Climbing Tips and Tricks

Over the course of a year my wife and I went from our first day at the climbing gym to leading multipitch trad routes in Yosemite. Over the years we’ve dived into several technical/physical sports and doing this over and over gives a good background on how to get up to speed in a new sport as quickly as possible.

Now that we’ve been at this for two years I thought it is a good time to do a write-up of some of the things we learned that were not in books. These are little tips and tricks which either make climbing more efficient or lowers risk.

Here they are:

• A persons level of confidence is not tied to their level of competence. Particularly important in climbing when an (over) confident climbing partner can result in an injury or epic if they are not also competent. Evaluating this is particularly challenging when starting out and being the less experienced of the two – so ease into these relationships; climb with someone in the gym on toprope first, then lead in the gym, then a day at the crag, before setting off up a remote multipitch with them.

• When loading for rappeling, both climbers can rig their rappels before either starts rappelling, this allows you to safety check each other.

• When tossing a rope-half for a rappel, hold the stopper knot, toss the rope, and then toss the stopper knot. This 2-phase toss reduces the chance of the rope ending up in a pile halfway down the rappel route.

• When you have a line bag or tarp - if you tie both ends in immediately after climbing you don’t have to re-flake the rope on the next climb. If both ends are tied in it cannot form a knot.

• Girls: if your harness has clips on the leg loops – this means you can simply unclip these to use the bathroom, no need to remove your harness.

• A quick and dense source of energy while climbing is Gu energy packets. These fit in pockets and can be eaten one-handed while belaying. Squeezy foods also meet this need.

• When rigging to belay a follower, when you pull up all the rope, throw back down 8 feet. Don’t take this 8 feet in until you have put them on belay. The follower will know not to climb until the pile of rope at their feet becomes taut, even if you can’t hear each other.

• A good mnemonic check when setting out on a (multi) pitch to ensure you don’t leave any required equipment behind: ABCD - Anchor, Belay device, Cams, Draws.

• Order ‘fishing lanyard’s from Amazon. You can clip this to your phone’s case and then never worry when you pull it out to check a topo or take a photo. These are also good for retaining nut tools.

• Put your phone into airplane mode when doing a multipitch or at a non-urban crag. Low signal will drain your batteries quickly, and doing this will preserve your batteries for more photos / topo checks / having some battery if you have to call in a rescue.

• Small multipitch survival kit: space blanket, lighter, whistle (and carry a knife and headlamp too!)

• The bag your harness came in is handy for climbs with walk-offs - put your approach shoes in these and clip to the back of your harness. keeps them neatly stowed and out of the way

• Learning about trad placements while at home – you can put on firstpersonbeta’s videos while doing other work on your computer; its a never-ending stream of trad placements so you can get familiar with what placements look like and how to spot good ones. (BTW, not a substitute for professional instruction. I think you can learn mostly on your own, but spend a day with a guide when you feel like you are ready, to get your placements dialed in and get a professional evaluation of if your placements are good)

• If you are trad climbing halfway up a route and getting shut down on a section – you can always aid climb through with a couple single and double length slings for your feet. May not be the style you want, but it may save you from leaving gear.

• Take photos of topos and route descriptions with your phone, then they’ll always be handy to reference while you are on your climb.

• If you have a lock-screen on your phone, switch it to something you can unlock ham-fisted one-handed; for my android I use a pattern unlock.

• Our gym has ‘garage sales’, the unclaimed ‘lost and found’ items, its good to pick up a cheap pair of passable shoes here, so that when your main shoes need resoling you have something to climb in for the two weeks they are out for resole.

Things in books, but bear repeating

I’ve read through some of the AAC accidents archives. 90% of self-inflicted accidents can be avoided by the following maxims:

• Everyone who’s lowered off the end of their rope thought it was long enough that they didn’t need stopper knots. Always Tie Stopper Knots.

• Always weight test a new system before committing to it. If setting up for a rappel or a lower-after-cleaning put your full weight on the rope and confirm its the rope not your tether taking your weight before untethering.