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Tech Tips
Get that extra edge you need to succeed on your dream climb with Climbing's Tech Tips - Aid, Alpine, Sport, and Trad Beta for the vertical world. Illustrations by Mike Clelland, Mike Tea, Kieth Svihovec, and Joe Iurato.
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 Tech Tip - Training - The Beat Down
Heart-rate training for max sending power - You’re gunning for your project, a pumpy 90-foot route with a crux on hateful crimpers at bolt 11. For the umpteenth time, you enter the crux feeling juiced: your footwork crumbles, your arms chickenwing . . . and then you whip, huffing like the Big Bad Wolf as you hit the end of the rope. Could be you were “pumped” or just “blew it again,” but what you might not know is the role your heart rate played in the meltdown.  Tech Tip - Bouldering - Spot On!
When 6’4” Corey Dwan first plucked me from the sky, I’d just pitched from a Grampians, Australia, highball — he quickly earned a place on my all-time spotting dream team. Dwan’s masterful bodycatching technique is even a matter of public record, as seen in the 1998 climbing flick Free Hueco. Dwan, 38, who works in real estate in Colorado, has refined his spotting technique over the past two decades.  Tech Tip Trad - Soft-Man Link-Up
By Kolin Powick - Half Dome and El Cap in a day . . . for mortals - In 2002, Dean Potter linked the Regular Northwest Face (VI 5.12) on Half Dome and El Cap’s Freerider (VI 5.12d/13a), climbing 57 pitches in sub-24 hours. In 2008, Leo Houlding and Sean Leary did the same, team free. Both were heroic feats of master-class endurance by worldclass climbers. Thus, according to conventional wisdom, a Half Dome/El Cap free link-up remains beyond the means of all but the hardest hardmen — or does it?  Tech Tip - Sport - Kiddy Craggin'
By Heidi Ahrens and Trina Ortega - 10 cliffside-survival tips for climbing families - If you’re a new (or SOON -TO-BE) parent, it’s not unreasonable to fear that kids might crimp your climbing style. Still, it is possible to keep cranking as a mom or pop — even to turn climbing into an engaging family affair.  Tech Tip - Alpine - Stayin' Alive
By Dave Sheldon - The pitches flew by on Polar Circus, our one-day Canadian Rockies winter objective. So when my partner said he’d forgotten his headlamp, I didn’t sweat it. Then, a few hours later, I dropped our shared thermos (bummer). But when my crampon’s toe bail snapped and a falling rock halved our ropes, our day climb morphed into a grovelfest replete with unplanned bivy.  Tech Tip - Sport - Welcome to the Jungle (Gym)
By Krisitn Bjornsen - YOU FEEL EYES UPON YOU — is that panting you hear? You flee to the bouldering cave . . . but you’re cornered. Any second, the lone, roving male will pounce, turning your once-pleasant session into a socially awkward morass.  Tech Tip - Trad - The Lost Art of Downclimbing
By Mic Fairchild - Whether it’s backing down a runout lead, navigating a sketchy descent, or merely exercising the unlikely (I will sometimes climb up and down the same route, just for fun!), the ability to downclimb (DC) is a skill worth polishing, especially for budding trad leaders.  Tech Tip - Alpine - Of snowfields and glaciers
By Martin Gutmann - A descent through a whiteout is usually remembered in two ways: over a cold beer with friends or as a bestseller written by the sole survivor. In fact, descending a snowfield or crossing a glacier in a whiteout can be a complete horrorshow: the ground and the air blur into one, leaving you disoriented ...  Tech Tip - Trad - Extending an Anchor on a multi-pitch route
By Molly Loomis - As the adage goes, speed equals safety in the mountains. But this doesn't mean speed instead of safety. Maintaining constant visual and vocal contact between you - presumably, an experienced climber and/or guide - and a neophyte under your tutelage will yield easier passage through terrain otherwise known as time-suck territory.  Tech Tip - Alpine - Hauling sense
by Matt Samet - On steep alpine free routes, where you need to have extra clothing and food along, but can’t be burdened by climbing with a heavy pack, there’s an easy albeit time-consuming solution: hauling.  Tech Tip - Big Wall - Super dooper
By Mike Clelland - You’ve decided to do whatever it takes to go light on your next wall. Everything is laid out nice and tidy on the ground. You and your partner scrutinize every item that goes into the haulbag. How many hooks? Which jacket is lighter? But what do you do about that homemade PVC poop-tube?  Tech Tip - Sport - The 10 essentials of sport climbing
By Matt Samet - If you’re a crusty old dinosaur like me then you probably remember being taught the importance of the 10 Essentials upon your introduction to climbing and the mountains.  Tech Tip - Trad - Storm's a comin'!
By Matt Samet - It happens to the best (and even the fastest) of us. Hundreds of feet off the deck, you suddenly find yourself trapped, pinned down by an ugly beast spitting white-hot lightning and drowning the rock.  Tech Tip - Training - Cheater's Banquet
By Matt Samet - Because I work 9,000 hours a week and — fattening with age — am increasingly cowed by real, outdoor rock climbing, I’ve become an unrepentant gymrat. But a wondrous thing has happened since sport climbing’s Dark Ages (the 1980s)...  Tech Tip - Aid - Topstep Mania
By Chris Van Leuven - After several seasons in Yosemite, tallying sloth-like aid lead after sloth-like aid lead — as does many a big-wall nOOb — I finally got it: if I efficiently highstepped in my aiders by using the top rung/s, aka topstepping, I could drastically reduce lead times and clip those oh-so-distant fixed pieces. (Revelation!) |
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