Do you remember your first climbing helmet? I do, I was sixteen and was hoping to make a trip to Seneca Rocks for some of my first multipitch adventures. Everything I’d heard about the place suggested there was a good bit of loose rock and it was unwise to go there without a helmet. Of course, being sixteen I didn’t have much money, but my parents wanted us to be safe, so they threw down for that first brain bucket, the burly and indestructible Ecrin Roc from Petzl.

As my climbing progressed, I generally wore it on multipitch climbs, but not often when cragging. And that really didn’t change until I met my future wife, as she told me about two serious accidents that left her with a first hand account of what climbing without a helmet can mean.

There’s a canyon at a climbing area outside Boise that has a band of choss that runs across the cliff near the top of most of the routes, making them a little more serious than most others in the area. A family was out climbing for the day, both parents and their young daughter. They had set up a popular route, and the dad was going up the climb one last time to clean it for the day, when he pulled off a bowling ball sized chunk of rock and fell. The rock hit his wife, who was belaying, in the head and killed her. She was using an ATC style device, and when she collapsed, the rope sped through the device, and the husband continued falling to the ground, breaking both legs.

A grim story to be sure, but some key lessons to take away. If the wife had a helmet on, she perhaps would have survived, and a Gri Gri would have certainly saved the husband from breaking his legs. Tracy went out and bought both the day after hearing about this accident, though she still occasionally strayed from using her helmet all the time until one more tragic event changed her mind permanently.

She was climbing at an outdoor competition in Idaho, the Pocatello Pump, when the climber next to her took a fall and ended up hitting a ledge with his head, then plummeting to the ground. His belayer had threaded the Gri Gri backward, and the climber wasn’t wearing a helmet. Tracy was the first on the scene, and knew pretty much right away this guy wasn’t going to make it based on his head injuries. After that she never looked back about wearing a helmet.

Nothing can affect your quality of life more than a brain injury, and a helmet is an easy way to help prevent the worst from happening. Many climbers will (thankfully) go their whole careers without witnessing events like the above mentioned ones, but that’s the point. It only takes one accident to permanently change your life, so why not stack the odds in your favor?

As Tracy and I spent more time climbing together, I started using my helmet more often, and now it’s a rare day you’ll see me without it. Often it feels like we are the only two people in Rifle wearing them, but a friend almost got killed there when a loose rock fell on his head as he walked under a popular cliff, so we don’t let the odd stares bother us.

So how about you, do you wear a helmet often? If not, what’s your excuse? We want to hear your thoughts, and if you leave a comment you’ll be entered to win a Petzl Elios or Elia helmet, courtesy of the good folks at PembaServes.com. Fire away!

Pondering this incredible beauty, however, it’s hard not to think about the fact that it all points to one thing: the coming of winter. Sure, it could be a nice, long fall, and stay good through November, like it does in some years, but that doesn’t change the fact that colder weather is inevitably on the horizon. Some find this depressing, but I prefer to focus on all the new opportunities that come with it. Here’s why I’m not dreading the approaching cold, but rather will embrace all the changes it brings.

We Can Climb in the Sun!

Maybe the best part of cooler weather, after months and months of hiding from the burning orb, we finally get to bask in its warmth again. There’s something liberating about not having to lurk in the shade all day, and cliffs that were avoided all summer are back on the menu again. For us, the desert beckons, with it’s brilliant crack lines and soaring towers, enough to keep anyone busy for a lifetime of winters.

Training = Get Stronger

From May through September, we’re fortunate to be able to climb outside after work. Being on real rock four days a week does wonders for your technique, but there’s nothing like training indoors to get strong. Being able to hit focused workouts that attack specific goals means you can get a lot done in a short amount of time. Many folks I know that climb all winter are at the peak of their power when the spring rolls around, the trick is keeping it up once we stop climbing inside!

Gratitude

Each day you get to climb outside in the winter feels like a special gift. Heading to the crag when the high is in the 30′s, only to find yourself in a t-shirt at the base of the cliff is one of the finer things about the “off-season” in the West. The days are crisp, the sky is incredibly blue, and the warmth of the sun is like hot chocolate for your soul.

Do Something Else

For some, winter is a welcome break, giving you the chance to focus on other things that can’t get your attention during the season. Maybe it’s time to go skiing, or pursue other winter activities. As much as I’ve drifted from being a skier, there’s still nothing like standing on top of peak you’ve hiked to the top of, looking at 3000′ of untracked bliss below you. Or maybe you’re one of the twisted souls who enjoys ice climbing. Whatever it is, winter is the perfect time to vary things up, and you’ll be that much more psyched to come back to climbing when the weather gets warm again.

For us, winter is a welcome slow time. Sleeping in on the weekends, hitting the gym for a couple of hours, it’s a nice change of pace. And when the sun is shining, we’ll be out at the warmest local cliff we can find, enjoying it for all it’s worth!

On the drive out to Rifle last week, I was talking with a friend about the pitfalls of trying hard, how you can start to get too obsessed with a route, and how it can even stop being fun. He shared that lately he was finding the thought of trying a hard project looming over him and taking over his thoughts. He could focus on little else, will I get on X route tomorrow? Another friend once lamented how he’d get nervous butterflies in his stomach before every hard redpoint attempt (he climbed 13+ at the time). I’ve also suffered from pre-redpoint jitters, where I get really worked up about possibly sending a line, and it kills me every time. Instead of heading up in a relaxed and fun state, I’m anxious and nervous. If I climb well, I might get even more anxious as I near the top. Will this be the one?

I sent two projects in the span of three days recently, and both were fairly unexpected. They weren’t routes I had put much time into, and would hardly qualify as “projects” as the term is used in Rifle, but for me they were routes I had put some burns in on, and wanted to get done before the end of the season. Going into both with low-to-no expectations, I was smiling, and staying relaxed as I moved upward, enjoying the movement for what it was. I gave my best efforts, and found myself clipping the chains with a big grin on my face.

In turn, I learned, or was reminded of, something valuable about trying hard. It’s great to have a goal, but the truth is some goals will never be reached, so unless you enjoy the process, you’re better off taking your time and energy elsewhere. It certainly can be difficult once you’re vested in a climb, because you obviously want to send, but you’ll probably enjoy it much more if you can balance this desire with the attitude of simply enjoying the climbing for what it is: fun!

Summer is a fantastic time of year, as the snows recede into the high peaks, and the mountains become a playground where you can do anything you can dream up. It seems like every living thing reaches its peak, clothed in brilliant greens, a celebration of life. The days are maybe a little warm at times, but any complaints are quickly silenced when you think back to the long and wet winter.

At the start of the season, the meadow is nondescript, as life has yet to spring forth. In fact, it’s easy to walk right by, not taking much notice of it. By mid summer, however, it might just stop you in your tracks with its beauty. Little yellow flowers are everywhere, punctuated by the purple clover and other wildflowers. It’s a small spot, but holds an air of significance, like if you were to stay here and meditate all day you might stumble across some deeper meaning of life.

There’s a point every summer when it hits me that the summer has peaked and is sliding back down the other side towards the inevitable coming of fall. Up until that moment, there has been little to no thought given to what lies beyond, all that matters is the here and now. The days are long, the weather is good (mostly) and life is an open canvas that lies before you.

But then the moment passes, and subtle reminders that this bliss does not last year round creep back to the front of consciousness. Like being halfway up a long alpine route on Saturday when a sudden thought of work hits you, it’s an unwelcome intrusion into you current state of being.

It’s hard not to let the mind wander beyond this first realization, to how much time is left before winter settles in. As you asses the coming days and weeks in your mind, it all passes in a blur, and a wave of sadness washes over, at the march of time, when you wish you could linger in these days for more than a passing moment.

But mingled with that sadness is an appreciation for the days you do have left, and an urgent sense to make the most of what remains. So as the nights get cooler, and you see some leaves already turning yellow, embrace those feelings of time passing by, but don’t forget that there are still many days left in the warm sun, and that fall, though bittersweet, really is the most incredible time of year.

A friend was asking if I knew anything about it the other day, and so I hopped online to get the beta. As I scrolled down the page, I came across a series of comments that were bashing the route for having too many bolts, bolts near gear placements, etc. It became clear that there were a few VERY disgruntled folks, along with a less vocal majority who had enjoyed the climb just fine in its current state.

It reminded me of another multipitch line closer to here that was actually chopped by an individual who felt the bolts were unnecessary. It was later restored by the FA party, and when I climbed it I could see why the bolts were pulled, but I didn’t think it was so offensive as to merit erasing the original vision.

As we’ve said before, there aren’t many rules in this game, and some routes will be more casual than others. I think there is enough rock out there for many different styles to peacefully coexist. And I’d be lying if I didn’t tell you that there are times when I get fed up with all our self-imposed BS and wish there was a more European attitude to climbing in this country. But I digress.

The latter route does have some bolts near cracks in places, but overall you clip bolts on the faces and place gear in splitter cracks. It’s a casual outing that’s attainable to most folks, without the bolts it would be relegated to those who could climb the grade confidently with marginal gear well below their feet. It sounds like Royal Flush is in that same category, and I have to ask what’s wrong with having a big long route that you don’t have to be a super hero to enjoy? Does everything have to be hard core, cutting edge, super fantastico, all the time?

Those against such routes argue that it’s a slippery slope which will lead to everything being bolted, but I think its pretty clear that bolts shouldn’t be placed next to obvious, good gear placements. There will always be grey areas when you talk about marginal gear, or really small gear, especially on a route that aims to please a broader demographic.

That being said, the precedent in many areas tends to be that whoever gets there first dictates the style of the climb. Take for example a Wingate crack that is perfect hands for 80 feet, but then goes to squeeze chimney for 60 more. Many would place the anchor below the squeeze, and the route would get done all the time. Some, however, would take the line to its logical conclusion, and it would be reserved for those with the skill to navigate the upper portions with limited gear options. I would posit that neither is more right than the other, though I would admit to being drawn to the former over the latter.

In the end, I feel there is a lot of rock out there, and it’s OK that we don’t all share the same vision for it. Thankfully, if we work out our differences like civil human beings, we can all generally enjoy it in the manner that feels most appropriate to us.

(I also find it sad that in a world filled with so much real tragedy that a couple of pieces of metal in a rock can irk people so much. Let’s not lose sight of what really matters here, the massive two lane highway snaking through the Rockies is much more of an environmental “travesty” than a line of bolts up a rock.)

Get Involved With a Youth Climbing Team

When it comes to climbing, perhaps the most selfless thing you can do is to pass on your knowledge and experiences to others so they can hopefully enjoy it as much as you have. Getting involved with a climbing team can be a great way to do this. Maybe you can be a full time coach, but it doesn’t have to be that big. Perhaps you could give a technique clinic, or talk about big wall climbing, or any number of things they maybe haven’t been exposed to that you happen to specialize in. There are numerous opportunities here, and in the end you’ll broaden their horizons that much more. And who knows, maybe you’ll inspire the next Tommy Caldwell.

Do Some Trail Work

As climbing gets more and more popular, our crags are getting loved to death. More people means more impact, and the trails and base areas at cliffs often need a little maintenance to prevent erosion and keep them in good condition. Local climbing groups tend to organize these events in conjunction with the appropriate land managers, and it’s a great way to spend the day helping out and meeting other climbers. Even if you don’t go to a formal event, you can always take the extra 15 minutes before leaving the cliff to shore up some stone work that is coming apart, or block off a side trail that is getting too eroded. A little bit goes a long way.

Help At a Comp

Climbing comps can be a great social gathering where everyone comes together to have a good time pushing themselves hard. Comps can be a lot of work to organize, and often volunteers are needed to help with a variety of tasks. Next time you hear of a comp in your town, maybe sit this one out to see if you can help everybody else have a good time.

Set Routes at Your Local Gym

Maybe you live in Boulder, and you can climb at the best crag in Colorado year round, where the route setting is almost as good as nature intended it. For the rest of us less fortunate souls, chances are you climb at a smaller local facility, which may not always have fresh routes every 3 weeks. Good routesetters are hard to come by, and most gym managers will welcome the extra help, especially if you are volunteering your time for free. That being said, not everybody is good at setting routes (i’ll just make the holds smaller and put them farther apart!), but most will have something unique to contribute in this area.

Bolt Routes at Your Local Choss Pile

Putting up sport climbs is hard work. You can spend a whole day working out where the bolts should go, cleaning holds, and trundling choss, while your friends are out there getting in pitch after pitch. In the end, however, you are creating more climbing for the community to enjoy, and there are few who wont appreciate your efforts. Obviously you should only do this if you have the proper skills/experience or an appropriate mentor.

Replace Old Hardware

Most of our sport crags are hitting that 30 year mark where the hardware is in need of upgrading, and it’s no small task. At last year’s Rifle Clean Up, it was impressive to see how many people got in on the anchor upgrading. Over the course of one day, numerous routes were improved so that others could safely continue to enjoy them. As with the previous item, make sure you know what you are doing or go with someone who does.

Got any others that we missed?

What would America do, faced with restrictions on something she wanted? She would send in the Blacks Ops teams, and subvert the opposition from the inside. Set up a puppet government if needed. Anything to get what she wants.

As climbers we could apply this same model to our access issues, and I believe the time has come for the Access Fund’s Black Ops division, the Climber Intelligence Agency. A secret branch with training camps throughout the country, with the end goal of getting agents inside every land management agency. Aspiring operatives would learn how to fit in at the various government positions, with their lack of unifying policy and endless use of acronyms.

Imagine what it would be like for those of us who deal with access issues. No more sitting through nail biting meetings with land managers, the fate of your newest climbing area left to the whim of an underpaid, overworked employee who may or may not have had his morning coffee yet. Imagine instead a scenario where you glumly sit across the aisle, nodding and smiling at the unsuspecting bureaucrat, knowing his or her boss is really an undercover Access Fund agent, and there is no way the rumored cliff restrictions will ever come to fruition.

Those pesky bird closures that keep us off some of our favorite crags for half the year? Ancient history. We’d get some scientist/biologists on the inside to prove a theory showing that human company is healthy for the birds, as it keeps their instincts sharper and therefore makes them more likely to succeed in the big bad animal kingdom.

In areas where new bolts aren’t allowed, but old ones can be replaced, we could secure permission to replace anchors on climbs that didn’t even exist, allowing new routes to go up in places where they currently are restricted. It would be a new golden age of climbing development, and given the crowded state of many cliffs, we are in dire need of some new spots!

Just thinking about it makes me want to charge my Bosch and buy a stack of bolts and hangers. Access issues would be a quaint thing of the past with the advent of the Climber Intelligence Agency.

As unlikely as this scenario is, in all seriousness, it really would be nice to have some pro climber folks on the inside. I can think of several access issues that have come up not because climbing was in conflict with some established law or regulation, but because an overzealous bureaucrat didn’t get it and thought it shouldn’t be allowed. In fact, I just learned of a BLM office here in western Colorado that manages a somewhat popular area that “doesn’t want climbers on the cliffs”, and this from a very reliable source.

So maybe we do need an Access Fund Black Ops division after all. It’s time to take this fight undercover!

Personally, I think this detracts from the experience for a couple of reasons. For one, route names are often creative expressions of the first ascentionist, and can be funny, descriptive, tell a story, etc. Bottom Feeder was a jab at the people coming to Rifle who didn’t put up routes. Down with Disease was put up while the developer dealt with a bout of Lyme disease. And so it goes. But I also think this trend reflects a deeper problem, that we are constantly measuring our progress by the grades we climb, which is a somewhat flawed system.

Gauging our progress in this manner would really only be useful if grades were universal, which they are not. Someone might be able to climb a 5.11 at one cliff, but only 5.10 at another, and maybe only 5.9 at yet another. A 5.8 climber at the Gunks, for example, would find themselves capable of many easy 5.10 sport routes in other places.  Even indoors, where all factors are controllable, grades vary from facility to facility. Some intentionally sandbag, so it feels easier when you go outside. Others try to provide an accurate indoor portrayal of outside difficulty. Even in the one venue where grades could be universal, they are not, giving us little consistency outside of localized regions.

And then you add in the fact that routes are different for everyone. I’m tall and can reach the next jug easily, so it’s 5.8. My wife is short and there are no intermediates in between, so it’s solid 5.10. Or we’re at Indian Creek, where 5.10 for me is 5.11 for small hands, and 5.11 for me is 5.10 for those with small hands. Now, I’ll admit that grades are nice to give you a general idea of what to expect, but when you’ve been climbing awhile, you know generally what a certain level of climbing will feel like. For example, I know what 5.10 effort feels like, regardless of whether it’s called 5.10 or 5.8.

Also, I think there can be a lot of baggage attached to a grade. You know what you SHOULD be able to climb, so if it’s harder you might be really apprehensive about trying it, and if it’s easier and feels hard, you might be disappointed with your performance. When I lead climbing trips for a local high school, especially to a place like Indian Creek, we don’t tell them what they’ve been climbing on until the end of the trip. Some are surprised by how hard they climbed, others by how easy a route was they fell off. But in the end, they are free to enjoy the moment, without attaching any significance to a random and arbitrary grade.

This is how I would love to approach climbing, as unrealistic as it might be. Go out, find something that inspires me, and have at it, regardless of what the grade is. Do it for the fun of climbing, attempt to climb it in the best style that I can, as the grade is, in the end, not giving me anything compared to the movement and aesthetic beauty I’ll find waiting for me.

I remember my first climb. Heck, I think I was hooked before I even swung my first tool. Going to class every day and walking over the bridges around Ithaca, I would gaze longingly at the frozen drips and smears that lined the walls of the steep gorges there. Like most college kids, however, I couldn’t throw down $1000 to get all the gear I would need to try it on my own.  When I finally went on a school outing to the Adirondacks, I was psyched. It didn’t matter that it was super cold, or that I couldn’t feel my hands at the top. I was doing something rad, I was ice climbing!

And so the passion flourishes, especially if you live somewhere close to the ice. In Ithaca, good rock is hard to find (as in it doesn’t exist) but the ice, now that was a different story. All those wonderful gorges hid many beautiful lines. And who cares if many of those climbs were technically illegal, I was in college and welcomed the hilarity that would ensue from being arrested for ice climbing.

But then it seems that for many, at some point down the line, there is a waning of interest. Sometimes this happens because of a bad accident. A friend takes a rough fall, or worse, is killed by falling ice. Or maybe you take a bad fall, and get seriously injured. Whatever the cause, there is often a moment that makes you take a step back and realize, oh yeah, this stuff is DANGEROUS. (Way more so than rock climbing, anyway.)

I know a lot of good climbers, and it seems they all dabbled with ice at one point or another, but most have since moved on. A big negative for me personally is that you can’t safely push yourself on harder routes, because the harder it gets, the more dangerous it is. Kind of like kayaking, harder = more difficulty AND more danger. Now, I’m not talking about mixed climbing, which is just rock climbing with ice tools, and pretty darn fun. I’m talking about stepping up to WI5 or WI6 routes where you cannot fall. Most of us don’t climb rock routes very often with that kind of danger, and it has limited appeal. That being said, I’m always impressed when I watch a solid climber calmly ascend steep and/or thin ice, knowing the mental control they have over their nerves. (They also probably climb 5.11 R like it’s just another day at the Sport Park.)

And so many accept the fact that they may never lead the Fang, or the crux on the Ames Ice Hose, and that’s OK. There are plenty of fun, relatively safe routes out there to enjoy, and plenty of stronger rope guns to take you up the scary stuff! And if you love the adventure of ice climbing, the solitude of winter, and the beauty of a frozen waterfall, you know all this, but it doesn’t matter. You are a lifer. And every winter when the temperature beings to drop, you can’t help but drive out and hike up to the local spots with the giddiness of a child running down stairs on Christmas morning to see what the fat man has left under the tree. The sight of an ephemeral line sends your mind spinning with the possibilities, as you look for ways to probe its difficulties, and make your way to the top of another frozen gift.

As a reminder, the Redstone winterfest is this weekend. See you there!

The Warrior’s Way

Mantra: I’m aware that training is difficult, but I will only observe and not act on that impulse. I will stay with my intention to train, even though it puts me in a stressful situation and my mind naturally seeks comfort. The end result of this will be learning that I can endure training.

Bottom Line: I am as calm as a Japanese rock garden.

The Self Coached Climber

Mantra: I already have enough strength to climb my project, but my horrible technique is holding me back. I have devoted 12 hours/day to training in order to address these deficiencies in my technique and movement. I will spend 3 hours warming up, 6 hours sending hard and 3 hours cooling down. I will write everything down and keep track of my progress with meticulous spreadsheets.

Bottom Line: I will have no life outside climbing, but I will climb better!

Training For Climbing

Mantra: I will schedule my training program into several cycles designed to peak at key times throughout the year. I will experience higher highs, as well as lower lows. I will purchase a weight vest and use that to make myself stronger.

Bottom Line: I am a complete control freak. I will allow no other distractions for 12 weeks so that I can stick to an exact training regimen and my fitness will peak for one week of bliss in the Spring, Summer and Fall. The rest will be training hell.

9 Out of 10 Climbers Make the Same Mistake

Mantra: The most efficient way to get strong for climbing is bouldering, campus boards hurt almost everyone, and it’s never too late to get a lot better at climbing.

Bottom Line: Every one sucks at climbing in their own special way, but if I climb more, I’ll suck less. And I might need a PhD in climbing to take in all the info in this book.

Maximum Climbing

OK, I actually haven’t read this one, but with a name like that I imagine it would be somewhere along the lines of:

Enough of this sissy stuff, let’s get some shit done!

Disclaimer: All of these books are actually quite good and we recommend checking them out along with a few others:

Performance Rock Climbing – One of the original and best books on the topic.

Climbing: Training for Peak Performance - an excellent resource for alpinists, climbers with big peak goals, all-around outdoor athletes, and people recovering from major injury or surgery.