Rock Climbing: Where there's a wall, there's a way

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > The Great Outdoors > Rock Climbing: Where there's a wall, there's a way

Irving: Jun 21, 2003

myownsavior posted:

My university gym is finally opening back up again!! It's been closed the last few months due to a climber decking on lead (supposedly due to a horrid belay but I don't know the full story, just hearsay). Watching Dosage 4 to get pumped.

I don't know why it keeps happening at my gym, but we've had two people in the last few months fall from the top of the auto-belay because they haven't clipped in properly. At least one of them was an incredibly experienced climber who came in pretty much every day. It seems like the most common injuries are:

1) Beginners falling off the bouldering wall onto their locked off arms and dislocating shoulders.
2) Experienced climbers falling from the tippy top of a climb because they didn't clip into the auto-belay.
3) Experienced climbers falling because their belayer (and girlfriend) completely messed up threading a cinch (okay, this one only happened once)

I've never seen any injuries on lead. To be fair, the floor is soft enough and the clips close together enough that you could deck from the first or second clip and it wouldn't be much worse than falling in the bouldering area, but it still weirds me out that the most bad injuries we've seen have been from the frigging auto belay.

# ¿ Jan 20, 2013 03:21

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ Apr 20, 2024 03:12

Irving: Jun 21, 2003

Anyone in southern California know when Sender One is opening? They've had some preview events, but I can't seem to find out when they're actually doing their grand opening.

http://www.senderoneclimbing.com/

# ¿ Apr 29, 2013 18:12

Irving: Jun 21, 2003

Sound_man posted:

I've been looking into getting into climbing and have found a gym nearby that looks like it would be a good place to start. What I hoping to get out of climbing besides a fun new hobby is more upper body strength and working my way into ropes skills and descending to further my career. I own a Petzl Navaho Bod harness which is a fall protection and work positioning style harness. Is that too much harness for rock climbing? I am thinking if the goal is to get more comfortable climbing around in my harness for work I should be using my work harness. If it would be to cumbersome I will rent or buy a climbing style harness.

The gym nearby has three auto delay devices which saves me from having to get a friend to come with, maybe once I am ready to move to a different routes I will have a climbing friend to belay me.

The setters in my gym use something similar, but none of them climb in those. You'll be carrying a lot of excess weight and it'll make everything quite a bit harder. It's amazing how much of a difference a few extra pounds makes.

# ¿ May 20, 2013 16:52

Irving: Jun 21, 2003

Covert Ops Wizard posted:

I teach people to check their partners every time for a reason, because beginners gently caress up because they're inexperienced and old pros gently caress up because they're done this stuff so much they stop thinking. Being by yourself on an auto takes all of that support and building trust in your friends and throws it out the window.

Almost all the bad injuries at my gym have come in two categories:

1) Bouldering accidents with inexperienced climbers (or inexperienced at bouldering at least)
2) Auto-belay accidents by people who climbed on them every single day.

Just having an extra person there going "hey, your knot looks weird" makes things. so. much. safer.

# ¿ Jul 9, 2013 03:25

Irving: Jun 21, 2003

ante posted:

But how's the wall??

Wall is fine and they're staying open. Apparently the thieves left the giant Allied Climbers donation jar alone, so they weren't exactly being thorough.

# ¿ Sep 18, 2013 16:06

Irving: Jun 21, 2003

pbpancho posted:

Not all of them do that. The Nicros (I think) ones at Vertical Endeavors have a gentle upward pull all the time and lower smoothly. I would not like ones that took a second to engage!

I HAAAATE the ones that pull you up. They feel weird, pull you in odd directions and get in the way. That second of freefall is nothing compared to a lead fall. You get used to it if you've been caught a few times.

# ¿ Oct 11, 2013 05:05

Irving: Jun 21, 2003

SlimPickens posted:

Any Los Angeles goons in need or want of a climbing partner for the next month? I'm spending all of January in Orange County and would like to get on some rock while I'm there.

Or if anybody has climbed there and has suggestions that would be awesome too.

Malibu Creek! There's a ton of great sport climbing out there and the rock is fantastic.

[edit] Gym wise, Sender One is the new big one in Orange County.

Irving fucked around with this message at 03:59 on Jan 6, 2014

# ¿ Jan 6, 2014 03:56

Irving: Jun 21, 2003

Manstrocity posted:

This seems weird to me. My impression of Sender One is they grade a little soft, meaning LA Boulders is just flattering people. Although I mostly climb ropes, so I don't know if that translates over to their bouldering grades.

Not that it matters to me; I took a month off, including getting sick for a week, and when I went back on Wednesday it was like I'd never climbed before in my life.

Also hi fellow Orange County climber.

Yeah, I haven't climbed Sender One for a while, so maybe things have changed, but my impression is that the grades were really soft (for lead and top roping, I didn't do any bouldering). They also seemed to set bolts every frigging foot, I've never had such a short ten clip climb before...

# ¿ Feb 25, 2014 00:45

Irving: Jun 21, 2003

Baldbeard posted:

That's why every page a bunch of us go TECHNIQUE, ITS TECHNIQUE
Don't use fingerboards or any other bullshit.

I've taken a lot of beginners climbing and one of the most interesting things to me is how people who can brute force it through the low levels just hit a WALL when they get into the high 5.10 or V2 range. The people I've taken climbing who have great upper body strength (men and women, though generally guys tend to have this "problem" more, the only girl I've taken climbing who's had the issue was a kayak guide for years) can muscle up routes and just don't progress on technique nearly as fast as you'd expect. The people who progress the fastest tend to be the ones who are weak as hell in upper body and flail like crazy on the 5.8s when they start, but once they figure out technique they shoot right up in levels.

Everyone is different, blah blah blah, but in general I feel like you don't really benefit from specific training for climbing (aside from climbing more) until you're climbing solidly in the 5.11 range for sport and in the V3-V4 range for bouldering. That's around the range where even if you've got perfect technique, more strength and such will really benefit you.

# ¿ Mar 3, 2014 19:54

Irving: Jun 21, 2003

AriTheDog posted:

It really depends on your level of fitness. Personally, when I started climbing, I would only ever go hiking for exercise, and my upper body strength was non-existent.

Simply being able to do a pull up makes an immense difference in your ability to climb. If you can't muscle up anything at all, you're going to have problems with anything overhung. If you're overweight, or have weak grip strength, you're going to have problems period. Do you need to do hangboard training in order to get past this? No. But using an assistive pull-up machine and strengthening your core through yoga (or climbing or whatever) will make a big difference over time, and less weight makes everything easier.

I found the Metolius rubber donut thing to provide a major boost to grip and forearm strength as well as stamina when used regularly, and I would strongly suggest them for anyone with a commute where they have a hand free - it was great on BART.

Sure, I was referring mostly to specific climbing training (fingerboard, etc.) Generally improving your fitness and core strength will help a lot, but that isn't really specifically climbing related. Also, even on overhung routes, technique is so so important.

# ¿ Mar 3, 2014 23:10

Irving: Jun 21, 2003

DannyTanner posted:

Doing a bodybuilding routine, on top of running and climbing every day seems like way too much. Your body has to recover.

It depends on what you're looking for, I guess. It looks like he's interested in doing laps instead of climbing hard stuff, which will work fine if he's looking for endurance and some cardio. If you're not actually trying to climb hard, you don't need to give your hands as much of a break.

# ¿ Mar 20, 2014 05:33

Irving: Jun 21, 2003

GobiasIndustries posted:

I'm pretty new to climbing, and just got belay certified at my local climbing gym last week. My first time climbing with a group went well, but I managed to give myself pretty bad rope burns on the skin between my thumb and index finger from belaying; has this happened to anyone else when they were first learning or did I just really mess up? I think I was trying so hard to not lose track of the rope that I was sliding my hand up the rope every time rather than letting go. It hurts to open doors

Did you get that when you were belaying or lowering? When you lower, the position of the rope will provide the braking, not friction from your hand. If someone is coming down too fast, just pull the rope down and your belay device will do the rest.

# ¿ Mar 28, 2014 19:39

Irving: Jun 21, 2003

Nevvy Z posted:

I went climbing with my friends for the first time ever the other day at a free outdoor rockwall and it was awesome.

If I want to be able to go solo and autobelay I just need a harness and chalk/bag right? Because this shits hella fun.

Coerce a friend into going if you can. Autobelay gets real boring real fast since you usually only have a few routes to choose from. You can boulder solo as well, and bouldering is like 90% social hour 10% climbing, so if you don't have climbing buddies already, you're sure to get some! Also, I have in the past just grabbed people on the auto belay and asked if they wanted to climb.

# ¿ Apr 22, 2014 19:28

Irving: Jun 21, 2003

Sharks Eat Bear posted:

In general, it's fine to lower of the anchors at well-traveled sport crags. It wear the gear faster, but lowering is much safer than rappelling and more and more sport anchors are being equipped with beefy quick clips, whose express purpose is to make lowering easier. And yeah, on steep routes you pretty much have to lower, or have your 2nd clean on TR which isn't always feasible.

This is entirely location dependent. In Red Rocks, the gear is getting replaced all the frigging time regardless of whether people are lowering down because it's so humid and wet that the gear doesn't last anyway. In a lot of the desert in Southern California, the locals would murder you if they saw you top roping off the rap rings.

# ¿ Aug 12, 2014 00:01

Irving: Jun 21, 2003

Sharks Eat Bear posted:

agreed that every crag has its own local "ethic"*. in general, though, i think it stands that lowering off of the anchors is an accepted and common practice at most well-traveled sport crags. i don't think TRing off the anchor is accepted anywhere, and i agree with that. also i don't know what red rocks you're going to that's humid and wet -- did you mean the RRG?

*i hate when climbers talk about ethics because 99% of the team, really what we're referring to is tradition, which often has little to do with morals or right vs. wrong

Yes, for some reason talking about California changed Red River Gorge into Red Rocks in my head.

[edit] Also, even though it's accepted practice a lot of places, I'd stick to rapping until you know the crag and the local "ethics" (I also hate that word). Even at 100% sport crags people sometimes get ratty about lowering off the anchors, especially in places where the equipment can last a long time with care. Unless you're funding replacement anchors, it seems polite to take the extra time to just rap off.

Irving fucked around with this message at 01:34 on Aug 12, 2014

# ¿ Aug 12, 2014 01:28

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ Apr 20, 2024 03:12

Irving: Jun 21, 2003

Sharks Eat Bear posted:

First question is how "big" your feet are, more in terms of total volume and wideness than length. For a smaller-volume/narrower foot, I tend to recommend trying out more EU-designed shoes: Sportiva, Scarpa, Tenaya. For a fatter foot, I tend to think of 5.10 or Evolv as the most prominent options. For me, the biggest difference between these two different "styles" is how the heel fits. When I put on most Sportivas, it's like a vacuum cup to my heel. With most 5.10s, it feels baggy and insecure.

One other thing, if you can fit into women's sizes and have a narrow foot, consider Sportiva/Scarpa/Tenaya women's shoes. They tend to be narrower still than the men's versions. At my climbing gym they actually call them "low volume" instead of "women's" so that men won't feel weird about trying them out. Unfortunately if you've got very long feet you're unlikely to find ones that fit...

# ¿ Aug 20, 2014 17:42

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > The Great Outdoors > Rock Climbing: Where there's a wall, there's a way