RRC Archives

Sport Climbing is Neither.

pigsteak wrote:how does one not do it if we don't know what we are not supposed to not be doing?

smoke a bowl and think about that for a while 8)

Gear is queer. That shit is confusing too.

pigsteak wrote:why climb both...waste of a good day to plug gear..ask OW..he hasn't brought a cam to the Red in two years...

Sure I have. I hang one from my rear view mirror like all the cool kids do with their quickdraws. Don't be mad that you had to donate your mirror draw to Cell Block Six.

(that draw is freakishly tiny. Some kinda circus midget shit, and when you clip it, it feels like plastic.)

it IS plastic....just a reminder to not fall right there....

this turned out to be a intresting thread. and thanks for the info, to the people that did give any. to others, keep it goin.

Hey I donated that midget draw, yall better be thankful that it fits your midget fingers. I have to use man sized draws.

this reminds me of how it used to be (back in the motherfucking day, yo)- pre sport clmbing, back when Grant Stephens and Martin hackworth were the ubermensch and anyone else was a subman, it was all gear climbing. Nothing worked better at keeping the ill informed and inexperienced away from the crag than trad climbing. Most folks got into climbing back then something like this- someone took you toproping- prob. out to Princess Arch. You got the bug, bought the gear, and went and tried your hand at it. You and a buddy went back to princess arch or to Long Wall and sacked up for Autumn or Rip Off. You started up the route and got 6 feet off the deckand tried to place a piece or three for the next 10 minutes. If you had real motivation you might get high enough off the deck to get seriously pumped, maybe hang on to place your next piece, realize how high up you were and get really scared, and realize how far you had to go to the top of the route, and then realize you were not man enough to summit that day.
That alone kept folks from geting in over their head. I can tell you that it was MAYBE ever third or fourth trip out that I actually got up a route. it was two years before I was getting up routes with predictability.
The newby scared shitless phenomena precipitated several Monday morning gear liquidations when guys who had spent there book money on cams suddenly saw jesus and got the fuck out of the sport.
I call it the natural nerd gate. If there was some way that everyone who climbed had to start trad climbing, there would be a lot less climbers.

if it weren't for bolts....

If it weren't for my horse, I wouldn't have spent that year in college.