The Tao of Toprope 

Fill in the blank: lowballing is to bouldering as _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ is to route climbing. The answer? Toproping. And like lowballing, it can’t get no respect.

I’ll admit, I haven’t set up an honest-to-god toprope since I was 15, grabbing greasy limestone at an old freemason quarry in Ohio. (Sadly/ironically, climbing there is now verboten, due to a fatal top-rope-set-up disaster.) And yes, I hate the feeling of a fuzzy cord tickling my nose and smacking me in the eye when my belayer takes up slack too quickly as much as the next guy. So it’s hard to see past toproping’s rap as the bumper bowling of the vertical kingdom. But not so fast...

If you’ve read my thoughts on lowballing and its oft-overlooked virtues, you’ll know I believe that even the lowliest of pursuits has its place and value. In fact, during the recent Horsetooth Hang (HTH; www.horsetoothhang.net) event, in Fort Collins, Colorado, I discovered topropping has the power to show you how strong... and what a coward you really are. 

This was my first trip to the HTH, an outdoor competition and fundraiser at a reservoir-side sandstone bouldering spot in Larimer County. Horsetoooth is home to some of Colorado’s oldest bouldering and, like the Gunks, sports a handful of dynamic John Gill problems. (One of the problems, the Gill Pinch, is the best known in the area and involves a jump from a not-so-hot right hand pinch to a down-sloping top, followed by a hair-raising, crux mantel top out.) When I got down to the boulders at the HTH, I found that my pad was useless — all the problems taller than head height were rigged (via elaborate boulder-top webbing rigs — cams, nuts, slings... the works) with topropes. “OMG,” I thought to myself. “WTF?”