder for a few

weeks to build focus, nger strength, and power. With its emphasis on distilled difculty, it teaches you to zero in on minutiae:
conditions, your skin, and nuances of the rock and movement.
Mentally learning how to dissect a problem is really helpful,
says Rodden; its a skill set you can apply to deconstruct the crux
of your project, as if it were just another boulder problem. Meanwhile, the boulders often miserly holds strengthen your ngers,
and bouldering teaches you to be aggressive, hence powerful.
(Learn more about power on p. 17.) Out bouldering, Id be forced
to do things I would avoid on a route, says Rodden. Like jumping for something or bearing down as hard as I could.

Build endurance on and for your project by linking its various

sections. For instance, a Flatirons route I redpointed in autumn
2012 breaks down naturally into thirds; the rst two-thirds is a
pumpy sprint to a decent rest, and the top third is a sustained, extended boulder problem. I worked on getting the rst two-thirds
down, as a redpoint unto itself, to build my endurance. Then, if
I were too pumped to continue, Id hang at the bolt for a few minutes and then push for the top, focusing on how the nal third felt
with a pump on. I approached each section as a mini-route and
linked each in its entirety before I strung them together.
The next step is linkage: If you fall of the crux, lower to a logical starting point one or two bolts down, and then climb back up
through the crux again while torched. This teaches your muscles
to re when tired and might even help rene beta by forcing you

54 |

de cember / january 2014

Monster ts not only perturb others, they also hold

you back by teaching you to associate failure with
negative emotions. Screaming isnt catharticit
only increases anger. Instead, fall of, give a whoop
of fear or exhaustion to release any tension, vent a
little in a regular voice, and then immediately channel your energy into acceptance. As you hang, think
about what went right; next, consider what went
wrong and how youll x it the next time.

Its a standard lament: I can do all the moves on my

route, but I cant put them together because I get so
pumped. How do I build up my endurance? Well,
were all endowed with a roughly 50-50 blend of
fast-twitch muscle bers, great for snap and power
(anaerobic recruitment), and slow-twitch muscle
bers, which contract more slowly and over greater
time, helping with hanging on or enduring (aerobic recruitment).
But we also all lean one way or the other in this ratio; thus, climbers blessed with more fast-twitch bers might be power junkies,
while those, like myself, with a preponderance of slow-twitch bers, are enduro pigs. We enduro pigs naturally have good route
endurance, but we can always improve our baseline staying power.
First, however, lets examine what endurance really is.
Its a common misconception that endurance equates to not
getting pumped, and we even get it in our heads that the very best
climbers never pump out, that they just keep hanging on efortlessly, even on 5.15. But 5.15 climbers might feel fatigue on lowly
5.13ssimply because hard climbing is, well, hard. However, they
keep climbing anyway. Endurance equates to the ability to recover
and continue through difcult sequences despite being pumped.
As Bill Ramsey, an enduro end who has put up 5.14s at the Red
River Gorges Motherlode cave, frames it, Endurance is getting used
to that feeling of doing very hard moves when youre a little bit fatigued. In other words, endurance equals fatigue management.
As a counterpoint, the sensation of being totally pumped,
gasping, and useless, with lactic acid jacking through your system
and your hands about to open, is more of an indicator that youre
in poor shapenot just pumped. If youre t, even on a route at
your limit, you might feel fatigue, but it will be a manageable,
predictable condition. Ramsey has ve suggestions for building
endurance: become comfortable climbing pumped, train for and
master resting, increase your failure threshold, build your stamina, and play games on a climbing wall.

Expand your comfort zone so youre used to always climbing

when youre a little tired. Boulderers arent accustomed to this
sensation; their comfort zone is much smaller. They might go up
a bolt or two, doing moves that are easy for them, and then jump
of saying theyre pumped when theyre only mildly fatigued.

Through repetition, you can habituate yourself to doing fairly

hard moves with 50 or 60 percent of your energy reserve. Power-endurance gym climbs are good for thisgo until you fall.

Ramsey doesnt train for endurance per se, but instead focuses
on learning how to rest when he is pumped, and then continuing. The really good route climbers know how to rest, he
says. They can get a hold thats not that great and still get a
ton back: lowering their heart rate, controlling their breathing, ushing out the lactic acid, and hanging on with one hand
while shaking out the other.
At the gym, Ramsey will climb to near-failure and then, at
a rest stance, gradually build his reserves back up, rst taking
one hand of for a half-second shake, then his other hand of for
a two-second shake, back to the original hand for a ve-second
shake, and so on, the shakeouts getting longer and longer until
hes recovered. In the gym, use a technical or semi-sloping jug
(a hold you have to work for), not some mindless handlebar.
Improve your hip exibility and turnout. The more you

can suck into the wall and distribute your weight over your
feet, the less your hands must bear: Ramsey estimates that
every inch closer to the stone makes you feel 10 pounds lighter. Try yoga and stretching; emphasize frontal hip turnout.
One good exercise is the buttery (frog stretch).
Experiment with diferent footholds and body positions. Hang straight on your bones, dont bend your elbows,
and stand as low as possible. Play with less obvious holds like
jams and thumb catches, and experimentwhile shaking
outwith pairing each hand with a foot, not necessarily on
the same side. Some rests improve with one foot on the rock.
Strengthen your core. Do 4x4s (see below), as well as standard exercises like crunches, leg lifts, and front levers. A strong
core connects feet to torso and takes weight of the arms. Be
in tune with your whole body. Dont focus solely on recovering
your forearms, even though theyre screaming the loudest. Pay
attention to your heart rate, breathing, and subtleties such as
Is my butt sagging out too far? or Is my calf getting pumped
in this kneebar? Dont be shy about shaking out or resting every last body part.
Learn how to rest actively. We dont always get a two-hand
bucket, so practice recovery at one-hand stances as well as on
the go. Sometimes a quick ick of the wrist is all it takes, or you
can rest actively through easier sections by focusing on doing
the moves efciently to slow your breathing and pulse.

The goal with endurance is to become more resistant to failure,

to extend your threshold of collapse. Rock climbing is one of
the few sports that demands we exert ourselves until we fail, so
you should demand the same of your training. In the climbing
dojo, Ramsey seeks to create constant efort, constant motion,
and constant exertion. Many of us cultivate endurance by doing
multiple gym routes back to back, but Ramsey posits that even a
brief rest while lowering doesnt recreate the failure experience.
His tactics include 4x4s, building the burn, and treadwalling.
Identify four challenging yet doable boulder problems at

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your gym. Do one problem, jump down, immediately do a slightly

easier problem, jump down, do an easier one, jump down, and
then nish on the easiest. If possible, downclimb each problem so
your core remains engaged, quickly shake out at the bottom, and
then head up the next. For more of a challenge, wear a weight belt.
After nishing 4x4s (or a pumpy route or traverse), exploit the benecial fatigue window youre feeling and
jump on a campus board or system board with footholds. Hang
of decent but challenging holds (at least a full nger pad), and get
it all back, hand by hand, just like you would on rock. Replicate
getting to a rest so wasted you can barely take one hand of at rst,
says Ramsey. This builds recovery back while still on the wall.
Ramsey also swears by the treadwall, which he used
diligently while living in rock-free South Bend, Indiana.
Set up routes that are all crimps, all pockets, all pinches,
etc., to train specic grip strengths, and then tilt the wall one
or two degrees steeper every week as you wire out the routes.
Gradually increase the difculty of what youre doing, he says.
Link the routes to stay on as long as possible. Put large rest
holds out left near the treadwalls start/stop button, so that you
can shake out between climbs without stepping of.
Play a laser-pointing game two to three times per session.
Point out handholds (any feet) for a single, extended climb, say,
around six minutes. Try to take the climber right to the edge,
then put her on better holds so that she gradually recovers.
Do interval training with a partner to work on power-endurance. First person climbs one minute with laser pointing,
one minute of, then two on, two of, and so on, up to ve minutes, and then back down. Swap duties during the of minutes.
Half and half. A method I often use at the gym is bouldering for an hour, and then climbing routes for an hour. Climbing routes while your power is already drained emphasizes
efciency, smart sequencing, and recovery.

Having stamina (overall tness or the ability to still climb after

a long day of climbing) will bolster your endurance. Instead of
lapping easier routes, push yourself on redpoint, and then nish yourself of near the end. Doing laps on a 5.12a wont make
you stronger for a 5.13a; trying a 5.13a until youre blasted and
then doing laps on a 5.12a will! Pumping laps on easier climbs
is benecial only when youre totally cooked.

Ramsey suggests that you play endurance games with friends,

using fun competitiveness to push everyone. Play add-on with
four or ve people: On a bouldering wall each person adds two
moves per turn to an increasingly longer problem. You might do
a long route several times, totally working yourself.
This excerpt was adapted from Crag
Survival Handbook: The Unspoken
Rules of Climbing, by Matt Samet.
For more on everything from nutrition and crag etiquette to movement
technique and mental strength, pick
up the book, which is available now at
mountaineersbooks.org.

CLINICS

59
IN SESSION

HEALTH

GUIDES TIP

IN SESSION

DOUBLE-ROPE TECHNIQUE
By Dougald MacDonald

MASTER A TWO-ROPE SYSTEM TO BELAY SAFELY AND SMOOTHLY

While a single rope will do just ne in most applications, there are plenty of advantages to climbing with two ropes at once, especially on trad
and alpine routes. Skilled leaders can use double ropes (also called half ropes, marked with a symbol on the rope ends) to protect wandering and
traversing climbs without creating excess rope drag. Two ropes create a safety margin when loose or sharp rock damages the cords. They also allow a
leader in a tenuous stance to pull up slack on one rope for clipping overhead while the belayer holds tight on the other rope, minimizing a potential
fall (see g. 1 and g. 2 below). Finally, double ropes allow a party of three to move faster when both followers climb together. (One double rope is
strong enough to support any toprope falls taken by a following climber.)

Rope being
clipped

Rope being
clipped

g. 1

g. 2

Rope that was

just clipped

HOW THEY
WORK

Leaders generally alternate

clipping double ropes with each
placement, though its common
to clip the same rope into several
pieces in a row when a route
traverses or zigzags. You should
never clip double or half ropes
into the same piece of protection
because they are not designed for
this purpose. There are several
reasons why you shouldnt do
this, but among the most important: Clipping two ropes in
the same piece can actually add
impact force in a fall, and it can
create too much friction between
the two ropes. Alternating clips
makes the belayers job a bit
tougher, but with a few tricks, its
easy to keep the leader safe and
the ropes running smoothly.

BEN FULLERTON (3)

STACK THEM
SEPARATELY

Problems with double ropes

usually start on the ground with
a jumbled pile of tangled cords
at the belayers feet. Take care to
ake the ropes into separate piles
before starting the pitch. (Its
most ideal to use two ropes of the

same diameter and length.) At

mid-route belay stances, either
ake the ropes separately on the
ledge as you belay up the second
climber, or hang them together
in neat loops over your anchor
tether, starting with big loops
and making the loops smaller as
you take in more rope. Looping
two ropes separately is very
difcult, and using the tether at
all is a battle for the belayer, but
theres no great way around it.

KEEP THEM
STRAIGHT

Keep the pinky nger of your

brake hand between the rope
strands (g. 3) to help separate
them as they move through the
two slots of the belay device.
Youll only have three ngers
around one of the strands, but
with a modern device and an
attentive belay, this will hold a
fall without any problem. Warn
the leader if the ropes wrap
around each other or if she clips
the wrong rope when placing
pro. (E.g., youve been clipping
the blue rope on the left side of
a chimney and the red on the
right, and then you mixed it up
and crossed them. This would
create a cluster of twists.) The

Rope that was

just clipped

belayer should help by keeping

an eye on thingsas with any
belayand yelling to the leader
to check the ropes.

MANAGE THE
SLACK

You need to feed one rope so the

leader can clip while keeping
the other strand relatively snug.
To do this, pull the clipping
rope through your belay device
while lightly gripping the other
rope with your brake hand so
it doesnt move (g. 1). (At all
times, you should keep your
brake hand around both cords,
but you can vary the pressure on
each.) Once the leader begins
to move again, the rope she
has just clipped will begin to
go slack, while the other rope
starts to move up (g. 2). Hold
the just-clipped rope lightly with
your brake hand and pay out the
necessary slack with the other
rope, until both ropes have even
tightness again.
With practice, youll learn to
pay slack with one rope and take
in a bit with the other simultaneously. The key is that youre
pulling out with your guide hand
(above the device) and youre
taking in slack with your brake

g. 3
handwhile keeping it on both
ropes. By separating the ropes
with your pinky, you should be
able to let the one going out slide
through the brake hand at the
same time as you pull the other
rope to take in slack.

BELAY THE
SECOND

When youre belaying at the top

of a pitch, many of the issues with
managing two ropes are eliminated if you use an auto-blocking
tube-style belay device clipped to
a bomber anchor. This allows you
to take in one rope faster if your
partners are climbing at diferent
rates, and it makes it easier to
manage the separate coils of rope
at the stance.

CLIMBING.COM

| 59

HEALTH

CLINICS

THE ART OF TAPING

By Matt Samet

PROTECT YOUR DIGITS TO PREVENT INJURY AND KEEP CLIMBING

Blowing a nger by damaging a pulley tendon, ligament, or capsule (protective material around the nger joint)
just plain sucks. Decades of hapless ailing have turned my already-large digits into Jimmy Deans, too clumsy
and bloated for most technical pocket climbs, but my middle ngers have sufered the most. Both remain cranky
on two-nger pockets and especially monos. As a teenager, I had the footwork of a Mack truck careening of an
icy mountain road; my feet once slipped while I was plugged into a left-hand mono, and then again a year later
while my right hand was in a mono at Cochiti Mesa, New Mexico. A solid 150 pounds shock-loaded each nger.
I almost always do preventive, supportive taping on either nger with one of the three following methods; plus, I
have a few taping tricks for when my skin splits. All of them use a standard 1.5 roll of athletic tape.

The Old Fashioned

Tendons
The Old Fashioned
Separate your roll into three
parallel strands, each a wide,
so that you can pull tape from
each strand alternately and use
the roll up at the same rate. Use
a penknife or your teeth to start
the slits. Unspool and rip of
about nine inches (enough tape
for roughly three revolutions
around your nger) from one
strand. Wrap the tape tightly
(but not absurdly so) below
your middle knuckle. Beware of
any swelling or purple or white
discoloration; you dont want to
occlude circulation. Now press
the end down rmly to secure
it. Tear of another strip and
repeat the process just above the
knuckle. When youre nished,
you should be able to bend your
nger, still feel the blood circulating, and notice support from
the tape.

60 |

DE CEMBER / JANUARY 2014

Buddy Taping
Peel of one foot of tape thats
about wide, and then bind
your injured nger to its neighbor at the base and above the
middle knuckles, so that you can
bend your digits freely. Pair your
index and middle ngers or your
middle and ring ngers. You
can also combine buddy taping
with the old fashioned for a
particularly compromised digit.
The main disadvantage to buddy
taping is that the paired ngers
must bend in tandem, limiting

Buddy Taping

how you grab certain holds,

especially pockets.

H-Taping
A third method was created by
the ve authors of the study
Impact after Finger Flexor
Tendon Pulley Ruptures in Rock
Climbers, as published in the
Journal of Applied Biomechanics
in 2007. Their thesis held that
a exor tendon needs the most
tape support where its farthest
from the bone, to efectively
change the course of the exor

H-Taping

tendon and therefore reduce the

tendon-bone distance. The old
fashioned doesnt do this, argued
the study, because of all the intervening soft tissue. (The study
found that H-taping decreased
the tendon-bone distance by 16
percentother methods had no
efectand imparted 13 percent
more strength in the crimp
position.) Although H-taping
is more time intensive than the
other methods, it might well be
worth the efort.
Pull a 4 strip of a roll split

This is an excerpt adapted from Crag Survival Handbook: The Unspoken Rules of
Climbing, by Matt Samet, published by Mountaineers Books (mountaineersbooks.org).

into thirds. (More exactly, a

strip 10 centimeters long by 1.5
centimeters wide.)
Cut lengthwise from each
end of the strip toward the
center with a small pair of
scissors or a penknife, leaving
a one-centimeter bridge in the
middle (the crossbar of the H).
Keeping the injured nger
straight, place the crossbar
on the palm side of its second
(middle) knuckle. Tightly
secure the legs of the H below
the knuckle.
Bend your nger, and secure
the legs of the H above the
knuckle. Replace after each
climb, as the tape will stretch.

across the tip, circle your

fingernail, and then come
down at a crisscross angle
back to the palm-side crease.
Configure the tape such that
both legs of the X cover your
wound. Use a daub of liquidbandage compound along the
nail to glue the tape in place
and keep glue residue off the
rock. Apply more crisscrossed
layers as needed.

60

61

Mummy Taping

Skin Splits
Despite proactively caring
for our skin, we can still split,
apper, or wear our tips down
to sparkly meat. If you want to
keep climbing with a wound,
you usually need to tape it.
Mummy taping and X-taping
are the least intrusive and most
reliable methods.

Mummy Taping

BEN FULLERTON (8); SKIP STERLING

Apply a spray, such as the

climbers staple Mueller
Tuffner Pre-Tape (muellersportsmed.com), to your
fingertip to hold the tape in
place. Split a thin strip off a
roll of athletic tape, about onequarter or one-third the rolls
width. Wrap the strip around
your finger, starting at the tip
and overlapping half the width
of the tape over itself with
each pass (the mummy wrap).
Tape clear down to the first
crease on the palm side of your
finger. On the final wrap, bring
the tape to below that knuckle
(on the back of the hand) and
anchor it lengthwise down
your finger.

X-Taping

X-Taping
Apply liquid-bandage compound to your tip to supplement your skin and anchor
the tape. Tear off a thin strip
of tape, one-third the width
of the roll. Start at the base
(palm-side, first-knuckle
crease) of your tip with the
strip, wrap it diagonally up

MATT SAMET
A former editor in chief of Climbing, Samet is
a freelance writer and editor based in Boulder,
Colorado. He has been climbing since 1986
and is the author of Climbing Dictionary and
the memoir Death Grip. He can often be found
climbing in the Flatirons, as well as Eldorado
and Boulder canyons.

CLIMBING.COM

| 61

CLINICS

GUIDES TIP

PASSING LANE
By Jeff Ward

PROPER TECHNIQUES AND COMMUNICATION TO PASS A SLOWER PARTY ON-ROUTE

After spending the last two decades working as a climbing guide around the world, Ive had plenty of opportunities to witness and be
part of teams passing each other on popular climbs. These experiences have been anywhere from impressive to embarrassing and humorous to downright dangerous. If you plan to spend any time on the classics, you are bound to run into a party or two (or three...) all moving at
diferent paces. Here are a few experience-driven tips to help you smooth out the passing process and make the whole operation go quickly
and safely for both parties.

FIGURE IT OUT
BEFORE THE
CLIMB.
For routes with long approaches, write the

g. 1

name of your intended route on the back of

your car. This gives the teams behind you the
ability to go somewhere else. If you are racking up at the base of the climb and you know
you will be pushing your limits and moving
slowly, talk with the other team to nd out if
they are in the same boat. You may nd out
that they are a couple of send-bots on a sixroute link-up. Probably best to let them jump
ahead at the start.

is moving much faster than the other. Work

together and be friendly and accommodating to avoid route rage. Dont go for the
pass right out of the gate. Show the slower
team that you are much faster by staying on
their heels for a few pitches. Once they realize you can pass and not slow them down,
they will be more willing to let you go by,
which makes the pass much faster.
If you are the slower party, know that
just because you woke up earlier and got
on the route rst doesnt mean the route
is yours for the day. Be gracious and let
faster parties pass; tell them directly youd
like them to pass, and provide an opportunity at a good spot. Be comfortable sharing
anchors and do what you can to make the
pass safe and efcient. There will always
be someone that climbs harder and faster
than you. Its not the end of the world. On
the other hand, if you are on a route with an
abundance of loose rock or a narrow, steep
ice climb, you could argue that you do have
the right to stay in front.
If you are the passing party, consider
how your actions and interactions afect
the other team, both in terms of their
safety and their enjoyment. If the team
ahead of you is only marginally slower, its
probably best to hang behind. You dont have
the right to jeopardize their safety just to

62 | DE CEMBER / JANUARY 2014

pass. You had the ability to choose another

route when you realized there were other
parties; they did not. This party may be in
the middle of the best climb of their life;
dont ruin it for them.

PASS IN
APPROPRIATE
SECTIONS.

Climbing a variation on the route is

optimal, but that option isnt always available. The next best alternative is to pass

at a belay stance, which is fairly easy and

safe. The slower party can take a little rest
while the faster party goes into overdrive
to make the pass as painless as possible.
Share bolted belays or try to nd a diferent belay station when building anchors
with gear. Avoid hanging belays and look
for ledges large enough to stack your rope.

WORK ON YOUR
TRANSITIONS.
This is important whenever youre multipitch climbing. Always stop earlier at a solid

SUPERCORN

COMMUNICATE
AND WORK
TOGETHER AS
ONE
TEAM.
It is usually obvious to see when one group

Guidelines for Passers: 1. Kill them with kindness. 2. Make sure the route is safe to pass on. 3. Choose
the right pitch on which to pass. 4. Conrm that you are the faster team. 5. Respect the others ability level and risk tolerance. Guidelines for Passees: 1. Do everything you can to make it easier for faster
teams to pass. 2. Write the name of your intended route on the back of your car before heading out.
3. Communicate clearly when and where you want to be passed. 4. Keep your ego in check.

belay stance instead of running the rope out

the full 60 meters. Combining pitches can
slow you down if you end up at a bad belay
stance with the wrong gear. If you are unsure
of whats ahead and youre more than 100
feet out, dont pass the low-hanging fruit
that is a nice ledge with good cracks.
Leading in blocks (one person leading
a few pitches in a row, and then swapping)
will also speed up your day by allowing
the second to sprint up the pitch without
worrying about saving gas for the next lead.
But make sure to polish your changeovers
between blocks: Flipping the stack, clipping the second into the anchor, passing
gear, and getting the new leader on belay
shouldnt take more than a few minutes.

SKIP STERLING

GET IN POSITION
TO PASS WITH
MINIMAL
DISRUPTION
TO THE OTHER
TEAM.

On many routes this often means leading

a pitch while the other teams leader is still
on the sharp end. This is inappropriate on
many types of pitches (loose, hard to protect, narrow ice climbs, etc.), and one team
needs to be considerably faster. Work as two
teams to get your leader behind the slower
leader. Give the slower leader enough
space to fall without hitting you. On bolted
climbs, clip your draw onto the spine side
of the top biner of the leaders draw (g. 1).
This keeps the biner from being torqued in
the hanger; plus, it is easy to clean.
As you ascend the pitch, stay outside the
other leaders rope; dont duck under their
cord. This is fairly easy on vertical or slabby
face climbs, but it gets tricky in chimneys
and roofs; consider that when deciding
where to pass. On trad routes, clip directly
into the other leaders gearbut only after
getting express permission from the other
team. Make sure its well placed, too, instead
of just blindly clipping it. Dont unclip the
slower leaders rope from the gear, as that
could put him in danger. These tactics will
put you at the next belay right behind the
other leader. Get your second up quickly and
speed through your transition so you can
start leading the next pitch and gain some
ground on getting as far in front of the other
team as possible.

ONCE YOU PASS,

GET OUT OF THE
OTHER TEAMS
WAY
QUICKLY.
Dont run pitches together until youre a
full pitch ahead. Take the rst easy belay
stance you can and transition quickly. This
will get your belayer out of the other teams
way sooner and cause less disruption.
Continue to move quickly throughout the
climbtheres a reason you passed in the
rst place!

BE SENSITIVE
TO THE OTHER
TEAMS ABILITY
LEVEL AND RISK
TOLERANCE.
I once witnessed a faster party pass while
the slower team was still leading a pitch.
The faster leader unclipped all but one of
the slower leaders draws and clipped his
own rope into them. When the slower leader
nally realized what was happening, he was
irate. He voiced his opinion about what he
thought of this passing technique, and the
passing leader said, Whats your problem?
I left one draw clipped. Needless to say, this
didnt go over well.
Understandably so, the slower leader was
not that comfortable pushing his limits 500
feet of the deck while being clipped to a
single bolt. The faster leader didnt seem to
understand why (or more likely didnt care).
Make sure you dont project your comfort
level and ability onto the slower party.
Chances are they are moving slower due to
a lower risk tolerance and/or ability level.
Respect that and try to work with them. Cut
them some slack as you pass, be nice, and
dont forget to thank them profusely!
One of the best experiences I had being
passed was in Yosemite many years ago.
We were climbing as a party of three and
moving relatively quickly, but a party of two
came up behind us moving much faster. We
reluctantly let them pass, which slowed us
down a bit, but when we nally got back to
our car at the end of the day, the passing
party had left a couple of cold beers on our
windshield and a quick note of thanks. Now
thats how you pass with style.

62

63

ASK A GUIDE
What is the diference between a prusik,
Klemheist, and an auto-block? What
are the pros and cons of each one as a
backup in a rappel system? Andy
The auto-block, Klemheist, and prusik
can all be used as a rappel backup on the
brake strands of the rappel. Just remember to extend your belay device so the belay device doesnt unintentionally release
the hitch. (See how to do it here: climbing.com/skill/pre-rigging-rappels.) The
preferred hitch is the auto-block because
of how easily it releases, but consider that
the number of wraps needed for an efective rappel backup is directly related to
the length of the loop used. The bigger the
loop, the more wraps needed. The
Klemheist is preferred if you only have
slings (instead of cord), but remember
slings contain material like Dyneema,
which has a low melting point. Having
a sling or cord that is a dedicated rappel
backup isnt a bad idea, and products
like the Sterling Hollow Block ($11,
sterlingrope.com) are very useful for this
purpose. A prusik will work in a pinch,
but it is harder to release once loaded, and
its often more difcult to dress properly.
Without a properly dressed prusik, the
holding power can be unpredictable.

Jef Ward is an AMGA-certied and

IFMGA-licensed guide and co-owner
of North Cascades Mountain Guides
(ncmountainguides.com). He works as an
instructor for the AMGA and serves on the
AMGAs Technical Committee.

Climbing (USPS No. 0919-220, ISSN No. 0045-7159) is published ten times a year (February, March, April (Gear), May, July (Photo Annual), August, September, October, November, December/January) by SkramMedia LLC, 2520 55th St., Suite 210, Boulder, CO 80301. Periodicals postage paid at Boulder, CO, and additional mailing ofces. Canada Post publications agreement
No. 40008153. Subscription rates are $29.97 for one year of postal delivery in the United States. Add $20 per year for Canada and $40 per year for surface postage to other foreign
countries. Canadian undeliverable mail to Pitney Bowes IMEX PO Box 54, Station A, Windsor ON N9A 6J5. Postmaster: Please send all UAA to CFS. Retailers: Please send correspondence to
Climbing c/o Retail Vision 815 Ogden Avenue, Lisle, IL 60532-1337. Climbing magazine is a division of SkramMedia LLC. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to: Climbing, PO Box 420235,
Palm Coast FL 32142-0235.
CLIMBI NG.COM

| 63

@adamamick Kris Hampton goes for the rst

ascent of The Strawberry
Roan (5.13d), a Todd Skinner line in Wyoming.

@mcsilliman Silliman traveled New Zealand to nd

aesthetic lines like 1080
and the Letter G (5.11) in
Paynes Ford.

@adventrousnicholas
Rothenbush captured
friend Kate Busse as he
was rappelling in Little
Cottonwood Canyon, Utah.

@adventures_in_the_
northeast Leigh Campbell
tops Recompense (5.9),
Cathedral Ledge, New
Hampshire.

@onemoreclimb Using an
intervalometer (Google it),
Dominguez snapped a shot
of himself on Cryptic (5.8)
in Joshua Tree, California.

@themorningfresh A
weekend stint in Indian
Creek, Utah, turned into a
month when Bou crack
climbed for the rst time.

@clinthelander Ryan
Johnson leads Tamaras
Traverse on the classic
North Buttress of Mount
Hunter in Alaska.

@taranortlieb Will
Stanhope gets high off
the ground on Teenage
Lobotomy (V6), Squamish,
British Columbia, Canada.

@rikgeijsels83 Geijsels
takes on a honeycomb
highball on a recent trip to
Minorca, Spain.

@mirkocaballero Mirko gets

a unique view of Monaco
when lowering from the Big
Ben Cave in France.

@ststacey Chris Hubbard

lls a rest day by bouldering in dreamy Squamish,
British Columbia.

@whitneyras Wren enjoys

dinner and a show while
her parents trade burns in
Moab, Utah.

64 | de cember / january 2014

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FOR MOSSY OAK BRANDED CAPS
AT YOUR LOCAL WALMART STORE*

Everything you do says something about you. Thats why youll want to get the Mossy Oak
Prepaid MasterCard available exclusively at Walmart. Not only will you save $10 on a
Mossy Oak branded cap while supplies last, youll have a card that refects your obsession.

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Purchase your reloadable Mossy Oak Prepaid MasterCard at Walmart

Go to walmartmoneycard.com/mossyoak to set up your card by December 15, 2013
You must provide a valid email address and opt in to receive promotional communications
in order to receive your coupon

Receive your $10 o Mossy Oak branded cap coupon via email
Redeem coupon in-store at Walmart by December 31, 2013

* Purchase and set up your card by December 15, 2013. Receive and redeem coupon between October 21, 2013 and December 31, 2013. To redeem, present your coupon at check-out. Coupon
only valid in-store at Walmart locations for select Mossy Oak hats. Only 10,000 coupons will be available for this offer, to be awarded to the rst 10,000 customers who sign-up to receive a
coupon. Offer not redeemable for cash or previous purchases and cannot be combined with any other offers. Offer subject to change without notice.
Mossy Oak, the Mossy Oak logo and BreakUp Innity are registered trademarks of Haas Outdoors, Inc., West Point, MS. The BreakUp Innity camouage pattern is 2009 Haas Outdoors, Inc.
The MasterCard card is issued by Green Dot Bank, Member FDIC, pursuant to a license by MasterCard International Incorporated. Green Dot Bank operates under the following registered trade names: GoBank, Green Dot Bank and Bonneville Bank. All of
these registered trade names are used by, and refer to, a single FDIC-insured bank, Green Dot Bank. Deposits under any of these trade names are deposits with Green Dot Bank and are aggregated for deposit insurance coverage. The Spark Design ( ) and
Walmart are marks and/or registered marks of Wal-Mart Stores Inc.
MasterCard and the MasterCard Brand Mark are registered trademarks of MasterCard International Incorporated. 2013 MasterCard.