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Yeah use whichever one is best populated for your area, they’re all the same except 8a, which is worse.
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May 10, 2023 03:32
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I'm a mediocre but long time boulderer who was just getting into outdoor bouldering, but I've now moved to somewhere with literally no outdoor bouldering locations, but tonnes of groups doing weekend trips out to cool sport (and lead, but not worrying about that for now) climbing locations. Assuming these are mostly fairly simple "safe" friendly routes (they only ask to see a level 1 sport climbingcert you can get in a day which is also what you need to even belay at a gym). How bad an idea is it to just get the cert and go almost straight away? Don't particularly want to get someone injured or killed because I don't know enough for the climb.
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May 14, 2023 04:10
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Learn to belay, learn to lead, learn to clean. Go with the group a couple times. Ask to learn if you don't know how. Right wrong or otherwise i took a lead class at the gym and learn to clean anchors from YouTube 15 years ago and went straight to the red.
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May 14, 2023 05:50
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I'm not sure what the cert you're talking about entails, but yhere's my general opinion on the subject. Learning to belay top rope is trivial and you can learn in 10 minutes and with a grigri or other assisted belay devices you'd have to really try to end up hurting someone. I have no problem showing someone who never did it before and letting them belay me. I'd suggest learning that and getting some practice at the gym before going outdoors with people just so you feel comfortable, but you could totally learn while on the trip. Learning to clean is also quite simple and you can learn that at the YouTube Academy. Just practice on the ground a few times if you want to avoid being super stressed out at the top of a route. With those two skills you can be a useful part of a trip where there are at least 3 people unless everyone strictly wants to lead every climb. Even then, I wouldn't mind it if someone didn't belay. Just offer to carry the rope to the crag and everyone will enjoy your existence. Learning to lead climb is also relatively simple if you want to do that, but it's totally optional since you can second if you're uncomfortable with it. A class would be helpful so you avoid doing dangerous stuff and feel comfortable, but I guess you could learn from climbing buddies on the fly if you trust them. I'd at least get a few laps fake leading on an auto-belay before just so you get used to clipping and stuff, but you could YOLO it I suppose. Lead belay is a different story. I personally wouldn't be comfortable being belayed outdoors on lead by someone with little to no experience. I highly suggest you attend a class at your gym if they offer good ones and get regular practice. I found mine invaluable and practicing stuff like catching someone who falls while clipping the 2nd bolt is not something I could (or would) have ever done outside of a class. There's quite a few things you can do that will either make it more difficult or more dangerous for the lead climber and you obviously want to avoid that. KingColliwog fucked around with this message at 17:30 on May 14, 2023 |
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May 14, 2023 12:54
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I concur - some sort of indoor course for lead belay is really helpful. Most of the other aspects you can pick up on the fly but there’s nothing like catching someone (or falling yourself, for that matter) in a controlled setting to learn what to do and not do.
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May 14, 2023 16:56
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Natty Ninefingers posted:It is annoyingly hard trying to find climbing shoes to fit big wide feet Scarpa Vapor VS have been good for me, a fellow duck-footed person, as a project shoe I got TC Pros for long multipitch days and they are passable but not great, think I’m going to try the Butora imitation when this pair fails
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May 15, 2023 04:40
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Has anyone hired a Guide service before? How was it? I'll be down in the 'Gunks visiting a friend next weekend, reached out to some company that specializes in teaching indoor gumbies like me the basics of outdoor climbing; tying anchors, rappelling, self rescue, all kinds of other stuff on their site too. But they were like "If you're only in town for a day, just climb with us, we'll lead and you can clean and ask questions and just have a good day climbing"... so, I'm very down with that. Should be a great time. No idea what grade/routes they'll take me on, probably TBD once they size me up in person. Sab669 fucked around with this message at 18:00 on May 18, 2023 |
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May 18, 2023 17:57
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Sab669 posted:Has anyone hired a Guide service before? How was it? Should be a great day. You can climb 5.4/5.5 in the gunks for a full season and enjoy every minute of it, so don't sweat the grades either.
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May 18, 2023 18:13
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Sab669 posted:Has anyone hired a Guide service before? How was it? I've always had a good experience hiring guides, done it 3 or 4 times now to help my kid out, while checking out a new area. Figure just be 100% open with what you don't know or are uncomfortable with, and what your goal is. Climbing insurance isn't cheap for these companies though! I don't think the guides themselves are making much money at all after insurance and the company's cut is taken out, so I try to give them what is hopefully a decent tip.
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May 18, 2023 18:13
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armorer posted:Should be a great day. You can climb 5.4/5.5 in the gunks for a full season and enjoy every minute of it, so don't sweat the grades either. Yea I've heard it's mega stiff, so I'm fully expecting somewhere from like 5.4 - 5.7, no clue and don't really care - I just wanted to look at them on Mountain Project. I'm just supremely excited to do some "real" rock climbing  I was invited to do some sport climbing recently at a vaguely nearby crag but wasn't able to go that day.Baddog posted:I've always had a good experience hiring guides, done it 3 or 4 times now to help my kid out, while checking out a new area. Figure just be 100% open with what you don't know or are uncomfortable with, and what your goal is. Climbing insurance isn't cheap for these companies though! I don't think the guides themselves are making much money at all after insurance and the company's cut is taken out, so I try to give them what is hopefully a decent tip. Their website does mention gratuity is customary, but I definitely might have forgotten so thanks for the reminder 
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May 18, 2023 18:19
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Sab669 posted:Yea I've heard it's mega stiff, so I'm fully expecting somewhere from like 5.4 - 5.7, no clue and don't really care - I just wanted to look at them on Mountain Project. I'm just supremely excited to do some "real" rock climbing It's stiff, but not so much so that you need to downgrade a ton. If you're going to be following you're basically on top rope, so I would think you should expect to be able to climb around your regular TR grade, maybe one grade below worst case. The gunks are stiff at 5.9/5.10 in my experience, but above and below that I think they line up well with other places I've been. There are hundreds of climbs there, and they tend to wander a bit, so it's easy to get off route at times, but if you're following a guide that won't be an issue.
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May 18, 2023 18:29
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I generally top rope around 5.10, 5.10+ but my gym as soft as hell.
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May 18, 2023 18:35
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Sab669 posted:I generally top rope around 5.10, 5.10+ but my gym as soft as hell. Ok so from soft gym TR to gunks TR, yeah it's going to feel harder. I would expect a full grade difference, maybe a bit more, but just tell your guide and they'll make a plan. The first few climbs should be easy regardless, so you learn how to clean gear without dropping stuff or getting super tired.
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May 18, 2023 18:38
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Re: shoes for super wide (or otherwise weird) feet, I would super recommend Acopa: https://acopaoutdoors.com/ They do half size/split sizes, and you can email them to talk about sizing beforehand/get exchanges for other sizes. Just way closer to getting custom shoes than normal, for not thaat much more.
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May 18, 2023 18:44
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tildes posted:Re: shoes for super wide (or otherwise weird) feet, I would super recommend Acopa: https://acopaoutdoors.com/ Thanks for posting this! I’m starting to wear through my project shoes and will almost certainly try out one of their pairs for my giant flipper feet. If I do I will post a trip report. They also have a bunch of rad custom options!
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May 24, 2023 04:54
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Slimy Hog posted:It was Swanson Arete, which I thought was only fine and I'm not sure why folks recommend it so highly; the final bit was fun, but the rest was meh. Wind Ridge is the better climb IMO and usually what I take folks on at that grade The Wind Tower is classy as hell and has a great view from the last platform. If you see someone fishing down there with a fixed line, it’s probably me.
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May 25, 2023 21:56
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Whew! Got home a few hours ago from my day trip at the Gunks with the guide service. What an incredible day. He lead, of course, and I cleaned up a two pitch 5.6 just get warmed up and for him to sus me out. Great climb, just the right amount of challenge for me. My nerves definitely played a factor but for the most part I felt pretty comfortable, I mean I was basically just top roping but still I'm not used to the 'exposure'. 3 stars on Mountain Project, allegedly about 160' up.   After that it was all single pitch climbs, a few 5.7's and I struggled up a few 5.8's to round out the day. Those didn't feel super hard necessarily, except for the cruxy parts I fell off a few times. But goddamn, what a good day, dudes. I'm mildly bummed that when I return home after this trip who knows when I'll get to do this again  there is a sport crag not super far from home but I just don't have any good rope partners.
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May 26, 2023 00:26
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You look super psyched. big rope climbs are just the best.
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May 26, 2023 00:54
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Hell yeah! I learned to lead trad in the gunks, and spent many, many weekends there. Love that place and I'm glad you had a good time!
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May 26, 2023 05:18
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I think it'd be a while until I felt confident enough to place protection, but I guess cleaning the routes you see it's not exactly rocket surgery. I brought crash pads with me too thinking I'd boulder today but drat I'm sore from yesterday. Was there from 9AM to about 4PM. Sab669 fucked around with this message at 13:42 on May 26, 2023 |
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May 26, 2023 13:38
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Not really rock climbing but there were rocks and walking uphill is technically climbing right? Went for a sneaky pre-season climb on Mt Ruapehu in New Zealand's north island two days ago, there's only been one dump of snow this year so far, so the snow was only really down to about 2100 m, with proper coverage above about 2400 m or so. I was mostly just there to take photos, which I decided to do in the stupidest way possible by using a large format film camera. The camera and all the gear required to operate it weighs a metric ton so although I was staying in a hut overnight and didn't need to bring a tent or cooking gear my bag still weighed ~20 kg (30% of my weight). Haven't had the film developed yet so I only have camera phone photos to show. About a 1 hour climb, 400 m of ascent from the carpark to the hut, got there in time for sunset and got a few photos. Saw some other climbers coming down from the summit who had just been there for a day-trip, was very envious of their seemingly light packs.   Next day I was up at 4:30 am, at least I was the only person staying in the hut so I didn't have to be careful about light or noise when making breakfast. Slogged about 4 or 500 vertical meters up the slope at the base of the pinnacles you can see in the photos above, until making the ridgeline just above them. It was an annoying walk because it was a cold clear night and so the snow had a hard crust which absolutely required crampons, but also at lower altitudes the snow coverage was spotty with lots of rocky sections in-between. Ended up putting the crampons on to leave the hut, taking them off for a while and putting them on again. Once I made the ridgeline I had a spot scoped out that I wanted to photograph from but the wind was howling in exposed places and the spot I had picked out would have been suicide, basically just a huge pile of rocks bonded together with a thin layer of bullet-hard ice in strong wind and with decent drops on all sides. I opted for a nice flat spot a bit lower down but even then managing all my camera crap in the freezing wind was a pain, I had to move my water bladder to the inside of my jacket as the hose had frozen solid.   Once the sun was up I decided to head up to the crater plateau (about 2700 m), I didn't bother actually going to any of the summits because I'd been there before and was mainly up there for photos. There's not enough snow up there for any actual climbing right now, and a lot of rime ice coating some aspects which was unpleasant to walk on.    Had considered staying in the hut another night but decided that I had already gotten the photos I wanted, so I descended all the way back down to the car on the same day and on very jelly legs by the end of it. Overall A+, perfect weather and a fun easy climb made significantly more difficult by carrying a pointlessly heavy camera.
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May 27, 2023 02:48
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Is there a good super simple hangboarding routine? I seem to keep intermittently injuring my leg, so something I could do in weeks when I can’t actually climb would be great. Not really trying to go crazy with it, but at least retaining my finger strength would be nice.
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May 30, 2023 08:50
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tildes posted:Is there a good super simple hangboarding routine? I seem to keep intermittently injuring my leg, so something I could do in weeks when I can’t actually climb would be great. Not really trying to go crazy with it, but at least retaining my finger strength would be nice. Dave McLeod has a follow along Youtube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PebF3NyEGPc
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May 30, 2023 12:57
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tildes posted:Is there a good super simple hangboarding routine? I seem to keep intermittently injuring my leg, so something I could do in weeks when I can’t actually climb would be great. Not really trying to go crazy with it, but at least retaining my finger strength would be nice. I've tried a bunch of things and most are quite simple. As a standalone I particularly like Steve Bechtel's ladder hangboard routine that he presents in his integrated strength program. I like it because I find it really hard to warm-up properly if I'm only hangboarding. I've had good results with it and it's really simple to do. Otherwise, a simple max hang (just pick the smallest edge you can hang for 10 seconds or so if you don't want to use weights) routine is very quick and easy. Just warm up (more than you think), pick a hangtime of 5 to 10 seconds, half crimp hang for that long and then rest for 2-3 minutes. Do it again until you've done 6 hangs or so. You can then repeat the process with a 3 finger open grip if you'd like. You can increase the volume (1 extra rep) or hang on a smaller edge after a few weeks if you want to keep overloading.
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May 30, 2023 13:40
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I think I need to start hitting a regular gym or some poo poo, I keep mildly injuring my shoulder  Was having some minor pain before my trip last week, felt OK on Thursday after my day out. Went to a gym the following day and was tired and weak but didn't feel Bad. Then I just went to the gym yesterday and it hurt to pull on anything. Definitely some limited ROM today. I've done PT before for both shoulders, dunno how this keeps happening just scheduled an appointment with them next week now...
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May 30, 2023 14:05
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I discovered a climbing gym near my office, so I’ve started dipping in for an hour or so three days a week. My main goal being to boost my overall fitness from a different angle. I went from being able to do two near-chinups to doing five full chinups in about a month’s time. That was nice progress to see, and it’s helping the climbing itself of course. It’s too bad the gym itself isn’t the best but it’s convenient, and the one I liked most closed like 6 years ago anyway. Good times!
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Jun 5, 2023 02:34
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That's awesome. I remember I used to not give a poo poo about upper body strength, like iwas decently fit from biking but found weightlifting very boring and didn't care, and i could not do a single pullup. I discovered climbing and it was a fun game to me, so i did it for like a year and one day discovered to my amazement i could do not just one, but like 8 pullups.
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Jun 5, 2023 03:01
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Strength training can act as a significant part of aging healthily
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Jun 5, 2023 04:55
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfsNMOMLZoI Climbing adjacent; an 'action puzzle climbing game' was announced today and it looks pretty as hell. I just played the demo on Steam and the controls felt pretty intuitive and cool.
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Jun 12, 2023 00:15
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Sab669 posted:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfsNMOMLZoI "run it out" the game.
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Jun 12, 2023 00:52
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Went on an amazing climbing trip with my regular climbing partner and 4 friends who are new to roped climbing and it was a blast, but my climbing partner almost ended up hitting the deck so I'd like to share the story so it does not happen to you. So we lead a climb and set a top rope so everyone can climb and my friend decides to go for a second go on top rope. The guy belaying him is using a gri gri and we've been climbing all day without incident. My friend tops the climb, takes and then asks to be lowered. All of a sudden he just starts dropping like a rock at full speed. It was a short climb, 10 meters or so. I start yelling Stop stop stop stop like a mad man and he finally stops falling like 1.5 meters off the ground. I lower the person I was belaying and try to understand what happened and the problem was the following. The guy wasn't used to the gri gri so he was doing the braking with his hand while holding the lever fully pulled. The rope slipped through his hand and when I started yelling in panic he finally let go of the lever. I'm certain we explained how to do it correctly and I checked over him the first few times he was belaying other people. Also told him that exactly this situation was pretty much the only dangerous thing that could happen. I'm never letting someone who doesn't have a lot of experience belay me again unless they are using my grigri+. The speed at which my friend was coming down was quite impressive.
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Jun 14, 2023 00:11
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That's interesting, out of curiosity I tested lowering in a Grigri with the lever wide open and my brake hand doing all the work, and... it works. Feels more or less like an ATC. I don't understand how this guy could have hosed up that bad even if not used to a Grigri. Plus like how didn't he panic and let go of the lever when he saw the climber dropping.
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Jun 14, 2023 00:45
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alnilam posted:That's interesting, out of curiosity I tested lowering in a Grigri with the lever wide open and my brake hand doing all the work, and... it works. Feels more or less like an ATC. I don't understand how this guy could have hosed up that bad even if not used to a Grigri. Plus like how didn't he panic and let go of the lever when he saw the climber dropping. I also don't really understand. I had a conversation with my partner before the trip where I told him I felt more comfortable being belayed with a grigri+ since I read that some people can panic and lock the lever. He thought it was not really possible and people would let go of the lever. Anyway, it's clearly possible and the guy isn't retarded or anything. It's certainly the biggest gently caress up I ever witnessed. So happy the yelling made him let go because the fall would have been really really nasty
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Jun 14, 2023 00:56
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Man, so weird, was just having a conversation with a guy in the gym who had bought a Grigri+ and we were laughing about "how is this ever gonna be worthwhile, if you panic don't you just let go of the lever?" I guess not!
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Jun 14, 2023 02:20
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Is a "grigri+" different than just a regular grigri? I've tried using them but I'm left handed and they don't feel comfortable to me ATC it is. On a brighter note, doctor today was like "it's been enough rest, you can definitely weight the shoulder again; just only climb really easy poo poo for a little" so that's cool because being unable to climb sucks rear end. At least not climbing for the last ~2.5 weeks did give some time to focus on my dietary habits though, down 3 pounds there [of the like 20 I gained over the winter]. Sab669 fucked around with this message at 02:25 on Jun 14, 2023 |
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Jun 14, 2023 02:23
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Grigri+ has "anti-panic handle: if the user pulls too hard on the handle, the anti-panic function brakes and stops the descent automatically." It also has a switch between top rope and lead belay "modes", but I'm not quite sure what that does!
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Jun 14, 2023 02:39
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I dunno, I've seen a person get dropped by someone who let go of the rope on an ATC and the natural friction through the ATC is way higher than what you get on a grigri with the lever all the way open. The person dropped 40+ feet and hit a stone floor and maybe broke their ankle? I didn't get the follow-up but they were still conscious and able to move over to a bench with help until they went to the hospital. That said, making sure people know how to belay before they do it is a good plan and a grigri(+) isn't gonna save you from incompetence. Also there's a reason many gyms double wrap their ropes at the top so you basically can't lower someone quickly. I had a grigri+ for a while and didn't like it at all compared to the original grigri or a grigri 2. Let me lower my climber, device, I promise I got it. I have a trango vergo now which I highly recommend if you have small hands. Only downside is you can't just hand someone your vergo and expect they know how it works like you typically can with a grigri.
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Jun 14, 2023 02:41
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Baddog posted:Man, so weird, was just having a conversation with a guy in the gym who had bought a Grigri+ and we were laughing about "how is this ever gonna be worthwhile, if you panic don't you just let go of the lever?" Several years back, one of the world's best youth climbers, Ashima Shiraishi, took a 45-foot lead fall when her dad apparently made the same mistake, and he was likely as experienced a belayer as anyone. I found the grigri+ really annoying for gym TR use since most of the gyms I've climbed at loop the rope around the anchor to add friction. That additional friction made it very frustrating to lower someone at a decent rate without constantly tripping the anti-panic feature.
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Jun 14, 2023 16:06
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At my gym they provide the grigri 2 (affixed to the rope). I'm surprised that most gyms don't do this, as it seems far safer to have a consistent device they can train people on.
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Jun 14, 2023 16:29
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Baronash posted:I found the grigri+ really annoying for gym TR use since most of the gyms I've climbed at loop the rope around the anchor to add friction. That additional friction made it very frustrating to lower someone at a decent rate without constantly tripping the anti-panic feature. I personally use an ATC for gym top rope for that reason and Grigri+ for everything else. I activated the anti-panic maybe 3 times this year, you just need to get used to it. It can take a while if you've been using a regular grigri for years though.
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Jun 14, 2023 16:33
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