Climbing Ironies

Climbing seems to be full of things that don’t make sense. A few of the more perplexing paradoxes in our sport:

Steep climbs have lots of bolts, but slabs have very few.

The steeper a cliff gets, the safer the falls. So why do steep routes generally have bolts fairly close together, while slabs, which are not fun to fall on (and may even be dangerous), generally don’t offer much in the way of protection? Even when they ARE bolted, the bolts are usually few and far between. So when it’s dangerous, we run it out, and when it’s safe, we grid bolt. With that kind of logic we should be in politics!

“Sporty” means runout, but “sport climbing” is casual.

The description in the the guidebook read “this route gets a little sporty moving from the crack onto the face.” A new comer might think that was a good thing, as sport climbing general means routes that are safely protected by bolts, but “sporty” really means it’s going to be exciting! I’m guessing this comes from a time when climbing was still considered more of a “game,” and something that was “sporting” was in good style? I don’t know, any input on this one?

We put chalk on our hands because they are sweaty, but too much chalk makes us need more of it.

Have you ever brushed the holds on a really popular route you were working on? It’s amazing how much texture is hiding under those layers of chalk! At least slippery holds make us stronger, which is nice.

A group of people we don’t know is a crowd, a big group of friends is a party.

We rolled into Creek Pasture late one night, and were a bit taken aback by how many people were camping there. Now, if we knew all those people, we be like, “Oh cool, Johnny and Chris made it.” But instead our gut reaction is, man, why are there so many people here? I guess I have a lot of friends to make so everyone can be in the “in” crowd.

9+ is harder than 10b.

Much like Newton’s Third Law, I don’t understand how or why, but I do know that it’s true. And while maybe not as often, sometimes 10+ is waaaay harder than 11a.

Many people at the crag are generally nice, many climbers on the Internet are generally mean.

Actually, this makes sense to me. If we are outside, we are happy. If we are inside, stuck in front of a glowing screen, we are mean. Seems pretty simple to me. Outside = good, glowing screen = bad.

Any other big ones out there you can think of?