Hello ! I could do with some advice on how people deal with height frustrations. I feel like I’ve been stuck at a v4/5 plateau for such a long time and i just can’t get over the frustration of watching taller men with far worse technique easily climb routes that I’m struggling on purely because they have a bigger wing span and then subsequently try and give me advice on how to climb. Whilst I know it shouldn’t get to me and that I should tell myself it’s a different climb dependent on who you are, I’m just finding it easier said than done and feel like I’m leaving every session frustrated and deflated rather than excited :( if you have ever felt like this and managed to get over it - how did you do it? I feel like I’ve tried everything but my love for climbing is waning a bit when everything I try and do is just that bit too far and I feel like I’m simply not making progress :(

Hi everyone! I'm taking an outdoor climbing course and I noticed that I sometimes get a specifica kind of panic. It happens mostly if I'm top-roping and it starts when I'm already about 20 meters up on the wall. I then ask to be lowered because I'm tired, but I could have gone one. It doesn't happen everytime, I did summit some routes, and it doesn't depend on the percived difficulty of the route.

I look at my knot, I look at the ground and I think I did something wrong and I am going to die, specifically because the knot will "slip".

I understand that it's completely irrational, that the moment to worry and check the knot is before starting. I check myself and my partner, and they check me. Since we are almost at the end of the course, the instructors don't check us before starting.

The explanation that I gave myself is:

- the panic is physical and it's just a high heart rate

- it's because instructors insist on a double bowline knot instead of the usual double eight knot that I used to use for indoor climbing. I did it right every single time, obviously, but I still don't trust myself doing it and sometimes I don't trust my partner checking it (we are all beginners).

- it's actual fear of heights (my indoor gym goes up about 15m)

Any ideas of what could help?

Climbing/bouldering has always seemed fun to me, but I’ve been scared to try it because I have absolutely no upper body strength and a slight fear of heights. However, I’ve now been a couple of times, and it’s brought me so much joy! I really want to get better at it.

I live in Hampstead, and there aren’t any climbing gyms in my area, so I’d need to commute. I’m feeling a bit overwhelmed by all the options and would love to find a beginner-friendly gym with nice vibes (not full of students, as I’m in my 30s, lol)

Any recommendations would be much appreciated! Thanks :)

Edit because this comes up in the comments: it's not an issue of my partner giving me the time. He's been urging me to go much more than I actually do. It's how enthusiastic I manage to get myself into climbing, and how much of it was part of me and now just... Isn't as high a priority as I want it to be

This is a random rant about momming and climbing.

I started climbing in 2015, and it's been such a major part of my personality for years. It was my happy place and safe space all through my twenties. I had my whole climbing community, I went outdoors on weekends, went on climbing trips with friends, got my partner into climbing (he joins us once in a while, it's not his thing), fanthasized about taking my kids abroad to boulder.

Then I got pregnant, and realized I'm too afraid of falling, and stopped climbing. I worked my butt off to stay in shape, but also cried every time my partner went climbing with my climbing crew. But even this wasn't what broke me, because I went back to climbing.

The thing is - now that I'm a mom, I'm a mom first, and everything else second. Suddenly climbing became just something I do when I have time for it. I stopped rope climbing because setting times with partners became too hard. I stopped outdoors climbing because spending a whole day away from home had a cost that was too high. Climbing sessions became a task done for fitness and health.

It's been two years, and we just moved to a new place that has a huge climbing (including lots of outdoors) community, and I feel this so much more. I hate that I'm not the climber I want to be.

That's it. Just venting.

Hey guys! I recently visited Denver and joined a climbing group to find a belay partner since I was traveling alone. I ended up meeting with a guy who responded to my post in the group, and honestly the whole experience left me feeling kinda uncomfortable?

He was pretty socially awkward and made a lot of self-deprecating comments. At one point, he mentioned he didn’t mind lead climbing because he has mental health issues and doesn’t really care if he dies from a fall. Low key did not know how to respond to that. He also put on my belay glasses without asking while he was actively belaying me.

What really bothered me though was one point when I was just looking around the gym. I had my back turned towards the wall he wanted to climb on and when I turned around I noticed his phone pointed directly at me, even though I was nowhere near the climbing route he was about to do. When he noticed me looking, it felt like he tried to play it off as though he was setting up his phone to record himself climbing. But like, he didn’t even check if the camera was facing the route before putting it against his water bottle.

He also offered to take pictures of me using his phone, but I asked him to use mine instead. While he had my phone, he made a comment about me having Discord, so I realized he’d been looking at my notifications.

I don’t know if he was actually recording me, and maybe he was just socially awkward, but the whole experience gave me a really weird feeling. I tend to freeze up when I’m uncomfortable, so I didn’t say anything at the time, and I’ve been having really mixed feelings about it since. I know I should’ve spoken up, especially about the pictures, but I ended up just going along with it to avoid conflict.

I’ve been debating whether I should mention this to the group’s moderators, especially since other people use it to find climbing partners. Am I overthinking this, or would you guys report it?

TL;DR: Had a really uncomfortable experience with a belay partner. Need to know if I should report it to the group moderators.

As the weather changes, people do sometimes fallen ill with common colds, flu or worse. I was wondering apart from using common sense of only returning when you are better. Is there anything else to consider? How long does it take to get back to your normal performance?

Also how do you guys avoid catching something at the gym?

Thank you folks!

P.S. I have a condition that gives me transient muscle weakness if I am sick. Given that I am surrounded by the push through culture and a friend caught norovirus from the gym recently , I have to ask.

Going to the Red later this week (yay!) and planning on checking out the Miller Fork area, but I’ve heard the road to get there can be gnarly. Any advice would be appreciated!

Some questions off the top of my head:
- Anyone know the current conditions of the roads?
- Mountain project gives two routes to the parking lot. Which one is better / preferred?

Hiii any girls out here climbing? I’m new and would love to go with yall! I usually go to bainbridge and would love to go outdoors

TW: Discussion of weight
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I have been climbing off and on for ~7 years. I got into climbing through gym bouldering, but in recent years have really only been sport climbing. Recently, however, I've been interested in bouldering a bit to get better at explosive movements for sport climbing. However, since I last was routinely bouldering, I've gained a bit of weight for a variety of reasons (~25-30 lbs I'd guess).

On lead, I'm climbing as hard as I was at my lower weight, so I don't necessarily feel like I need to lose weight for performance reasons, but falling bouldering feels much scarier now. Maybe it's partially just that I'm out of practice, but I really do feel like I'm falling harder at my current body weight, and I'm worried I'm more likely to injure myself if I fall off-balance/awkwardly with the added force. Has anyone else dealt with this?

Did a 5.9 single pitch at ~7,500 ft. It was cold, foggy, and I was fighting for my life on the hike to the crag carrying hella gear because I’m definitely not used to the elevation 😭

But holy shit, it was so worth it. It was beautiful and I genuinely felt alive. Climbing outside is just a completely different experience from the gym.

Definitely gonna start doing more cardio/elevation stuff, keep getting stronger in the gym, and I’m already looking at gear on Facebook Marketplace lmao. I fear this may have altered the trajectory of my life.

Llevo 2 años escalando ocasionalmente. El primer año solo escalé Top-Rope, el segundo empecé en Lead. Empecé con amigos y practicando, pero me daba miedo volar y sentía que no sabía hacerlo, así que decidí realizar un curso de escalada en Lead y aseguramiento.
El curso estuvo interesante, había un énfasis en falls y catching; sin embargo, conforme progresaba el curso sentía cada vez más miedo de escalar en punta.
Terminé el curso y por cuestiones personales dejé de escalar dos meses.
Cuando regresé al gym y a la roca, me sentía completamente insegura y nerviosa. Me desacostumbré totalmente y ahora siento un miedo paralizante al intentar hacer movimientos o pasos que podrían hacer que caiga.
Antes del receso escalaba a nivel 5.11b, meses después de retomar, sigo en 5.10b. Es cierto que regresé con menor condición física, pero la limitación es principalmente mental. Me da miedo arriesgarme y tener que “volar”. A veces no disfruto las sesiones por el mismo miedo y frustración.
Algún consejo para salir de ese bache?

i (26f) just moved 2 hours south of Sydney 2 months ago from Colorado. i was REALLY involved in my community in denver. it was so welcoming and accepting. i never left the crag without talking to a bunch of groups. at the gym, i knew 90% of people who came in and out. since coming to australia, i’ve had a REALLY hard time making friends/community/getting belay partners. it’s not for lack of climbers. i live in the city with the highest concentration of hard sport climbs in australia. i feel like i have to sl*t myself out to get people to talk to me or to even consider belaying me. it’s just so hard. i went with a group last month with a guy i was seeing, and nobody in the group said a SINGLE word to me. nobody asked my name. nobody offered to belay me. it was soul crushing. i’m not even a bad climber either, but i felt so judged and left wanting to cry. how do i out myself out there :/ there’s also not been a single woman in the gym i go to …
is this normal? is it an australian norm?

My lovely wife, Shannon Stuart-Smith, is the founder of the RRGCC. She’s been a climber for over thirty years. She is currently 71 years old and goes out climbing at least three times a week. I could post a video of her doing pull-ups in our climbing gym/basement, but I won’t because then we’ll all feel bad about ourselves. She is going to outlive the last cockroach, I swear. (If asked, I will provide y’all with that video, but it may have to be a DM or a separate post because I don’t think I can post videos in the comments, but hot damn).

Anyway! Please watch this video, send it to everyone you know who might be interested in supporting the museum, and just try to not cry when you watch it.

Love to you all.

https://vimeo.com/1201500014/1dee50aec3?share=copy&fl=sv&fe=ci

Now she’s doing this amazing thing and I want everyone to know about it, and I want all of you to tell as many of your climber gals as you can.

ETA, I’m a gal, too, if that matters.

I’m about 3.5 weeks postpartum, with my second baby - uncomplicated unmedicated vaginal birth with very minimal tearing, so recovery(at least physically!) has been easy so far. I was able to walk around the neighborhood the day after coming home from the hospital and we took public transit+walking to bring the baby home.

I didn’t start climbing until my first baby was around 2, so I’m not sure what to expect getting back into it postpartum.

I bouldered up until around 30 weeks, but after that it just wasn’t fun anymore so I stopped, but I took up some other hobbies(knitting and crochet) to hopefully keep my fingers nimble.

I’m kind of itching to get back into it. I don’t really have a traditional “6 week checkup” planned, I mean will see my OBGYN but it’s more of a general visit(I am not in the US so it’s kinda different I guess?). But I do plan to wait on climbing until around 6 weeks and take my baby to the gym with me(he’s breastfed and I don’t like pumping) during a quiet time to kind of laze around and do some very easy stuff. I do fairly often see moms on maternity leave with their babies at the gyms, the babies will hang out on the mats(not mobile yet)or in their prams.

If you had a similar experience with birth/postpartum, how was it for you, returning to climbing? Do you bring your baby? Did you do any kind of physical therapy? Thanks

Hello everyone! I am just wondering what stuff you do to improve your dynos? I am looking for stuff to improve them both inside and outside the gym :) I do weight training, so anything outside weights would be very helpful.

Thank you :)

Edit:: I want to be able to jump really high as I am 4'11

I’m looking for anyone want to climb indoor and outdoor lead mostly near Dundee. I’m doing a trad course in a couple months, and have been climbing for a year

It’s V5-6 I’ve been working on it for a couple weeks. So glad I sent it before they reset the wall!

i moved somewhat recently which means changing gyms. rock climbing isn’t as big up here, so there’s really only one gym. and it’s a really good gym! but it’s quite soft

my old gym was pretty hard, and sometimes i get sad because i feel like whenever i climb a ‘hard’ climb it’s not real, because it’s soft

like i flashed a v6/7 the other day, but i know full well that i probably am still stuck at a v4 level

sometimes i desire to fly back to where i used to move, JUST to try climbing there, so i can get a gauge on whether or not i’ve actually improved haha

i guess that’s why people climb outside and board climb, for more universal grading.? it’s kind of strange though— i used to project v4s on TB2 and now i can’t even do v1s on kilter. and i’ve heard kilter is supposed to be easier!

anyways no advice needed or anything just sharing my thoughts as of late

Hello!!

Recently, my skin has been sooo sensitive (painful & red, like it starts hurting already after 4 boulders!!). I've started to get flappers sometimes, or just little tears. It's been really limiting my climbing :(

I'm not the most intense climber, I climb like 6A/V3s. I boulder/climb usually 2, sometimes 3 times a week, no change in consistency recently. I have started going to the gym recently for physio, lifting some weights, 2-3 times a week, so this is perhaps adding some strain on the skin?? And perhaps the changing of the seasons isn't helping?

Does anyone know why it could be that it's gotten so bad???

How can I take better care of my skin? Are there any hand creams or anything that you recommend? I've tried applying some Nivea body moisturizer at night, but I'm afraid this also just makes my skin softer & therefore more sensitive?

Happy to hear any advice!

Hello ladies I am 19F and have been climbing for almost a year now but I have just been feeling really down on myself with my improvement just because i know apart of what’s stopping me from getting better is my chest 😭 for reference I am a double D so I can’t really lean on the wall as much and inclined routes r a struggle but I want to get stronger and better to be able to do them. Do any of you fellow big chested climbers have any advice on ways to make it less of a struggle?