Because most of the “climbing” I’ve done recently has been in my head, I’m getting about 65% as much sleep as I’d like, and New England is living in some kind of rain-soaked alternative universe right now, I thought I’d get everyone up to speed on my routesetting commandments. I’m totally qualified to hold forth on this because I have no training, have never set for a competition, and everyone down at the gym likes my problems.
1) It’s not about you: if you’re setting stuff that you want to climb, you’re just wasting space on the wall. Tall people who only set reachy problems, muscle-bound campus-freaks who disdain footholds, and spazy spazes who set crap problems all need to stop. Now.
2) Don’t use 37 colors of tape on one route. And your little faux rasta color scheme on the problem you cleverly named Jah-min? It’s stupid. One color will do. If all the single color’s are used already, two colors will do it. It’s that simple.
3) If you get lazy and tape that sloper on another problem as a foot on your new sweet rig, you’re an asshat.
4) When someone tells you your awesome problem is awkward, painful, or just not fun to climb, you should listen. Maybe you don’t change it this time, but think about that feedback next time you set. If you’d rather stick your fingers in your ears and sign the theme to Doogie Howser, MD until they go away, see rule number 1.
5) Every time you crossthread a T-nut, King Sharma kills a narwhal.
That’s pretty much it. If you’ve got questions I will probably ignore them, but I might not. It’ll be a fun game.
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1 comments:
Some additions:
1) Setting v5's and giving them v3 does not make you humble. It makes you egotistical. You make gumbies cry and annoy the heck out of V7 climbers who were looking for a nice warmup.
2) Mark the starting holds clearly. Don't assume it's "implied." If you put arrows on the route sign think about what will happen when other holds are placed around it. Remove the ambiguity.
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