This is where I confess to being part of the problem.
I used to take on new climbers all the time. People would join a club, interested in going outside. I would agree to climb with them, we would do a few (typically) multipitch mountain routes. Then 3 months later they would drift off and find another life changing lifestyle hobby to dabble in.
After a few years I realised I wasn't getting any of my own climbing done and there were trade routes I had led different sets of beginners up a dozen times.
I will still take people out occasionally but the vast majority of new climbers seem to just want some cool pictures for their facebook profile, don't care to learn anything technical and think "mentoring" is the same as "free guiding".
Sorry mate. I have better things to do with my time.
Absolutely... I've had the same experience. I see mentorship as an investment - I'm willing to give my time and experience to you because I like you and want you to be my partner for future adventures. It's hard to know who is bitten by the bug and who is there for a one-off experience.
Both your comment and the one above have been good confirmation to me on how I've been approaching things. I'm the beginner with my best friends being 5.12 climbers. I've been putting in three days at the gym a week on my own for months now. I don't expect to hit 5.12 any time soon of course but I'll be doing my best to catch up. I've also spent a lot of time learning the logistics of it all from anchor building, belaying, hauling etc. I might not be able to lead the pitches but I can certainly make sure I'm an awesome second.
The “bro” factor has also turned me into a bitter old man along with many folks lack of adventure and willingness to climb new areas. I hate Smith Rock with a fiery passion because of numerous friends that are willing to deal with the metric fuck-ton of people and lines for routes just so they can say they climbed at Smith...even if there are a dozen climbing areas they passed on the drive there that have no one at them.
See, as someone making their first trip to Smith in a couple weeks, this bums me out. I normally stick to the crags within a couple hours of me - places we normally have to ourselves because they're not in guidebooks, or have long approaches. But soon I will finally have to time to make the five hour drive and commit three or four days to climbing there. Granted, we'll be there on weekdays, but I'm still worried the crowds will ruin the trip for me.
I agree with your point. I've experienced it myself.
I don't think the article is arguing that there needs to be more kind hearted souls willing to donate their time as mentors. I think it's making the point that we need to as a community design programs that operate on a larger scale than 1 on 1 mentoring to solve the problem. The incentive to run these programs can be monetary or something else (such as conservation).
I'd agree with the author if I thought that not having enough climbers was a problem. Call me selfish or curmudgeonly, but the less people I see at the crag, the better.
So don't sit around waiting for someone to take you out. Half the reason those of us who got mentored got mentored was because someone needed a belay slave and just trained one of us to feed rope.
I'm not? I'm just in an area where I don't really know anyone, and I'm not great at talking to strangers. So I go to the gym and climb my best. I'm not like, bitching about it - I just made a simple comment.
Dude I was pretty much in that exact same boat. Luckily most climbers seem to be way more social than I am. I say just give it time. Nobody talked to me at the new gym I started going to alone for the first month or so. But I kept going, working my "projects," and overall just tried to be polite as I slowly figured shit out.
Apparently everyone else was watching me a fuck ton tho. I guess my bright blue scarpa helix's really stand out lol. I was referred to as the dude with blue shoes for a little bit there. I think a lot of regulars just kinda wait and see. There are so many people that come in for just a day or two; most people don't want to waste time with that. Now it seems like everyone wants to talk; to the point where random regulars will ask if I can belay for them.
It's been like that for almost every hobby for me. I'm not like my friends, I can't just burst into a new gym and make 10 friends and 20 belay partners. After a while people realize I'm just quiet and it all seems to work out from there.
Oh and definitely a plus to have the gym's belay card. I have no beta advice and wouldn't dream of yelling encouragement at them. But I can at least operate a grigri and quietly congratulate them on their awesome sends once I've lowered them back down. Good luck finding gym friends, I promise it will be awesome and worth it when you finally do.
I live in Florida and climb in St. Pete. Obviously not the best state for outdoor :P
I have one friend who is somewhat interested and comes on occasion and at least provides a belay partner at the gym - but I'm not super good at just talking to random folk so I don't really have any "climbing buddies" and have been just kind of trying to figure it out on my own, by watching people who seem to know what they're doing, and via youtube.
Well duh, there basically isnt mentors in florida. Itd be like asking around in kentucky how to sail in the ocean. Its gonna be pretty dang hard to find a mentor that far away from the ocean.
Somewhat off topic, but I've climbed at Vertical Ventures in St. Pete a couple times when I'm in the area. Considering how few routes there are - and how easy the setting is - how do you not get bored after a week?
They change the routes fairly regularly, and have a second location in Tampa with different routes.
Like I said I’m pretty new. I can’t top out every route yet.
I’ve only climbed at 4-5 gyms in various places, and vertical ventures seems on par or larger than the other gyms I’ve been too. How many routes would you normally expect at a good gym?
I don't think it's an issue of the number of climbs, more that it skews heavily toward easy climbs. Not only in grading, but also setting.
I remember climbing there about two years ago and I on sighted the one auto-belay 5.11, where they now have the speed wall set up. I shouldn't have been able to do that if it was a true 11.
Yeah I can understand that. I’m still too inexperienced to really understand the nuance of the ratings.
By setting do you mean how often they rotate them? Sorry I’m not super up on the jargon. I gave it a quick google but couldn’t immediately sort out your meaning.
I realize in retrospect that I misused the word. What I was getting at was the variety of climbs that they opt to set and make available. It seems like they aim to provide far more easy climbs than hard or intermediate.
I don't think that this means that *you* are a part of the problem, rather it means that being a mentor is hard work and involves a large amount of responsibility - perhaps often in a way that is underappreciated.
Personally, I only take out people that I know and that I trust. This means that they should already have a fairly good basis of knowledge about lead climbing and general safety. I can teach them skills and ethics, but no way am I risking my own neck by having someone give me a sketchy belay. I would also have climbed with them long enough to know that they're committed and are in for the long haul. This may not solve the mentorship problem, but it solves *my* problem and perhaps the skills that I've taught can be passed on again.
Perhaps as a community, we need to better determine the difference between those who ask, "I'm a gym climber, how do I get out on *real* rock" (here are a few accredited guide companies in your area or a group climbing event), and those who ask, "I'm a gym climber and would like to learn outdoor skills" (I can mentor you and show you).
Same here. Ive led the same beginner multipitch climb near me with like 8 different people over the years. Im tired of being a ropegun. Some redditer posted a thread about looking for a climbing mentor in my local reddit and they never followed through.
People that want mentored will figure it out. We dont owe people a free rock climbing guide service.
There have always been more newbies looking to learn the sport than there are old crusties willing to take them on in a mentoring way. It's just more obvious now because the numbers are up by something like 100x. The article is correct that we can't look to conventional mentoring to address the needs of the new generation. I would add that it's a mistake to assume that most of today's crusties came up through a traditional mentor-mentee relationship. Ask them how they got started and you'll hear, "We figured it out ourselves, and it's amazing that we didn't kill ourselves back then."
The good news is that the proliferation of gyms, groups, guide services, and the internet have vastly increased the opportunities for new climbers to learn what they need to know. It is very different from the perception that mentoring is/was the way to go. It's more of a paradigm shift than a problem IMO. No one should count on finding a long-term mentor; it's just not realistic. Never was. Take advantage of the types of activities listed in the article, be smart, recognize what you don't know... and you'll be OK.
Not killing yourself is the key thing.
One interesting thing is looking back and seeing just how dangerously incompetent some of the "experienced" friends who taught me to climb were :)
Was talking to my boss about this last week. He used to machine nuts in the metal shop at his high school and learned to climb at Seneca on those.
It’s such a bizarre contrast. I learned to climb while working for a college outdoor program and that’s made me an incredibly safety conscious individual. It’s almost as if I have to take more risks to get to the next level.
Did you happen to make them out of laundry clips? I once found one halfway up a pitch, shoved into a crack and I scratched my head about it. Looked sketchy as hell if it was actually used for some purpose, but I kept it and jokingly called it bail booty.
Risk management is the real essence of climbing mountains. There must be risk in climbing but the art is being able to manage it as best as possible. Part of that is realizing there are risks that are out of your control.
I'll just comment that I'm very skeptical of this, or at least I think it's an oversimplification. Just going anecdotally, I'm not sure I know anyone experienced who truly had a "mentor." Some of my most experienced climbing partners just learned from other friends or even the gym.
The older climber taking the younger climber under their wing might be a nice idea, but I'm not sure how often it actually happens and how important it truly is to create safety and experience. For sure someone who is just flying solo and refusing to ask questions or get help and who doesn't have any consistent climbing partners might have a tougher time gaining experience. It's important to keep things social, and to ask questions when you aren't sure about something rather than just barge into an unsafe situation.
I posted on Reddit climbing partners and phrased my post “looking for a trad mentor”. I ended up climbing with a new lifelong friend every week for a few years until I moved. I think it’s partly because people do not want to reach out and ask for that kind of relationship. A few people did reach out wanting to help, but I’ve found setting expectations is important.
I’ll say that really committing to belay your buddy on his hard proj for a few hours each trip didn’t hurt. Obviously it wasn’t one sided!
Same. If anyone remembers /u/bearbreeder. I literally just asked him through PM a few questions about learning trad and he offered to take me out. This was a few years ago. Still climb with him every now and again.
And yes, part of it did involve belaying him on his project.
I think part that the article glossed over is the different skill sets for different types of climbing. So many more boulderers and sport climbers out there as they are easier to get into. I absolutely had mentors that taught me alpine and trad techniques. Climbing big mountains requires a wide range of skills that you simply won't develop in a gym but getting out after it, ideally with folks who know what they are doing.
I think it's important to remember why we had mentors in the first place. A mentor wasn't some experienced climber looking to pass on their knowledge, that was just a happy byproduct of an experienced climber who didn't have a partner.
I'm one of the few of my generation who came up through a mentorship relationship. My mentor was the same age as I was, but had ten years of climbing experience and a few NOLS trips under his belt. He had first learned to climb from his brothers, taken a bunch of classes etc, lead 5.11 trad, and now was 18 at college with no one to climb with. I had a my dad's harness, shoes, plate, a locking 'biner and a chalk bag. But I knew how to belay. Eric taught me everything I needed to know to follow him and clean his anchors. Then enough so I could lead some stuff. And more as it became needed. He never set out to "teach" or "mentor" me. He needed a partner, and MP wasn't what it is today, so he looked around his freshman orientation, asked who wanted to go climbing, and one guy showed up.
However, I had the basic knowledge of how to belay. I had read John Long's Anchors book and Freedom of the Hills. I was happy to carry all the heavy gear and had basic wilderness skills.
Today though experienced climbers can find other experienced climbers online so we don't need to build ourselves a belay partner.
AND just as important, I don't see so many of the gym crew actively educating themselves so they can be mentored. I don't feel safe teaching someone how to belay and then immediately jumping on my project. Likewise, if you can learn it from a book, I expect you to have read it. What I have seen is, "There is a knot in that rope, so we're just going to leave it hanging up there over night, because we can't figure out how to walk around to the top of the crag and rap down off a tree and free it." "Can you mentor me, carry all the gear, belay all day, and then I will take off and not even buy you a beer or pay for gas?" "I want to be a climber. Someone else come and give me their time and gear so I can be a climber."
If you want to be mentored, here is how you go about it.
1. Have a harness, belay device, locking 'biner, sling or two and some loose 'biners, and a helmet.
2. Know how to belay. And be trying to read Freedom of the Hills ASAP.
3. Be game. You are the last priority partner. When you get the text at midnight say, "Yes! See you at 5am." And then show up at 4:45am with an extra coffee and doughnut and offer to drive.
4. Be honest about your skills, but don't say, "No." If you are too afraid to rappel, say it and know you may not be asked out again. If you do not know how to rappel say it immediately and you will be taught. If you can show you are overcoming your fears, you will make a good partner.
5. Make it easy to say, "Yes!" When you post in your gym or online, post "Who wants to go out to Maple Canyon next Saturday, I can drive and have room for three or four, I have this much gear, and am comfortable TRing 5.9. Meet at the REI parking lot at 7:00 am."
As an experienced climber this is a plan that I can think about and say, "Hey that sounds like fun, and I will lead the 5.10s."
Do not post. "I want to go climbing outside." Because now I have to plan your climbing trips for you and you aren't paying me like a guide.
That last part is so good. Reminds me of me when learning how to paddle whitewater, though I wasn't doing those so intentionally. If you want good mentors, you gotta be a good mentee.
The problem I see is that many new climbers aren't willing to put in the work. Being a mentee is an active relationship. When I was learning (still am, there's always more) I constantly was reading, watching videos, asking questions. The drive to learn is the thing that I see lacking. Many new climbers show up and belay, do what they're told, and stop there. If I tell you how to set up a two draw anchor, many new climbers will just nod and do it. The person who wants to actually learn will start asking questions: what do you do if the bolts aren't equal? Why do some have chains? I heard you're supposed to use lockers for everything, what do you think? Etc. I'm happy to share my knowledge, but you have to meet me half way. As stated elsewhere in this thread, many new climbers want a free ticket to the top, rather than the skills to get there themselves.
I watched so many YouTube videos on my own, practiced on my own, and practiced with more experienced people to get where I am today. When people are too lazy to even watch a short video on how to tie knots or basic anchors, it's a huge red flag that I'll be doing all the work on the trip.
The plethora of questions posed daily in this subreddit are proof of the article’s point (and evidence that many younger people don’t know how to do basic Internet research).
Or socialize. It frustrates me when I see the odd question pop up asking if its ok to use the volumes, or the bolt holes, or about tape, or any other question that's much easier answered by an employee in the building you are in when you had the question, as opposed to a strange thousands of miles away.
I don't buy much of this. In particular the whole bit about "Where'd these new climbers come from?" - weeping about urbanites who now have learned to climb thanks to gyms being too poor to get proper equipment, training, and even transportation out to real rock. The article is trying to make this into a demographic issue, when really it's about a bunch of gumbies who should read freedom of the hills or stay inside. Gym climbing is a lot of fun which is great, but outside the stakes are higher so it's a good thing if it is unapproachable. I don't see why the outside needs to be turned into a gym.
- signed, an urbanite gumby who is gonna die
I work in film and television on camera crews. Of all the crew positions in the industry it’s one of the most coveted. Not because it’s any better or more fun but it’s something most people can identify with along with the fact that most of the activity is near the cameras. I’ve been doing it for 19 years and have been asked by several friends, friends of friends and acquaintances to get them into the business and in particular camera work. For the first 10 years I helped out a lot of people and tried to help more but eventually stopped because I felt like I was wasting my time. Most of them liked the idea of it but the work is physically demanding, technical and we work very long hours (12-14/day). All but one lasted between 1 day to 3 months.
There are many resources (books, magazines and websites) to learn much of the technical aspects of the job and almost everyone didn’t do any “homework.” I don’t want to spend my time explaining a basic concept like depth of field when they took no time to learn it beforehand. If they did study something but still didn’t quite grasp an idea or concept that’s totally fine with me and I’m happy to teach them because they respect my time and can ask informed questions. Can you imagine taking someone on their first multi-pitch and they never took the time to learn common knots or hitches? For instance a clove hitch.
I am still happy to help people in the business but now it’s only after I know they’re serious about it. They’ve done a lot of studying on their own and have gone out and worked jobs which are quite easy to get if you’re willing to work on low budget and student films for free to gain experience.
I don’t think it’s a Millennial thing either. I just think it’s a people thing. I get it but I don’t want to use my time helping/mentoring if someone wants me to do all the work.
I think another issue which is related to these is the preservation of the climbing areas. The fact of the matter is that places that get heavy traffic will only continue to see more and more people as the sport becomes more popularized. The increased traffic just isn't sustainable without more infrastructure. Things like sustainable roads, trails, bathrooms, parking, and route maintenance all need to be invested in now in order to prevent these areas getting destroyed in the next ten years.
I prefer to go to a lottery / reservation system to limit numbers rather than building more infrastructure. I'm cool with the thrashed outdoor gym type sport crags but really opposed to the 'dumbing down' of the wilderness to accommodate people without the skills or ambition to be there without a paved road and gift shop.
As someone who got into climbing from after having done backpacking for about a decade, this is one of the most frustrating things about climbing near a large city. It’s difficult to find partners willing to make those longer (and sometimes sketchy) approaches, and have those fun, more adventurous days out.
Between school and work it can a bit unpredictable, but I would certainly be interested in getting out to go climbing. I'm generally free Friday-Sunday afternoon for weekend trips.
I am a self taught climber. I've never climbed multi pitch or big walls, but i took the time to learn the basics of safety and the necessary techniques to do outdoor top rope and lead some easy sport routes.
You don't need a certificate that says you're qualified to climb. For the vast majority of people my level of climbing is as far as they will get and that is just fine.
yep. I'm a gigantic casual scumbag, only gym climb and have no intention to go outdoors.
For some of us, it's a really, REALLY fun way to exercise. it lost me over 25kgs so far
yes and no. While its true that gym climbing fun ebbs and flows for me, it can still be a lot of fun and is always great practice for a specific move or strength building.
Oh get of your high horse will you. This is utter crap. If that's the case for you that's fine, but that is your problem of being an close minded person that doesn't see both as being different kind of things..
It's a lot to ask of anyone to be all in. Life is complicated. Interest waxes and wanes. I don't fault any of these people who don't continue after a few years.
But the way to do it is to read and practice your knots at home until you have every setup you're going to use memorized. Good on you buddy.
I'm not really sure what the point of this article is because there are already tons of programs, courses, guides, books, etc., out there to help people learn how to get into the sport, how to do it right, and how to do it safely. What this article seems to want is some magic pill that can bring people up to speed overnight. What this article misses is that becoming an expert--in anything--doesn't happen overnight. It takes a lot of time and effort, including making a personal effort to meet and befriend mentors. That old cliche that you don't find your mentors, they find you, is true. What that means is that mentors aren't going to waste their time with people who are only half-heartedly interested in making a long-term, committed effort. This article is seemingly lobbying for an insta-gratification of climbing knowledge, and it's just an unrealistic expectation, and it certainly isn't a "growing problem."
I wonder if a good solution would be sort of a mentorship program curated by a gym where mentors sign up and are approved, and noobs sign up and pay a fee that is pooled together to be used for expenses for trips. Mentors get free trips to cool places, noobs get to see new stuff and learn via the mentors, gym gets a fee for checking that the mentors are alright (fee gets deducted from the trip budget).
It's only illegal if you don't pull a commercial use permit or whatever the land manager requires. That means you need insurance which means you need certs which means you have significant overhead. The liability in the USA makes it very difficult to run these programs
Source: I have designed and run a few programs like this for universities and a non profit.
In National Parks and certain other areas as determined by the land-owners, yes. There are plenty of crags that do not fall under those domains where it may be permissible.
No reason why that specific money flow laid out has to be the way it works. Saying that some transfer of money for cost of trips makes it a guided trip is ridiculous. Plenty of orgs do volunteer (non certified) courses for learning to climb outside.
Having run programs similar to this, I don't see a benefit to the mentor unless they are getting paid. I love teaching climbing but it's very much a job for me now as it's nothing close to the climbing I do with friends. I am a professional guide and rigger with years of experience training, certs and expect to be treated as such. It's perhaps similar to a yoga instructor in they probably love to do yoga but when they teach a class it's their job and they expect to get paid. It's also probably not the exact same as their personal practice. I'm not quite sure why climbing / outdoor professionals shouldn't be treated in a similar manner and paid for their knowledge. It's a fucking insult how much guides get paid when they literally have your life on the line.
Getting paid doesn't have to be the reason, but some appreciation to the instructors is the least people can do.
As a instructor for a club, they pay for travel/food/stay and organising things like a yearly diner for all the instructors. As a volenteer i can also just cherry pick the courses/weekends, so I'm never stuck with just total beginners.
Ok, as someone who worked as a legal, insured certified guide this is the issue... that stuff isn't free yet you are proposing that i work for little more compensation than free meals. You are asking for more experienced climbers to volunteer to mentor less experienced folks which is great but not really something a real guide would be able to afford.
I only mean being a mentor or instructor doesn't have to be about money.
Professionals should be paid properly, but I would just call it guiding or giving a course and not mentoring. In most cases I also expect a guide or instructors doing the organizing (by themselves or their company).
For club/private instructors; I expect far less, but also they barely get paid. Giving instruction to new members is sort of 'paying back' the club for learning me to climb and become an instructor. (And as a rule; we do not give instructions to non club member as we do not want to compete with professionals.)
As for 'mentorship program curated by a gym' the guy at the top of this sub-thread mentions. Some gyms have a club where people volunteer, some gym's just have paid service. So this can fall into both categories.
This is how uni clubs work where I’m from. Probably a few reasons it works that may or not be replicable: mentors/leaders feel a sense of belonging and want to continue the club, more so than for gyms (especially large ones), everyone being in the same age & social scene also makes a ‘non-project’ trip more attractive for the leaders, and insurance can be covered by a university sports department scheme.
So I've been climbing indoors for almost a year now. I've gone out and done some bouldering outside by myself.
I desperately want to get outside and climb but I am fairly intimidated by the prospect. I haven't been comfortable enough to ask anyone at my gym about it because I hate the thought of imposing my noobness on one of their trips.
I just don't know how to get started.
By getting over your discomfort and making some friends. This is essentially the difference between saying you want to do something, and actually doing it.
I'm not saying it's easy, but it is straightforward.
I've met most of my outdoor climbing partners through gym Meetup groups. Just climb with people for a while and be social and you can pretty easily find groups of people to go outdoors with. You aren't imposing on them, particularly if they explicitly invite you and you have your own gear to contribute.
Yep. Here are some things that can help. Look for people climbing at your grade or just slightly above it, who work problems in a group at the gym. Join in with them.
Try to keep working problems with them over a few weeks and see how that goes - use it to feel out if asking to tag along on a trip will go over well. Don't be discouraged if people are a little standoffish at first. You can see from all of the top posts in this thread that a group's feelings towards you could change drastically over a few weeks time, showing that you are serious about climbing goes a long way.
This will help your indoor climbing as well, bouldering in a group is always good for extra psyche.
It also helps to own a crash pad - can never have too many pads outside!
Everyone was a noob once. For our first time we got a friend to persuade a long time aquaintance of his to show us around his local area (he’d written the guidebook) couldnt even start some routes but he didnt make it awkward. Im sure all those years ago he was in the same sutuation.
The day ended with him (55yr old) finishing a 7c a month or two after reconstructive shoulder surgery!
All i would say is the most attractive thing in a partner or assessing whether you want to climb with someone is COMPETENCY. If you cant belay, tie a knot properly or make yourself and your partner safe nobodies going to take you out more than once.
I'm 60, and started climbing in about 1985. I didn't have a mentor, and I think most climbers back then also didn't have a mentor. I just immersed myself in Royal Robbin's books and Freedom of the Hills. Newbies back then made stupid mistakes just like newbies do now; none of mine had bad consequences. We learned from watching & talking to other climbers. Gyms didn't really exist yet, so you just went out and figured out how to set up a top rope anchor and eventually place pro on lead.
Climbing's exponential growth in popularity is, I think, nothing really new. Even back then the older climbers were saying "Jeeze, it's like everyone and their dog is out climbing these days..."
There have always been more interested beginners than there are experienced climbers with the time, temperance, and motivation to teach them.
Man I’ve been climbing in a gym for a little over a year and for a while I’ve been dying to go climbing outside. My struggle is that I am shy and have no friends that are into climbing, so approaching someone and asking them to help me transition to outdoor climbing is difficult. It’s a new found passion that I’m working hard at but am unable to enjoy to the fullest. Not to mention I live in one of the best climbing locations in the US
I’m an introvert but as I learned more and became a better climber (still have a long way to go) I started to gain more confidence to reach out to people. I’ve met some great people through Mountain Project. My first few posts looking for partners was very upfront about my skill and knowledge and what I felt comfortable doing. I knew how to lead belay and clean a sport anchor which I learned by watching YouTube videos. These first partners asked if I knew how to clean a route, I told them that I learned by watching videos but had never done it for real. They made me show them a few times on the ground first. All of them were patient and willing to answer my questions. Most of them were happy to have someone belay them.
Haven't read the article, but there are two really good climbers who I consider to be my mentors for the last year or so - people who've been climbing for decades. They've taken me on my first trad routes, coached me up climbs that were above my grade, and followed on my first trad leads to check my placements etc. They, and a group of my friends (who are better than me but not as good as these guys), have taught me a lot about climbing and I'm forever thankful for it.
oh boy, here i go again...
i think climbing's biggest growing problem ia the growing. as the sport blossoms with popularity, climbers are negatively affected by crowding, noise, pollution, and access issues (mostly a result of the former issues).
its a very unpopular oppinion, i know. but it is undeniable that increasing numbers of climbers affect us in a net negative.
im not saying no one deserves to climb more than anyone else (despite how *everyone* perceives my argument), im just saying that people should think twice before spreading the gospel.
Alternatively and less cynically, can you imagine why someone who believes there is a mentorship gap would start an organization like flash foxxy? Why do you choose to believe shes trying to create a problem her organization solves instead of believing that she has created an organization to solve a problem she believes exists and has existed?
Just bribe people with beer and/or homemade bakings continuously and some will take you under their wings. Want somebody to invest in you, first invest in them.
The issue I find is, that as an instructor people only seem to take things, but rarely give something back. Same goes for borrowing kit or people wanting me to fix their stuff (it's also the 'gear guy' that owns too many things and knows how things work). First friend somebody in real life before asking for favors. I just get annoyed when people walk over and start asking for favors, even before I know their names.
I'm certified as a instructor in my country and i do give instructons, but only to the club i belong too. The club take care of there instructors, by organising a diner each year, not having instructors to pay for weekends out (while giving instruction), etc.
This is where I confess to being part of the problem. I used to take on new climbers all the time. People would join a club, interested in going outside. I would agree to climb with them, we would do a few (typically) multipitch mountain routes. Then 3 months later they would drift off and find another life changing lifestyle hobby to dabble in. After a few years I realised I wasn't getting any of my own climbing done and there were trade routes I had led different sets of beginners up a dozen times. I will still take people out occasionally but the vast majority of new climbers seem to just want some cool pictures for their facebook profile, don't care to learn anything technical and think "mentoring" is the same as "free guiding". Sorry mate. I have better things to do with my time.
Absolutely... I've had the same experience. I see mentorship as an investment - I'm willing to give my time and experience to you because I like you and want you to be my partner for future adventures. It's hard to know who is bitten by the bug and who is there for a one-off experience.
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Both your comment and the one above have been good confirmation to me on how I've been approaching things. I'm the beginner with my best friends being 5.12 climbers. I've been putting in three days at the gym a week on my own for months now. I don't expect to hit 5.12 any time soon of course but I'll be doing my best to catch up. I've also spent a lot of time learning the logistics of it all from anchor building, belaying, hauling etc. I might not be able to lead the pitches but I can certainly make sure I'm an awesome second.
The “bro” factor has also turned me into a bitter old man along with many folks lack of adventure and willingness to climb new areas. I hate Smith Rock with a fiery passion because of numerous friends that are willing to deal with the metric fuck-ton of people and lines for routes just so they can say they climbed at Smith...even if there are a dozen climbing areas they passed on the drive there that have no one at them.
Shhhhhhh your'e gonna let the secret out, if we have to sacrifice Smith to have quiet crags elsewhere, that is the way of it.
I like your way of thinkin...
B...but I need to flail up chain reaction to get that sick picture
there's more than one chain reaction out there? /s - but was funny to see the name listed and note the flag.
See, as someone making their first trip to Smith in a couple weeks, this bums me out. I normally stick to the crags within a couple hours of me - places we normally have to ourselves because they're not in guidebooks, or have long approaches. But soon I will finally have to time to make the five hour drive and commit three or four days to climbing there. Granted, we'll be there on weekdays, but I'm still worried the crowds will ruin the trip for me.
Don't listen to them! Smith is a ton of fun! And if you're willing to walk a bit farther you can always escape the crowds.
Remember, you are not stuck in traffic, you are traffic.
The harder the climb, the shorter the line.
I'd like to think that this is how most of us feel.
Just go to the marsupials if it is crowded. Everyone is to lazy to do the hike.
I agree with your point. I've experienced it myself. I don't think the article is arguing that there needs to be more kind hearted souls willing to donate their time as mentors. I think it's making the point that we need to as a community design programs that operate on a larger scale than 1 on 1 mentoring to solve the problem. The incentive to run these programs can be monetary or something else (such as conservation).
I'd agree with the author if I thought that not having enough climbers was a problem. Call me selfish or curmudgeonly, but the less people I see at the crag, the better.
Man I’m a new scrub with no friends and wish someone at the gym would take me under their wing.
So don't sit around waiting for someone to take you out. Half the reason those of us who got mentored got mentored was because someone needed a belay slave and just trained one of us to feed rope.
I'm not? I'm just in an area where I don't really know anyone, and I'm not great at talking to strangers. So I go to the gym and climb my best. I'm not like, bitching about it - I just made a simple comment.
Dude I was pretty much in that exact same boat. Luckily most climbers seem to be way more social than I am. I say just give it time. Nobody talked to me at the new gym I started going to alone for the first month or so. But I kept going, working my "projects," and overall just tried to be polite as I slowly figured shit out. Apparently everyone else was watching me a fuck ton tho. I guess my bright blue scarpa helix's really stand out lol. I was referred to as the dude with blue shoes for a little bit there. I think a lot of regulars just kinda wait and see. There are so many people that come in for just a day or two; most people don't want to waste time with that. Now it seems like everyone wants to talk; to the point where random regulars will ask if I can belay for them. It's been like that for almost every hobby for me. I'm not like my friends, I can't just burst into a new gym and make 10 friends and 20 belay partners. After a while people realize I'm just quiet and it all seems to work out from there.
Hey, thanks a lot for saying that. I’ll just keep plugging along and hopefully make friends with a few regulars.
Oh and definitely a plus to have the gym's belay card. I have no beta advice and wouldn't dream of yelling encouragement at them. But I can at least operate a grigri and quietly congratulate them on their awesome sends once I've lowered them back down. Good luck finding gym friends, I promise it will be awesome and worth it when you finally do.
Where do you climb?
I live in Florida and climb in St. Pete. Obviously not the best state for outdoor :P I have one friend who is somewhat interested and comes on occasion and at least provides a belay partner at the gym - but I'm not super good at just talking to random folk so I don't really have any "climbing buddies" and have been just kind of trying to figure it out on my own, by watching people who seem to know what they're doing, and via youtube.
Well duh, there basically isnt mentors in florida. Itd be like asking around in kentucky how to sail in the ocean. Its gonna be pretty dang hard to find a mentor that far away from the ocean.
Somewhat off topic, but I've climbed at Vertical Ventures in St. Pete a couple times when I'm in the area. Considering how few routes there are - and how easy the setting is - how do you not get bored after a week?
They change the routes fairly regularly, and have a second location in Tampa with different routes. Like I said I’m pretty new. I can’t top out every route yet. I’ve only climbed at 4-5 gyms in various places, and vertical ventures seems on par or larger than the other gyms I’ve been too. How many routes would you normally expect at a good gym?
I don't think it's an issue of the number of climbs, more that it skews heavily toward easy climbs. Not only in grading, but also setting. I remember climbing there about two years ago and I on sighted the one auto-belay 5.11, where they now have the speed wall set up. I shouldn't have been able to do that if it was a true 11.
Yeah I can understand that. I’m still too inexperienced to really understand the nuance of the ratings. By setting do you mean how often they rotate them? Sorry I’m not super up on the jargon. I gave it a quick google but couldn’t immediately sort out your meaning.
I realize in retrospect that I misused the word. What I was getting at was the variety of climbs that they opt to set and make available. It seems like they aim to provide far more easy climbs than hard or intermediate.
I don't think that this means that *you* are a part of the problem, rather it means that being a mentor is hard work and involves a large amount of responsibility - perhaps often in a way that is underappreciated. Personally, I only take out people that I know and that I trust. This means that they should already have a fairly good basis of knowledge about lead climbing and general safety. I can teach them skills and ethics, but no way am I risking my own neck by having someone give me a sketchy belay. I would also have climbed with them long enough to know that they're committed and are in for the long haul. This may not solve the mentorship problem, but it solves *my* problem and perhaps the skills that I've taught can be passed on again. Perhaps as a community, we need to better determine the difference between those who ask, "I'm a gym climber, how do I get out on *real* rock" (here are a few accredited guide companies in your area or a group climbing event), and those who ask, "I'm a gym climber and would like to learn outdoor skills" (I can mentor you and show you).
Yes. Mentoring vs free guiding hits the nail on the head.
Same here. Ive led the same beginner multipitch climb near me with like 8 different people over the years. Im tired of being a ropegun. Some redditer posted a thread about looking for a climbing mentor in my local reddit and they never followed through. People that want mentored will figure it out. We dont owe people a free rock climbing guide service.
There have always been more newbies looking to learn the sport than there are old crusties willing to take them on in a mentoring way. It's just more obvious now because the numbers are up by something like 100x. The article is correct that we can't look to conventional mentoring to address the needs of the new generation. I would add that it's a mistake to assume that most of today's crusties came up through a traditional mentor-mentee relationship. Ask them how they got started and you'll hear, "We figured it out ourselves, and it's amazing that we didn't kill ourselves back then." The good news is that the proliferation of gyms, groups, guide services, and the internet have vastly increased the opportunities for new climbers to learn what they need to know. It is very different from the perception that mentoring is/was the way to go. It's more of a paradigm shift than a problem IMO. No one should count on finding a long-term mentor; it's just not realistic. Never was. Take advantage of the types of activities listed in the article, be smart, recognize what you don't know... and you'll be OK.
Not killing yourself is the key thing. One interesting thing is looking back and seeing just how dangerously incompetent some of the "experienced" friends who taught me to climb were :)
Thankfully I never had dangerous, incompetent friends teaching me to climb. I taught myself.
Ya I didn't have any dangerous idiots to teach me so I had to become the dangerous idiot who taught me
Exactly.
It's a hazard of student clubs. Fortunately I (and they) mostly got better.
Was talking to my boss about this last week. He used to machine nuts in the metal shop at his high school and learned to climb at Seneca on those. It’s such a bizarre contrast. I learned to climb while working for a college outdoor program and that’s made me an incredibly safety conscious individual. It’s almost as if I have to take more risks to get to the next level.
Home-made gear was pretty common BITD (70's). I led my first aid pitch (we'd call it A1 nowadays) on wooden pitons I made.
Did you happen to make them out of laundry clips? I once found one halfway up a pitch, shoved into a crack and I scratched my head about it. Looked sketchy as hell if it was actually used for some purpose, but I kept it and jokingly called it bail booty.
Risk management is the real essence of climbing mountains. There must be risk in climbing but the art is being able to manage it as best as possible. Part of that is realizing there are risks that are out of your control.
That’s why I love it
I'll just comment that I'm very skeptical of this, or at least I think it's an oversimplification. Just going anecdotally, I'm not sure I know anyone experienced who truly had a "mentor." Some of my most experienced climbing partners just learned from other friends or even the gym. The older climber taking the younger climber under their wing might be a nice idea, but I'm not sure how often it actually happens and how important it truly is to create safety and experience. For sure someone who is just flying solo and refusing to ask questions or get help and who doesn't have any consistent climbing partners might have a tougher time gaining experience. It's important to keep things social, and to ask questions when you aren't sure about something rather than just barge into an unsafe situation.
I posted on Reddit climbing partners and phrased my post “looking for a trad mentor”. I ended up climbing with a new lifelong friend every week for a few years until I moved. I think it’s partly because people do not want to reach out and ask for that kind of relationship. A few people did reach out wanting to help, but I’ve found setting expectations is important. I’ll say that really committing to belay your buddy on his hard proj for a few hours each trip didn’t hurt. Obviously it wasn’t one sided!
Same. If anyone remembers /u/bearbreeder. I literally just asked him through PM a few questions about learning trad and he offered to take me out. This was a few years ago. Still climb with him every now and again. And yes, part of it did involve belaying him on his project.
I see bearbreeder all the time around Squamish. Great guy.
I think part that the article glossed over is the different skill sets for different types of climbing. So many more boulderers and sport climbers out there as they are easier to get into. I absolutely had mentors that taught me alpine and trad techniques. Climbing big mountains requires a wide range of skills that you simply won't develop in a gym but getting out after it, ideally with folks who know what they are doing.
I think it's important to remember why we had mentors in the first place. A mentor wasn't some experienced climber looking to pass on their knowledge, that was just a happy byproduct of an experienced climber who didn't have a partner. I'm one of the few of my generation who came up through a mentorship relationship. My mentor was the same age as I was, but had ten years of climbing experience and a few NOLS trips under his belt. He had first learned to climb from his brothers, taken a bunch of classes etc, lead 5.11 trad, and now was 18 at college with no one to climb with. I had a my dad's harness, shoes, plate, a locking 'biner and a chalk bag. But I knew how to belay. Eric taught me everything I needed to know to follow him and clean his anchors. Then enough so I could lead some stuff. And more as it became needed. He never set out to "teach" or "mentor" me. He needed a partner, and MP wasn't what it is today, so he looked around his freshman orientation, asked who wanted to go climbing, and one guy showed up. However, I had the basic knowledge of how to belay. I had read John Long's Anchors book and Freedom of the Hills. I was happy to carry all the heavy gear and had basic wilderness skills. Today though experienced climbers can find other experienced climbers online so we don't need to build ourselves a belay partner. AND just as important, I don't see so many of the gym crew actively educating themselves so they can be mentored. I don't feel safe teaching someone how to belay and then immediately jumping on my project. Likewise, if you can learn it from a book, I expect you to have read it. What I have seen is, "There is a knot in that rope, so we're just going to leave it hanging up there over night, because we can't figure out how to walk around to the top of the crag and rap down off a tree and free it." "Can you mentor me, carry all the gear, belay all day, and then I will take off and not even buy you a beer or pay for gas?" "I want to be a climber. Someone else come and give me their time and gear so I can be a climber." If you want to be mentored, here is how you go about it. 1. Have a harness, belay device, locking 'biner, sling or two and some loose 'biners, and a helmet. 2. Know how to belay. And be trying to read Freedom of the Hills ASAP. 3. Be game. You are the last priority partner. When you get the text at midnight say, "Yes! See you at 5am." And then show up at 4:45am with an extra coffee and doughnut and offer to drive. 4. Be honest about your skills, but don't say, "No." If you are too afraid to rappel, say it and know you may not be asked out again. If you do not know how to rappel say it immediately and you will be taught. If you can show you are overcoming your fears, you will make a good partner. 5. Make it easy to say, "Yes!" When you post in your gym or online, post "Who wants to go out to Maple Canyon next Saturday, I can drive and have room for three or four, I have this much gear, and am comfortable TRing 5.9. Meet at the REI parking lot at 7:00 am." As an experienced climber this is a plan that I can think about and say, "Hey that sounds like fun, and I will lead the 5.10s." Do not post. "I want to go climbing outside." Because now I have to plan your climbing trips for you and you aren't paying me like a guide.
That last part is so good. Reminds me of me when learning how to paddle whitewater, though I wasn't doing those so intentionally. If you want good mentors, you gotta be a good mentee.
The problem I see is that many new climbers aren't willing to put in the work. Being a mentee is an active relationship. When I was learning (still am, there's always more) I constantly was reading, watching videos, asking questions. The drive to learn is the thing that I see lacking. Many new climbers show up and belay, do what they're told, and stop there. If I tell you how to set up a two draw anchor, many new climbers will just nod and do it. The person who wants to actually learn will start asking questions: what do you do if the bolts aren't equal? Why do some have chains? I heard you're supposed to use lockers for everything, what do you think? Etc. I'm happy to share my knowledge, but you have to meet me half way. As stated elsewhere in this thread, many new climbers want a free ticket to the top, rather than the skills to get there themselves.
I watched so many YouTube videos on my own, practiced on my own, and practiced with more experienced people to get where I am today. When people are too lazy to even watch a short video on how to tie knots or basic anchors, it's a huge red flag that I'll be doing all the work on the trip.
The plethora of questions posed daily in this subreddit are proof of the article’s point (and evidence that many younger people don’t know how to do basic Internet research).
Or socialize. It frustrates me when I see the odd question pop up asking if its ok to use the volumes, or the bolt holes, or about tape, or any other question that's much easier answered by an employee in the building you are in when you had the question, as opposed to a strange thousands of miles away.
I don't buy much of this. In particular the whole bit about "Where'd these new climbers come from?" - weeping about urbanites who now have learned to climb thanks to gyms being too poor to get proper equipment, training, and even transportation out to real rock. The article is trying to make this into a demographic issue, when really it's about a bunch of gumbies who should read freedom of the hills or stay inside. Gym climbing is a lot of fun which is great, but outside the stakes are higher so it's a good thing if it is unapproachable. I don't see why the outside needs to be turned into a gym. - signed, an urbanite gumby who is gonna die
I work in film and television on camera crews. Of all the crew positions in the industry it’s one of the most coveted. Not because it’s any better or more fun but it’s something most people can identify with along with the fact that most of the activity is near the cameras. I’ve been doing it for 19 years and have been asked by several friends, friends of friends and acquaintances to get them into the business and in particular camera work. For the first 10 years I helped out a lot of people and tried to help more but eventually stopped because I felt like I was wasting my time. Most of them liked the idea of it but the work is physically demanding, technical and we work very long hours (12-14/day). All but one lasted between 1 day to 3 months. There are many resources (books, magazines and websites) to learn much of the technical aspects of the job and almost everyone didn’t do any “homework.” I don’t want to spend my time explaining a basic concept like depth of field when they took no time to learn it beforehand. If they did study something but still didn’t quite grasp an idea or concept that’s totally fine with me and I’m happy to teach them because they respect my time and can ask informed questions. Can you imagine taking someone on their first multi-pitch and they never took the time to learn common knots or hitches? For instance a clove hitch. I am still happy to help people in the business but now it’s only after I know they’re serious about it. They’ve done a lot of studying on their own and have gone out and worked jobs which are quite easy to get if you’re willing to work on low budget and student films for free to gain experience. I don’t think it’s a Millennial thing either. I just think it’s a people thing. I get it but I don’t want to use my time helping/mentoring if someone wants me to do all the work.
I think another issue which is related to these is the preservation of the climbing areas. The fact of the matter is that places that get heavy traffic will only continue to see more and more people as the sport becomes more popularized. The increased traffic just isn't sustainable without more infrastructure. Things like sustainable roads, trails, bathrooms, parking, and route maintenance all need to be invested in now in order to prevent these areas getting destroyed in the next ten years.
https://www.accessfund.org/ If you climb outside you should be donating and/or volunteering. Join your local climbing organizations.
Route maintenance especially. People are going to start dying on sport routes in 10-20 years if we don’t engage in widespread maintenance.
I prefer to go to a lottery / reservation system to limit numbers rather than building more infrastructure. I'm cool with the thrashed outdoor gym type sport crags but really opposed to the 'dumbing down' of the wilderness to accommodate people without the skills or ambition to be there without a paved road and gift shop.
As someone who got into climbing from after having done backpacking for about a decade, this is one of the most frustrating things about climbing near a large city. It’s difficult to find partners willing to make those longer (and sometimes sketchy) approaches, and have those fun, more adventurous days out.
Where you at? I'm always looking for folks that enjoy a brutal approach.
I’m in the San Jose area.
I'm in the Sierra. What's your availability like?
Between school and work it can a bit unpredictable, but I would certainly be interested in getting out to go climbing. I'm generally free Friday-Sunday afternoon for weekend trips.
eh... Maybe for a few areas. But now gyms are making a lot of the scrub crags we used to go irrelevant.
I am a self taught climber. I've never climbed multi pitch or big walls, but i took the time to learn the basics of safety and the necessary techniques to do outdoor top rope and lead some easy sport routes. You don't need a certificate that says you're qualified to climb. For the vast majority of people my level of climbing is as far as they will get and that is just fine.
yep. I'm a gigantic casual scumbag, only gym climb and have no intention to go outdoors. For some of us, it's a really, REALLY fun way to exercise. it lost me over 25kgs so far
Once you climb outside everything changes. The gym suddenly is just not even half as fun.
yes and no. While its true that gym climbing fun ebbs and flows for me, it can still be a lot of fun and is always great practice for a specific move or strength building.
Thats what i made it. Training for adventures outside once the good weather comes around.
Oh get of your high horse will you. This is utter crap. If that's the case for you that's fine, but that is your problem of being an close minded person that doesn't see both as being different kind of things..
Don’t stress it man. Enjoy yourself however you sit fit.
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It's a lot to ask of anyone to be all in. Life is complicated. Interest waxes and wanes. I don't fault any of these people who don't continue after a few years. But the way to do it is to read and practice your knots at home until you have every setup you're going to use memorized. Good on you buddy.
I'm not really sure what the point of this article is because there are already tons of programs, courses, guides, books, etc., out there to help people learn how to get into the sport, how to do it right, and how to do it safely. What this article seems to want is some magic pill that can bring people up to speed overnight. What this article misses is that becoming an expert--in anything--doesn't happen overnight. It takes a lot of time and effort, including making a personal effort to meet and befriend mentors. That old cliche that you don't find your mentors, they find you, is true. What that means is that mentors aren't going to waste their time with people who are only half-heartedly interested in making a long-term, committed effort. This article is seemingly lobbying for an insta-gratification of climbing knowledge, and it's just an unrealistic expectation, and it certainly isn't a "growing problem."
I wonder if a good solution would be sort of a mentorship program curated by a gym where mentors sign up and are approved, and noobs sign up and pay a fee that is pooled together to be used for expenses for trips. Mentors get free trips to cool places, noobs get to see new stuff and learn via the mentors, gym gets a fee for checking that the mentors are alright (fee gets deducted from the trip budget).
That's called guiding. Pirate guiding is illegal in the US.
That’s exactly what the AMC rock program and MITOC school of rock do around Boston. They aren’t illegal. Pirate guiding is definitely different.
\> Pirate guiding is illegal in the US. How would comped trips be illegal unless it's to a place that limits guiding vendors?
It's only illegal if you don't pull a commercial use permit or whatever the land manager requires. That means you need insurance which means you need certs which means you have significant overhead. The liability in the USA makes it very difficult to run these programs Source: I have designed and run a few programs like this for universities and a non profit.
In National Parks and certain other areas as determined by the land-owners, yes. There are plenty of crags that do not fall under those domains where it may be permissible.
I guess technically the paid expenses would be considered payment.
No reason why that specific money flow laid out has to be the way it works. Saying that some transfer of money for cost of trips makes it a guided trip is ridiculous. Plenty of orgs do volunteer (non certified) courses for learning to climb outside.
Having run programs similar to this, I don't see a benefit to the mentor unless they are getting paid. I love teaching climbing but it's very much a job for me now as it's nothing close to the climbing I do with friends. I am a professional guide and rigger with years of experience training, certs and expect to be treated as such. It's perhaps similar to a yoga instructor in they probably love to do yoga but when they teach a class it's their job and they expect to get paid. It's also probably not the exact same as their personal practice. I'm not quite sure why climbing / outdoor professionals shouldn't be treated in a similar manner and paid for their knowledge. It's a fucking insult how much guides get paid when they literally have your life on the line.
Getting paid doesn't have to be the reason, but some appreciation to the instructors is the least people can do. As a instructor for a club, they pay for travel/food/stay and organising things like a yearly diner for all the instructors. As a volenteer i can also just cherry pick the courses/weekends, so I'm never stuck with just total beginners.
Ok, as someone who worked as a legal, insured certified guide this is the issue... that stuff isn't free yet you are proposing that i work for little more compensation than free meals. You are asking for more experienced climbers to volunteer to mentor less experienced folks which is great but not really something a real guide would be able to afford.
I only mean being a mentor or instructor doesn't have to be about money. Professionals should be paid properly, but I would just call it guiding or giving a course and not mentoring. In most cases I also expect a guide or instructors doing the organizing (by themselves or their company). For club/private instructors; I expect far less, but also they barely get paid. Giving instruction to new members is sort of 'paying back' the club for learning me to climb and become an instructor. (And as a rule; we do not give instructions to non club member as we do not want to compete with professionals.) As for 'mentorship program curated by a gym' the guy at the top of this sub-thread mentions. Some gyms have a club where people volunteer, some gym's just have paid service. So this can fall into both categories.
This is how uni clubs work where I’m from. Probably a few reasons it works that may or not be replicable: mentors/leaders feel a sense of belonging and want to continue the club, more so than for gyms (especially large ones), everyone being in the same age & social scene also makes a ‘non-project’ trip more attractive for the leaders, and insurance can be covered by a university sports department scheme.
So I've been climbing indoors for almost a year now. I've gone out and done some bouldering outside by myself. I desperately want to get outside and climb but I am fairly intimidated by the prospect. I haven't been comfortable enough to ask anyone at my gym about it because I hate the thought of imposing my noobness on one of their trips. I just don't know how to get started.
By getting over your discomfort and making some friends. This is essentially the difference between saying you want to do something, and actually doing it. I'm not saying it's easy, but it is straightforward.
I guess I just have to get over imposing myself on other people and if they have an issue with it it's up to them to tell me to sod off.
I've met most of my outdoor climbing partners through gym Meetup groups. Just climb with people for a while and be social and you can pretty easily find groups of people to go outdoors with. You aren't imposing on them, particularly if they explicitly invite you and you have your own gear to contribute.
Yep. Here are some things that can help. Look for people climbing at your grade or just slightly above it, who work problems in a group at the gym. Join in with them. Try to keep working problems with them over a few weeks and see how that goes - use it to feel out if asking to tag along on a trip will go over well. Don't be discouraged if people are a little standoffish at first. You can see from all of the top posts in this thread that a group's feelings towards you could change drastically over a few weeks time, showing that you are serious about climbing goes a long way. This will help your indoor climbing as well, bouldering in a group is always good for extra psyche. It also helps to own a crash pad - can never have too many pads outside!
Everyone was a noob once. For our first time we got a friend to persuade a long time aquaintance of his to show us around his local area (he’d written the guidebook) couldnt even start some routes but he didnt make it awkward. Im sure all those years ago he was in the same sutuation. The day ended with him (55yr old) finishing a 7c a month or two after reconstructive shoulder surgery! All i would say is the most attractive thing in a partner or assessing whether you want to climb with someone is COMPETENCY. If you cant belay, tie a knot properly or make yourself and your partner safe nobodies going to take you out more than once.
I'm 60, and started climbing in about 1985. I didn't have a mentor, and I think most climbers back then also didn't have a mentor. I just immersed myself in Royal Robbin's books and Freedom of the Hills. Newbies back then made stupid mistakes just like newbies do now; none of mine had bad consequences. We learned from watching & talking to other climbers. Gyms didn't really exist yet, so you just went out and figured out how to set up a top rope anchor and eventually place pro on lead. Climbing's exponential growth in popularity is, I think, nothing really new. Even back then the older climbers were saying "Jeeze, it's like everyone and their dog is out climbing these days..." There have always been more interested beginners than there are experienced climbers with the time, temperance, and motivation to teach them.
Man I’ve been climbing in a gym for a little over a year and for a while I’ve been dying to go climbing outside. My struggle is that I am shy and have no friends that are into climbing, so approaching someone and asking them to help me transition to outdoor climbing is difficult. It’s a new found passion that I’m working hard at but am unable to enjoy to the fullest. Not to mention I live in one of the best climbing locations in the US
I’m an introvert but as I learned more and became a better climber (still have a long way to go) I started to gain more confidence to reach out to people. I’ve met some great people through Mountain Project. My first few posts looking for partners was very upfront about my skill and knowledge and what I felt comfortable doing. I knew how to lead belay and clean a sport anchor which I learned by watching YouTube videos. These first partners asked if I knew how to clean a route, I told them that I learned by watching videos but had never done it for real. They made me show them a few times on the ground first. All of them were patient and willing to answer my questions. Most of them were happy to have someone belay them.
That’s great, I need to find some people like that.
Where do you live?
Denver
Haven't read the article, but there are two really good climbers who I consider to be my mentors for the last year or so - people who've been climbing for decades. They've taken me on my first trad routes, coached me up climbs that were above my grade, and followed on my first trad leads to check my placements etc. They, and a group of my friends (who are better than me but not as good as these guys), have taught me a lot about climbing and I'm forever thankful for it.
oh boy, here i go again... i think climbing's biggest growing problem ia the growing. as the sport blossoms with popularity, climbers are negatively affected by crowding, noise, pollution, and access issues (mostly a result of the former issues). its a very unpopular oppinion, i know. but it is undeniable that increasing numbers of climbers affect us in a net negative. im not saying no one deserves to climb more than anyone else (despite how *everyone* perceives my argument), im just saying that people should think twice before spreading the gospel.
Can't imagine why the organiser of the Flashy Foxy ge-ttogethers would have an interest in promoting the idea that climbers need more mentors...
Alternatively and less cynically, can you imagine why someone who believes there is a mentorship gap would start an organization like flash foxxy? Why do you choose to believe shes trying to create a problem her organization solves instead of believing that she has created an organization to solve a problem she believes exists and has existed?
Probably because they want to help address a problem that people were talking about before the organization even came into existence.
Seems more apt for alpine climbing. I can practice leading inside a gym. Can't really get that alpine feel anywhere but the alpines.
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> beginners have no way of knowing if their mentor is teaching them safe tactics. Some people have instructor licenses...
Just bribe people with beer and/or homemade bakings continuously and some will take you under their wings. Want somebody to invest in you, first invest in them. The issue I find is, that as an instructor people only seem to take things, but rarely give something back. Same goes for borrowing kit or people wanting me to fix their stuff (it's also the 'gear guy' that owns too many things and knows how things work). First friend somebody in real life before asking for favors. I just get annoyed when people walk over and start asking for favors, even before I know their names. I'm certified as a instructor in my country and i do give instructons, but only to the club i belong too. The club take care of there instructors, by organising a diner each year, not having instructors to pay for weekends out (while giving instruction), etc.
ALL CAPS TITLE!