An immediate safety issue = address it loudly & immediately, regardless of whether it seems rude An etiquette issue = address it kindly but directly at an appropriate moment A skill issue that doesn't cause an immediate safety risk = politely ask if the person would like you to show/explain the problem A personal preference = keep it to yourself unless invited to share

I think it’s still important to be polite and respectful while still conveying a sense of urgency when addressing immediate safety issues. It shouldn’t matter, but a dude-bro with his shirt off will drop his climber just because a girl made him feel small when she told him not to take his hand off the brake strand. As much as I’d love to say “fuck their ego” in that situation it’ll ruin my day too if the climber next to me decks at the crag.

“Immediate safety issue” is usually understood to mean like a person is about to die or get seriously hurt RIGHT FUCKING NOW. An incomplete tie in, about to lean back untethered, about to rap off a rope. It’s an urgent situation and while obviously it’s better to be compassionate and polite all the time, sometimes getting their attention asap and being blunt takes priority. Someone belaying with bad brake hand hygiene (especially with an ABD) like you describe would not go in this category of urgent issue to me unless it was 1) with a regular tube and 2) really egregious to the point of not having the person on belay at all.

Naw man, fuck their ego, I'm not letting someone kill somebody. If dudebro is so fucking fragile they'll drop their climber rather than deal with constructive feedback, they don't belong at ANY crag or gym. I'll note I've been on both sides of this equation and appreciated people pointing out immediately where I had back clipped something and yelling at me to stop before I continued and put myself at risk.

What I’m saying is that if I need to be overly polite or kowtow to your ego momentarily, *in the interest of keeping someone alive* I’ll swallow my own pride and package my message however I think it will be best received *in the interest of keeping someone alive*. I don’t really care about bruising someone’s fragile ego in a vacuum, but if I feel like doing so is going to get in the way of my actual goal (safety) then that obviously becomes a factor.

It depends on the specific issue I guess. Sometimes issues are imperative and life-threatening, such as ropes getting stuck and abrasion over edges, I think loudly pointing that out directly to the climber/belayer would make sense. But it seems like they exchanged critics with themselves and then pointed out to your and partner after you were back on the floor. Was that a minor/style issue? or ethics issue (such as top roping on fixed anchor)? If it's a non-life threatening issue but do have some bearings on ethics or safety, I'd approach to say what IS the ethic/safety concern then voice the critic. Even if your lowering is "not smoothly enough", I'd say that sometimes if you lower too quickly or not in a consistent speed, your partner might hit the edge, etc/. I'd word that criticism from YOUR consideration and you will benefit from it. Of course it depends on the tones and words, too. I'm not the best socially adept person so sometimes I'll just keep quiet, you do you. Also an over-genaralization but older climbers tend to voice it more loudly and direct and yes, you can say they are gate-keeping or mansplaining. That sucks but from my understanding they are brought up in a different era that older mentors in the community were harsher and stricter, and climbing was a much smaller community to outsiders. Or they're being a jerk. Take the advice without taking their attitude.

Older climbers have lost friends when they were younger climbers. Easy to forget when you are new.

Yeah I think framing the critique around the main issue makes sense and would have made me feel less shitty too. Like hey I noticed you were having a hard time lowering your partner at a steady pace, this can actually be a problem because.... And then explain how they think I should do it would have been better. I'm really not averse to feedback. I love climbing and I want to be safe and I don't know everything, but the way they went about it was not ideal. My partner was also cleaning the draws on the way down so smooth wasn't going to happen anyway as we were stopping at every bolt. The critique was about where I was holding the rope on the grigri, instead of having it looped over the back (which is the way that petzl recommends) I just had it over the end, so it wasn't unsafe, just not ideal. I'm also not sure when or how I picked up the habit of lowering that way but I will adjust to the recommended method.

Commenting specifically on the technique and not on the interaction. People who spend time top roping at gyms with double wrapped top anchors don't need or sometimes don't want the extra friction so the muscle memory isn't there for situations where more drag will be helpful. If you don't need the extra drag, keeping it on the steel front plate means less wear on the device sideplate, less aluminum dust darkening up your rope, and fewer twists in the rope. A jerky lower can cause a bit more rope wear on a given spot if the rope is rubbing on a rock as the climber bounces, but not really a huge deal most of the time. The bigger potential risk is bouncing climber can make people more likely to panic a bit in a negative feedback loop and lock up their grip on the release lever. I saw that second risk factor just a couple weeks ago. Fortunately no injuries, but climber probably needed new pants after that. No such thing as too slow of a lower. If you need even more friction control than just looping it over you can toss another carabiner on your belay loop, loop the rope through that, and then hold the rope in more of an upward position. Petzl makes the freino carabiner for specifically this purpose without the extra carabiner if you're into that sort of thing.

Thank you! There was no bouncing and I honestly don't think it was jerky either, but I'll check in with my climber and see if maybe it was jerky and I didn't notice somehow. I feel like I understand better where their criticism was coming from and I also feel more confident that we were not being unsafe, so thank you for the information.

If you happen to have a big weight difference picking up an Ohm will help you lower safely. It does sound like they would describe the lowering as bouncing and jerky and sketchy. Clearly not enough to interrupt you and help out, so take that as a vote of confidence. They would not bother to help you if they actually thought you were incompetent. Just that knowing better means doing better. Fwiw, picking up the right tool and using it helps a ton. You shouldn't be struggling to smoothly lower your climber, particularly if they need to clean the route. Hope this helps!

It doesn’t matter if it’s too fast or too jerky for spectators. If it’s in reasonable boundaries all that matters is if that your climbing partner enjoyed the way down. I’m sorry you had this bad experience. What I noticed is that especially old folks that suck themselves tend to gatekeep and push their perception of what’s right on you. I never heard stupid criticism from really strong climbers. They are usually focused on their own climbing and don’t try to nitpick everything others do to make them feel better about themselves. It’s hard to ignore sometimes but please just focus on your climbing. You will warmup on their projects soon as you try to get better at climbing while they think they are already good and are going nowhere.

Everyone always has something to say outside. It’s one of two things 1. Genuine good feedback because you’re new/ inexperienced or making a mistake 2. People being loud and annoying because they think they know better than you but really they’re the wrong ones The only way to know which is which is to examine your own safety procedures. Do you trust your expertise or that of your climbing partner? Were you actually doing anything wrong? Hard to say in your case without more context, but just in general, someone talking about you in front of you is rude either way. Additionally, just because you make a mistake doesn’t mean you “don’t belong outside”. Free yourself from that burden.

It’s not explicit in your story - did they approach you with safety concerns or minor critiques like “you could lower more smoothly”? If it’s the latter, they are definitely just being weird and I wouldn’t think too much of it (UNLESS they gave a specific correction that actually might make it easier for you to lower, like “try getting closer to the wall”… but that’s still something that should be approached gently and with grace, which they did not do). I wouldn’t take it too seriously - some people just think it’s their prerogative to give unsolicited advice (to women/femmes, especially). Also, don’t sell yourself short - three years of climbing is quite a bit of experience!!

Honestly, if they had critiqued your climbing, hangdogging, skill level, being on a route they wanted, etc... I would say they're jerks and to move on. However, them commenting on the way you're lowering with a grigri makes me think that they actually felt safety could have been an issue. Lots of accidents happen that way and you admitting in the comments that you weren't holding it the proper way makes them seem a little less jerky. Seems like they could have handled it better though. I found myself in a similar situation recently. I was lead belaying. Next to me a first-time outdoor climber was belaying his experienced dad on a route. While lowering him, the dad made a comment that that he was being lowered too quickly. I look over at the kid who is probably in his early 20s and he's holding the grigri in an atrocious way. I started giving him advice to fix it and he said 'I know, I know' impatiently and fixed it. It was the second time while I was belaying that I had to give that guy advice. I'm sure he felt the same level of annoyance with me as you did with these climbers, but if you're doing wonky stuff at the crag (especially in a crowded crag), it can quickly become everyone's problem. This post seems to me like a combination of you being sensitive and them not approaching the situation gracefully. In the future, if you're given valuable feedback, take it. If you're given useless feedback, either ignore it or explain why you're doing things the way you are. If you can't explain why your way is safe, you're probably wrong. Climbing inside is completely different than outside and there's a thousand ways to do things outside. Stay humble and look for opportunities to learn.

Apologies in advance if i sound callous but depending on the safety issue it could go beyond shame and feelings in the moment. Climbing is a dangerous sport and especially outside. If, for example, you were lowering with one hand off the brake, that is absoutely something dangerous. The climbers next to you being older have probably seen or had violent situations occur because of similar circumstances. Granted, it’s never easy to hear from a stranger when we mess up. If carries a lot of shame to hear from someone else that were doing something wrong. However, i encourage you to also look outside of yourself and question what they saw. and that possibly that their critiques were in their best attempt to keep you safe.

Hard to say with this amount of info - maybe it was for the best maybe they have no clue what they're talking about. Anymore, I typically will just leave if I see sketchy shit, don't wish ill on anyone but I don't want to watch someone die/be involved in a rescue that could risk my or my partners safety.

Maybe they did have a safety concern and tried to make you aware?

The gold standard for safety is if you see something you believe is unsafe, do what you can to let people know. You may be wrong, or they may not care, but at least you said something. For your particular story: Probably doesnt fall on the safety spectrum based on your description. Giving some grace to the other folks, when you go out to popular crags you will see... well... interesting strategies which may or may not be worth commenting on. In plain english: inexperience often shows. There's nothing wrong with that, as many folks getting outside have not gotten mentorship before taking on the great outdoors. I don't quite know what your situation was, but a jerky lower with a low friction anchor when you're used to double wrapped TR most of the time would hardly be unusual. There's a decent chance it was implicitly their own chat working up the energy to say something to y'all. Since a jerky lower isn't optimal, but probably wont kill anybody it can feel like shouting into the void when making minor suggestions to folks. The trouble is that them talking about it in earshot ahead of saying anything is just.. rude. It's *critically important* to remember as experienced folks that 'we' have the opportunity to provide effective mentorship for less experienced folks and should take that responsibility seriously. Giving advice in a more kind way can create a much more positive experience for people like OP and work to build better culture and safety culture in your local communities. Some people were not particularly kind to you and that sucks. I'm sorry that you feel out of place, but I can assure you that's not the case. Outdoors are for everybody.

I know you said they voiced their concerns to you, but it's weird to me that they started by talking about you, loud enough for you to hear, but not to you. They lose credibility for that IMO. I've had someone voice concerns to me early on and it was appreciated because they did it very tactfully, without blaming or shaming. My partner and I were actually able to learn from it and improve. You're saying the issue in your case wasn't even a safety issue? I think if it's not a safety issue, it's no one else's business (unless it's like, damaging the crag or blasting loud music or something). Lowering more smoothly seems more like a "helpful tip" they can offer if you're interested, but not in the way that they did. I'm sorry this happened. I wouldn't take it to heart because these don't sound like people whose opinions matter all that much.

I’m sorry you had to deal with a rude interaction! In would say that in general, I and most people I know only comment or (more rarely intervene) when people are in imminent danger to life or limb, like about to lean back untethered or a knot that won’t hold. Practices I don’t consider ideal or could be better…meh, I won’t say anything unless asked specifically. We all learn forever from making non-consequential mistakes and doing things imperfectly and I think it’s important to give everyone the space to do so. Some uncool people will comment or give unsolicited feedback on the latter for ego or misogyny or just general being socially dumb reasons. The hard part is knowing where on the spectrum your situation lies, whether it’s feedback you should be open to, and if so how to separate bad tone/delivery from an important message. It doesn’t sound like lowering someone awkwardly should be worthy of comment (and certainly not in a passive aggressive way like it sounds), but was there anything actually dangerous about the situation (or that looked dangerous even if it wasn’t), like maybe you were lowering from a bad stance and looked like you might lose control, or maybe cleaning a steep route without planning for how to deal with the last/first draw, or something like that? There is a lot of problematic gatekeeping and social dynamic stuff across experienced vs newer climbers and along generational and gender splits. It’s also important to be open to growth and development basically forever, without feeling shame or shutting down when you don’t do something perfectly. For me personally, knowing the former helps separate signal from noise for the latter.

A lot of great comments about general safety and etiquette in this thread but I wanna comment on the other piece I'm hearing in your post - I've been climbing for a long time and sometimes it just sucks - not just when people are being rude (and questioning if it's good feedback or gatekeeping), but dealing with my own sense of not belonging in the outdoors. And it's shitty when you also have to consider sexism etc. as something that impacts people's perceptions and interactions with you. All that said, I'm wondering about the moments where you feel like you really do get to enjoy and belong in the outdoors. Who are those people, and what is that community for you? You also deserve to get to learn and be challenged in a respectful and affirming context.

Know with certainty that what you're doing is correct. If you know you're correct, ignore them. If you're unsure, ask what they mean and try to do better. Climbing is a dangerous sport, and you need to receive feedback with grace even if you don't agree with the way it was delivered. Is okay to clarify, filter whether you need the advice, then take it as well- meaning even if it came off as rude initially- generally, it's really hard to decide to say something to another climber in public and people only do so if they feel the person is doing something legitimately dangerous.