Almost all of us are afflicted with one of these climbing disesases, and sadly, many of these go undiagnosed and untreated. Every day, at crags around the country, people are climbing with the burden of an unchecked, treatable illness. It’s a national tragedy.

Thankfully, with better medical technology and improved diagnostic abilities, we’re now able to identify these diseases in their early stages. But we still need your help. Our hope is that this document may raise awareness and help prevent needless suffering.

Onsightis

This condition generally presents as obsessiveness with the act of climbing every route on the first attempt, every time. Mild onsightis does not often cause the patient any discomfort and can actually be seen to provide some modest benefits, however it has been known to suppress redpoint grades in chronic sufferers.

Signs and Symptoms

• Noticeable lack of enthusiasm for repeated attempts
• Demanding/needy, especially at new crags
• Resistance to attempting overly difficult routes
• May display aggression toward unwanted beta in advanced cases

Treatment

• Gentle application of harder routes for the purpose of stimulating the red and pinkpoint glands.

Cragger’s Malaise

Just like the common cold, this common climbing disease is surprisingly rampant for the simple fact that prevention is so difficult. Little is known about the causes of cragger’s malaise and its effects can be shockingly debilitating, leading sufferers to view climbing as more of a social pursuit than an athletic one.

Signs and Symptoms

• Overly chatty
• Maximum of 2-3 routes in one session
• Patient displays preference for beer over climbing
• Usually accompanied by low level of skill or ability

Treatment

• No definitive cure exists. Most professionals recommend tolerance rather than intervention. Occasionally resolves without treatment.

Obsessive Tick-Listive Disorder

Also known as “Buzzfeeding,” damage to the right mesial prefrontal cortex can result in abnormal collecting behavior. In the sport of climbing, this lends itself to list-ticking and peak-bagging, practices which value completion of an arbitrary list over objective quality of the routes contained therein.

Signs and Symptoms

• Patient climbs horrible shit for no good reason
• Often accompanied by shameless guidebook fetish
• Acquired choss resistance and skewed risk acceptance

Treatment

• An immediate course of crags with horrific rock quality or protection
• Most cases will be resolved with a one-time application of loose Eldorado Canyon “classics” or Fisher Towers mud climbing.

Boltulism

Doctors and scientists have been unable to reach consensus on a definitive explanation for this very unenjoyable climbing disease. High-functioning patients have been known to produce many quality routes, despite the odd squeeze or contrivance, whereas severe cases can manifest in full-blown grid-bolt mania. All patients are grouped by the overwhelming desire to “get their name in the guidebook.”

Signs and Symptoms

• Often financially unstable due to hardware purchases
• Observes “phantom lines,” a condition similar to colorblindness, in which vague and spurious routes are reported by the patient.
• Often results in link ups.
• Sometimes narcissistic
• Places bolts in unstable geological formations

Treatment

• Removal of drill privileges, followed by bedrest

Partneraphobia

Essentially a condition which results in anti-social tendencies, mild cases often present as a preference for “exploratory missions” to “scope lines” and “check conditions” in wilderness areas, in which partners are not invited. However, if left untreated, this disease can lead to some really weird shit like bouldering alone and rope soloing.

Signs and Symptoms

• Patient avoids human contact
• Unexplained disappearances
• Strong odor, questionable hygiene
• Often found in possession of unusual gear, including but not limited to traction devices and aid gear

Treatment

• Gradual reintroduction to social stimulus and bathing
• Proven effective if paired with a high-quality single-pitch cragging experience

Human Projecting Virus (HPV)

It has been hypothesized that HPV was spread to humans through contact with bats. Proponents of this theory argue that this is the reason for which HPV sufferers tend to spend a majority of their time in caves, flapping their arms about in a sort of interpretive dance known as “sequencing.”

Signs and Symptoms

• Pallid appearance and engorged forearms
• Fixation/obsession with a single route. Can often last months, sometimes years
• Speaks only in numerals
• Comfortable hanging upside down, yet finds walking difficult

Treatment

• Exposure to multi-pitch adventure routes where prior inspection is impossible.
• Prescription of a broad-spectrum ticklist which can remedy deficiencies such as slab and crack

Malignant Ego

Inflammation and swelling of the ego can lead to an inflated opinion of oneself. If left untreated, the inner asshole will expand and devour other elements of the patient’s character. Among climbing diseases, this one is considered highly contagious.

Signs and Symptoms

• Holier than thou
• Toothy appearance, snarls often, occasional frothing at mouth
• Unable to refrain from unsolicited beta-spraying
• Calls all your hardest ticks “soft for the grade”
• Denigrates every style of climbing except for their own

Treatment

• Patients will need to undergo a delicate medical procedure where their head will be removed from their anus.

Chronic Overseriousness

If you find yourself offended by any of the above descriptions, you may be suffering from Chronic Overseriousness. It may be possible that you’re taking climbing too seriously.

Signs and Symptoms

• Offense taken
• Currently limbering up fingers to launch a blistering social media tirade
• Often found in comments sections of websites/social media
• Sufferers tend to insist that climbing is not a “sport,” but a “form of self expression”

Treatment

• Chill out
• Get off the Internet and go outside

If you observe any of these symptoms in your friends or in yourself, don’t delay. Consult your crag doctor as soon as possible. Together, we can beat common climbing diseases.

The post 8 Common Climbing Diseases and Their Cures appeared first on Climbing.

If you’ve ever injured a finger pulley, you’re keenly aware of the structure. If you haven’t, you might not even know they exist. Finger pulleys are thick, fibrous bands of connective tissue that hold your finger flexor tendons tight along the finger bones and prevent “bowstringing” of the tendons while they are under load. Pulley injuries are common among climbers. Proper management of these injuries is crucial for a full return to sport and to decrease the chance of re-injury.

As a physical therapist of 31 years and climber of 42, I’ve treated hundreds of climbers. I wrote the following pulley rehab program to consolidate the evidence-based research and my own clinical knowledge into a comprehensive treatment plan for climbers. If you recently heard that alarming pop in your hand, or are feeling other signs of injury, here’s what to do.

Key points

• Climbers most-often injure the A2 pulley in the ring finger. Other pulleys are susceptible to excessive forces as well with the middle finger being the next most-commonly injured digit
• The A2 pulley is located at the base of your finger near the junction with your palm. The A1 pulley is more in the palm itself, over the MCP joint (metacarpal phalangeal joint)
• Treatment for a mild-to-moderate injury requires a balance of protection, scar mitigation, and progressive loading of the injured tissues
• More-severe injuries require medical evaluation, possible immobilization, and sometimes surgical intervention
• If pain is very severe, swelling is significant, or you can see or feel “bowstringing” then you should seek medical attention. ER visits are usually not necessary but seek medical evaluation within the first 3-10 days

Signs of a pulley injury

• Immediate onset of pain over the pulley that is often associated with an audible popping sound (there is not always a pop, so you can still have a pulley injury without the sound)
• Pain is usually quite severe, especially with direct pressure over the pulley or when trying to crimp or pull with the affected digit. (Do not keep gripping holds and pulling to try to convince yourself that you are not actually injured!)
• Swelling is often present over the affected pulley. Bruising can sometimes be present
• Pain is typically localized over the pulley and tends to be worse along the sides of your finger. If you flex the injured finger then gently pull out on your fingertip you should feel pain along the pulley
• If the pain radiates into your hand or wrist then it is probably not a pulley injury and may be an injury to one of the flexor tendons
• Stiffness, swelling, and tenderness along the knuckles themselves (the PIP or DIP joints) is usually not a symptom of a pulley injury and can be due to a capsular strain, arthritis, collateral ligament strain, extensor hood injury, or other problems

Stages of healing

Tissue healing can be divided into three overlapping phases: acute/inflammatory, reparative, and remodeling.

Acute phase: Homeostasis and inflammation

(Days 1-5)

• Blood vessels constrict, platelets stick together, coagulation occurs, and fibrin threads are formed to stop bleeding, seal the injury site, and create a scaffolding for the re-building process
• Macrophages and white blood cells clean the area and secrete growth factors and cytokines to stimulate fibroblast proliferation
• Inflammation is a necessary part of normal healing and is only a problem if the response is too aggressive or lasts too long. Ice is helpful to reduce pain and may help reduce inflammation, but has not been proven to improve the overall healing response. NSAIDs can also be helpful but only if the pain or swelling are excessive in the first few days

Repair and proliferation phase

(Days 3-21)

• New blood vessels form and the body starts to rebuild the damaged tissue with type III collagen (scar tissue). This collagen is weak, disorganized, and easily re-injured. Pain free movement is crucial in this phase to help the new collagen align itself parallel with the normal forces placed on the tissue. Gentle massage and Wave Tool work can also be helpful in this stage. [Disclosure: The author is the co-founder of Wave Tools Therapy]

Remodeling and reorganization phase

(Days 21-2 years)

• Type III collagen is replaced with stronger and better organized Type I collagen. It’s critical for this reorganization to occur so that the damaged pulley tissue is strong and healthy enough to handle the stresses of climbing. A very controlled and progressive loading program is crucial for this reorganization to occur. Wave Tool use with the edges can help stimulate a healthier healing response

Climber’s pulley injury complete rehabilitation program

Part 1: Overview

Part 2: H-taping

Part 3: Getting back to full strength

Treatment flowchart

During the inflammation phase:

• Ice for pain control
• Rest: No pressure or force through injured finger
• Pain-free, passive motion
• Pain-free, active motion
• NSAIDs only if pain or swelling is excessive
• Stimulate immune and healing response with healthy diet and exercise

During the remodeling and reorganization phase:

• Begin tendon gliding exercises. (See videos above)
• Begin stretches for entire kinetic chain (hand, wrist, elbow, shoulder, thoracic and cervical spine)
• Gentle Wave Tool use with edges and massage surfaces for desensitization, blood flow, and waste removal. Use on all finger pulleys and along entire length of forearm and elbow flexors. (See videos above)
• Begin the Progressive Loading Program. (See videos above and climbing program outline below)
• Ice if needed for pain control
• Heat is OK to add in for short duration (5-10 minutes) for comfort and blood flow
• Limit use of NSAIDs

During the repair and proliferation phase:

• Begin higher intensity muscle and tendon stretches
• Increase intensity of Wave Tool with edges and massage surfaces to improve blood flow and to help stimulate collagen deposition in a more organized and uniform arrangement
• Continue with Progressive Loading Program using resistance bands and no-hang finger training device (like the Tension Block, Tension Flash Board, or Metolius Wood Rock Rings). You can also start to work on regular hangboard with weight removed
• Begin the Return to Climbing Progression. (See videos above and consult the detailed climbing program outline below)
• Continue short duration heat applications for blood flow
• H-taping recommended for all climbing or progressive loading exercises. (See video above)

All Injuries and people are different. Progress through the program at your own pace. Recognize that there is considerable overlap between the different phases of healing. If you are unsure how to proceed then you should seek qualified medical evaluation and guidance.

Pre-climbing resistance training

• Begin this progression 5-10 days post injury
• Only progress to the next training level when you can perform the prior level with minimal or no pain
• Go slowly with all motions and progress through resistance levels carefully. If you are mildly sore for 30 minutes to 1 hour after a session that is fine. If soreness persists for several hours or into the next day then you must decrease intensity

Level 1: Isometric holds

5 x 5 x 5 program (see videos)

Using a flat edge such as the side of the table or counter edge, or use a no-hang device (see video). Open grip position only—NO CRIMPING. Using all four fingers, gently pull on the edge just to the point of feeling pain over the pulley. Now back the pressure off until no pain, or only very mild pain, is felt. This is where you will perform the hold. Pull for 5 seconds, 5 reps. Next pull with three fingers (index, middle, ring). 5 second hold, 5 reps. Now very carefully and gently pull with the injured finger and the finger next to it (middle and ring). 5 second hold, 5 reps. Perform up to 5 times in a day.

Follow a two days on, one day off cycle.

Level 2: Isometric holds using resistance band

5 x 5 x 5 program (see videos)

Use light resistance bands and a portable no-hang device. Make sure you can accurately reproduce the resistance during each session. Keep track of bands used, holds used, and your distance from the anchor point. A “keeper” sling around your wrist is recommended so that you can let go of the board if any pain is felt. (see video). Begin with the largest grip surface and all four fingers. Open grip positions only. With arm straight walk backwards until mild pain is produced over pulley, now step forward and ease resistance until no pain, or very mild pain, is felt. Hold 5 sec, 5 reps. Now repeat with three fingers (index, middle, ring) for 5 second holds, 5 reps. Now very carefully and gently repeat with two fingers (middle and ring). 5 second holds, 5 reps. Perform up to 5 times on your exercise days.

Continue performing these exercises two days on, one day off. You will progress faster if you have adequate recovery time.

Level 3: Resistance bands with climbing specific movements

(See videos)

Use your no-hang device attached to the bands. Open grip positions only. Start by careful pulling for the following three motions.

1. Archer Position (pretend you’re pulling a bowstring back) using four fingers. 10 reps, 3 sets
2.  Undercling position with four fingers. 10 reps, 3 sets
3. Palm down pulls. Keep your palm facing the floor and pull straight back with four fingers. 10 reps, 3 sets

Perform twice per day, training one day on, one day off.

Progress to three fingers then two fingers with the same motions and reps—very carefully. It may take several days before you can advance. You can also advance to smaller grip surfaces if no pain is noted.

Remember: Every injury and every individual is different. Progress at your own pace and listen to your body.

Return to climbing progression

• Begin the climbing progression 14-21 days post injury. You should be doing all resistance band exercises without pain prior to initiating the climbing plan
• The climbing will be in addition to the resistance bands. Follow the frequency plan listed under each climbing level
• Perform a minimum of four days of climbing at each level prior to proceeding to the next difficulty level. Advance only if pain levels are not increasing and workouts are done with a minimum of pain or strain
• Resume rotator cuff and periscapular strengthening. Bands work great for this as well

Basic climbing

• Toprope only. No bouldering. No leading
• Climb no harder than three full number grades below your onsight level (i.e. a 12a onsight climber can work at a maximum difficulty of 5.9)
• Work on balance, footwork, pushing with your legs, fall practice, breathing, and flexibility. Let go if any pain or twinge is felt
• Climbing and resistance-band work will be on the same day. Two days on, one day off

Harder climbing

• Toprope only. No bouldering. No leading
• Climb one full number grade below your onsight level (i.e. a 12a onsight climber can work at a maximum difficulty of 11a)
• Climbing and resistance-band work will be on the same day. Two days on, one day off

Lead climbing and bouldering

• Approach all climbs like you would a project. Feel out moves and holds. Toprope first as necessary
• Work on minimizing strain and climbing efficiently. Focus on technique: core tension, elbows in, scapulae engaged, etc.
• Choose a different climb if you have pain on any of the individual holds. Lead only after you’re confident the movement and holds are OK for your injury
• You can start to introduce full crimping with your resistance band workouts and slowly introduce full crimping to climbing routes
• More rest is needed during this phase. Follow the schedule below to optimize recovery. Band work is still done on the same day as climbing

Each week should have a minimum of three climbing rest days total, with two rest days in a row. If you’re feeling sore or aren’t progressing, then you should take three rest days in a row to allow for tissue recovery and repair processes. Below is a sample 14 day training schedule. Adjustments to the schedule are fine, but it’s best to follow the rest requirements.

Redpoint/onsight training

Begin working towards harder onsight climbing, your project grades, and normal training routine.

• Once you’re working back towards your project grade you may take less rest days and progress towards your pre-injury workout schedule. Keep in mind, however, that rest days are critical for preventing re-injury and chronic tissue break down, and to repair tissue micro-damage
• Soft tissue injury healing is not always linear. You will have ebbs and flows in your rehabilitation progress. Look at the bigger patterns and look forward to the ultimate goal of getting back to climbing again

The post Your Complete Guide To Finger Injuries (And How To Recover!) appeared first on Climbing.

With three decades of trad, sport, bouldering, and big wall experience, Katie Lambert knows volumes about the best gear—and how to organize it. Born in Louisiana but long based in Bishop, California, Lambert designed and built out a gear shed with her husband Ben Ditto, a climber and photographer. When she’s not climbing, Lambert can be found working at the nonprofit Sacred Rok, which helps provide underserved youth access to climbing and the outdoors in the Yosemite area.

Before we get into her gear storage layout—and what she fills it with—we caught up with Lambert to see what she’s been up to this season. Recently, she got the second ascent of High Country Lover (5.14b/c), a sport route in Pine Creek Canyon. “Situated at 8,200 feet and south facing, conditions were a major obstacle,” Lambert says. “But so was my power and power endurance.” But she trained hard, locked in, and redpointed the route in spring.

Since then, Lambert has been climbing for fun on alpine peaks and taking day trips to The Incredible Hulk. She’s also making steady progress toward her goal of sending 300 5.13s by 2030—she’s currently holding strong at 202 5.13s.

A dream custom climber gear shed

To store all the gear she needs for her 300 x 5.13 project, get into the alpine, and climb across disciplines, Lambert built a custom gear shed with Ditto on their property in Bishop. They equipped it with built-in shelving and peg boards to hang and organize their gear.

Here are a few tips from their shed setup:

• Hang all draws, cams, and slings on a peg board.
• Stack all packs, ropes, and sleeping bags on shelves for ease of access.
• If you’re building out a closet or shed of your own, gather all your gear and measure the area it takes up to determine how big it needs to be. Inevitably, you’ll probably need more room down the line as you acquire more gear. So if you can, make your shed bigger than it needs to be based on your current gear collection size.

What’s inside Lambert’s shed

These are some of Lambert’s favorite pieces of climbing gear, from her favorite helmet to the essentials-only bag she takes on big walls.

Mammut Assist Belay Resistor

I’m a very petite climber and it’s the rare occasion that I’m climbing with someone of lighter or equal weight. I’ve no problem giving a soft catch but I can often get pulled up too high or even pulled in too close to the first piece of protection. The Assist Belay Resistor is a lightweight piece I don’t mind carrying with me to the crag if I know I’ll be giving some catches where my climber is likely taking big falls.

Editor’s note: Mammut will release its Assist Belay Resister in spring 2026. Other options include the Edelrid Ohm (or wait a few weeks for the soon-to-be-released and improved Edelrid Ohmega), or the Raed Zaed.

Alien Revolution Offset Cams

These may be a little obscure to come by these days. But if you’re in the market for cams that work exceptionally well in limestone pods, fissures, and ripples, then these beauties are worth seeking out. They also never blow in flared granite pin-scars, and can fit the straight-in sandstone cracks. My favorites are the blue/black, blue/green, green/yellow, and yellow/red. 

Shop Alien Revolution Offset Cams

Asana Rock Star Pad

The thing you need to cover gaps between your bordering pads—or even to use as a nice little spot off the ground for the sit starts. You can also toss it over a rock or root that may stick out the side of the padded zone, but is still potentially in the “landing zone.”

Shop Asana Rock Star Pad

Mammut Rime Light Flex Vest

Living in the Eastern Sierra, I’m often climbing in the winter on south-facing cliffs in 30ish degree weather. In the summer months, I enjoy a bit of “Calpinism” that requires a little something extra, but not quite a full jacket. This vest is just the thing and is also awesome for cold road bike rides.  

Shop Mammut Rime Light Vest

Mammut Workhorse HMS Screwgate Carabiner

This is Mammut’s largest locking carabiner, but it’s also fairly light. It’s a must-have for wall climbing. It allows for plenty of room and versatility, from loading with gear at wall bivies, to fixing portaledges, ropes, and haul bags.

Shop Mammut Workhorse HMS Screwgate Carabiner

Organic Climbing Ditty Bag

Perfect for storing everything from nail and skin maintenance kits, to cell phones, headlamps, and extra wall or trail snacks.

Shop Organic Climbing Ditty Bag  

Patagonia Duckbill Cap

Super light, easy to pack away, and great for running and biking. Its low-profile design allows for comfort and functionality under a helmet for multi-pitch climbing in the sun. It also fits well under a sun hoodie. 

Shop Patagonia Duckbill Cap

Mammut Wall Rider Helmet

It’s light, comfortable, and gives all the protection you want from a climbing helmet. 

Shop Mammut Wall Rider Helmet 

 

Katie Lambert is a sponsored Mammut North America athlete and she is on the Pro Team for Physivantage. 

The post A Pro Climber’s Custom Gear Shed—and Her Favorite Things Inside It appeared first on Climbing.

In a bathroom in Berlin, two women are growing mushrooms that could become the jugs and crimps of your next gym project. Together, Marta Agueda and Manuela Garcia are leading MAD, the world’s first mycelium-based climbing holds company.

But mushrooms, as it turns out, aren’t the only alternative materials with which hold-makers are experimenting. While I originally planned to write a story exclusively about the shroom holds of Germany, my research turned into a surprisingly uplifting rabbit hole. At a time when concerns over plastic are reaching a fever pitch—and as new data emerges about the toxicity of chalk and climbing shoe rubber inhaled indoors—this is a hopeful account about holds that are better for the planet. But first, just how bad are today’s climbing holds when it comes to the environment?

Climbing on plastic? Not fantastic.

When you’re “pulling on plastic,” you’re grasping at polyurethane (PU) or polyester (PE). Manufacturers pour liquid PU and PE into molds. Usually, this pourable plastic does not come from a recyclable material. Nor are plastic holds typically designed to be recycled after they reach the end of their lifespan.

As a result, an estimated seven million holds end up in the landfill every year, according to Artline, a French climbing holds brand. Artline also says the average carbon footprint of a single conventional plastic hold is on par with driving between 31 and 62 miles in a non-electric car.

For a bigger-picture view of the carbon footprint of indoor climbing, we can look at the lifecycle assessment of “Titan,” a bouldering wall used in the 2024 Summer Olympics. The International Federation of Sport Climbing (IFSC) and International Olympic Committee (IOC) commissioned the assessment. This particular wall included about 20 wooden holds and 250 plastic ones.

The assessment found that Titan’s carbon footprint equated to 94 flights from Paris to New York, or 2,654 smartphones. While this assessment also covered elements like the panels behind the holds and the mats below, it does underscore the carbon toll that comes with indoor climbing. While the mats proved to be the greatest carbon culprit, the plastic holds created the second largest environmental impact.

Conventional plastic holds don’t exactly last long either. According to French company Ghold, the average lifespan of a PU hold is just one to two years, while a PE hold lasts on average between three and five years. The Titan lifecycle assessment calculated the average estimated lifespan of the holds (a mix of PE and PU) to be two years. According to Garnet Moore, executive director of the Climbing Wall Association, the average small to medium-sized gym has a minimum of 6,000 to 10,000 holds. With over 870 gyms in North America alone (according to the Climbing Business Journal), that’s at least five million holds in play that will only last between one year and five years. It’s easy to see how some seven million holds get landfilled annually around the world.

Go behind the scenes into the origins and evolution of this story on sustainable climbing holds

But it doesn’t have to be this way. Methods exist to reduce the impact of the common climbing hold. Hollow-backed holds, for example, can significantly cut down on plastic usage. Manufacturers can also integrate plastic with other materials to reduce the amount of fossil fuel-based material required. And holds can be refurbished and refinished to extend their lifespan through companies like the UK’s Contact Holds or NRHolds in France.

But across Europe, a number of forward-thinking companies are innovating to make holds from recycled plastic—or alternative materials to avoid plastic altogether.

Climbing holds made from alternative materials

What does a non-plastic hold look like? Over in Denmark, a company called Nature Climbing is pioneering a return to rock—yes, even indoors. With oversight from the European Forest Stewardship Council, they’ve been hand-crafting climbing holds out of Scandinavian granite and oak for about a decade.

But some hold manufacturers are getting even more creative with cost-effective, all-natural answers to the synthetic setting of the gym.

Back to the mushrooms

It all started when Marta Agueda, a boulderer and sport climber from Spain, met Manuela Garcia while climbing in a gym three years ago. Garcia had moved to Berlin from Argentina and loved bouldering. Since they found themselves far from any crags in the city, they spent most of their time climbing indoors. Across the 10 and counting climbing gyms in Berlin, they realized “just how much material goes into building those spaces—and how much of it is plastic,” according to Garcia. They resolved to do something about it.

Architects and product designers by trade, Agueda and Garcia heard through a friend about fungi-based construction materials. So they decided to apply the science to climbing holds. Fast forward a few years, and they found themselves growing fungi in Garcia’s bathroom, and DIYing their own bioreactor.

While it may all sound somewhat fledgling, MAD has been testing its holds on routes for over a year. With proper investment, they estimate their mushroom-based holds could enter the market in just a year or two.

If you’re wondering how the spongy texture of a mushroom would lend itself to a durable hold, it’s because they’re not using the part of a mushroom that most people think of first. Agueda and Garcia are focused on the mycelium—the subterranean, root-like structure of a mushroom, which is actually the whole organism.

So far, prototype testing has gone well. Routesetters and climbers have tested holds at two climbing gyms in Berlin. Yet several challenges remain. One is ensuring the bolt holes are structurally sound. Bigger picture, Agueda and Garcia are working on making their production process more efficient and scalable through, for example, vertical mushroom farming techniques. “Our goal is to be price-competitive with plastic holds so climbers and gyms can make decisions based on sustainability, not just cost,” Garcia explains.

But perhaps the greatest barrier MAD faces is the variability of working with a living organism. “The biggest challenge is the nature of the material itself,” Garcia says. “It’s living. It behaves differently than traditional materials.” Recently, they partnered up with a major research institute in Germany to collaborate with a mycologist who can help them better harness mycelium.

Down the line, the women of MAD hope to apply their mycelium prowess to more climbing products and expand into other industries. “Mycelium has so much potential beyond holds,” Agueda explains. “It could be applied to things like helmets, padding, maybe even parts of climbing shoes. We’re just getting started.”

So are MAD’s holds edible? (I had to ask). “Not yet,” Garcia laughed. “But honestly, we love the idea of a climbing wall you could eat.”

Sandstone from scratch

“I’m really radical,” says Andreas Trunz, the innovator behind RSTTR holds in northern Switzerland, of his commitment to sustainability. He also has a passion for problem solving. In his quest to produce a totally non-toxic hold, he has spiraled into a research journey on materials, from the main ingredients, to the hardeners, to the dyes.

It all started a couple years ago, when he was having a beer with his friend, a composite engineer. They started talking about the glaring gap between the current hold market, and a recent paper from the Swiss Gym Association requesting more sustainable hold options. As an alpinist who says he loves all climbing disciplines, Trunz wanted to do something about it.

His vision for a less-plastic indoor climbing future? One word: Bioresins. Primarily, Trunz has been using vegetable oils sourced from North America to develop a material he describes as “a renewable, castable sandstone—based on a 100% plant-based, non-persistent, non-toxic resin.” The specific ingredient remains under wraps; it’s a trade secret.

The crux of these bio-based holds? The hardener that allows the hold to set in its mold. Trunz explains that others have tried manufacturing holds using partially bio-based formulations, but they still relied on fossil fuel-based hardeners.

“We are only interested in looking at solutions that are 100% safe,” he explains. So he started searching for ingredients that he’d let his own kids mix together without concern. “It’s so safe, I’d eat it,” Trunz says. “Well—not the quartz, for the sake of my teeth.” After striking out with a number of hardener solutions, he found that mixing bioresins with mineral fillers like sand worked. Not only did it behave like sandstone, but it also felt like sandstone, too.

Dyes represent the last piece of the puzzle. Trunz wants to keeping the colors natural. To meet that commitment, he’s working with plant-based and iron oxide-based dyes that produce black, white, green, brown, and more earth tones.

So how does this completely natural climbing hold stack up in testing? Radically well. RSTTR tested its holds for over 11 months at a gym in Switzerland, and has since introduced its holds at six more gyms across the country, as well as in one local competition in Zurich. Testing shows that these bio-based holds offer far better shock resistance than polyester-based holds and much improved grip. “Even a huge amount of wear and abrasion on a small foothold won’t polish it,” Trunz explains. “The texture refreshes itself.”

Bioresin holds also significantly exceed the lifespan of PU holds, though the upfront cost is slightly higher. However, the company remains optimistic that it can reduce cost as it scales. And when it comes to carbon footprint, an initial lifecycle analysis shows significantly lower emissions associated with RSTTR holds compared to conventional holds. However, Trunz says he needs to do more in-depth research before citing specific numbers.

Currently, RSTTR hopes to enter the U.S. market by 2028 at the latest—i.e., in time for the Summer Olympics—ideally using a U.S.-based production.

Planet-conscious plastic holds

As MAD and RSTTR innovate with alternative materials, other hold manufacturers are pioneering better ways of harnessing plastic. Namely, they use recycled plastics to make holds, or create plastic holds that can be recycled again and again to reduce the overall carbon footprint.

In the Netherlands, Greenholds is shaping holds from plastic designed to last three to four times longer than the standard PU hold. The wear-resistant nylon they use is four times stiffer and eight times as strong as a conventional plastic holds, according to the company’s lab tests. You can also recycle each hold six times without any loss in performance. A 1% for the Planet member, Greenholds further reduces its impact by utilizing post-industrial waste; it sources polyamide primarily from the auto industry.

Greenholds’ smarter approach to plastic is already commercially available around Europe, but they haven’t yet found a distributor in the United States. The primary obstacles at this point remain a price-restricted market. “The dialogue regarding a circular economy is getting started,” says Tim Mullens, co-founder of Greenholds. “But gyms are struggling, so unfortunately price prevails over quality and the planet.” He explains that due to their extended lifespan, Greenholds do actually beat conventional holds on price point. However, right now, gyms and hold distributors focus too much on short-term bottom lines to invest.

Meanwhile, in the French Alps, Ghold (pronounced “gold,” a nod to the precious metal that can be melted and recast indefinitely) wants to become the “Gore-Tex of climbing holds.” Basically, they hope to master the technology for other brands to harness. By melting thermoplastic polyurethane at a much higher temperature, a Ghold hold can be recycled up to 10 times before reaching the end of their lifespan. The three Frenchmen behind the operation have been testing their material for four years to ensure it’s durable enough to meet the needs of climbers. After tinkering with the formula, Sébastien Leprivey, a Ghold co-founder, told me that they now have the most durable PU holds on the market.

Durability aside, the recyclability potential of Ghold is staggering. Leprivey estimates that each hold lasts two or three years, depending on usage. After that initial period, each hold can be fully recycled more than 10 times. That means that a Ghold’s lifespan equates to 20 to 30 years—19-28 more years than a conventional PU hold. So while Ghold uses around 30% recycled materials in its original product (with the remaining 70% being virgin material), its sustainable virtues lie in its recyclability and lifespan. That said, as it scales, it will be able to produce holds from 100% recycled thermoplastic PU.

Like Greenholds, Ghold is currently focused on scaling. As an eight-person operation that’s been in development for five years, the company initially focused on developing its technology. Now, it’s entering a fundraising phase to be able to meaningfully enter the market. For example, they need a new machine to be able to produce bigger macro holds, as well as other resources to scale.

But the progress Ghold has made is promising. Leprivey says they’ve partnered on commercializing their holds with some of the largest hold brands out there. So far, they’ve worked with Artline, EP  Climbing, and Climbing Business Journal 2024 Shaper of the Year Decoy. Climbers have even pulled on Ghold holds at several competitions, including the 2024 Salt Lake City World Cup.

The future of climbing holds

A common thread exists among all the creative hold-makers trying to do better by the planet. All of them, as you’d expect, are climbers. But most of them found themselves in urban areas, not able to climb outside as much as they’d like. In a world of plastic, they became increasingly aware of the environmental impact of indoor climbing—and decided to do something about it. Leprivey saw the snow around his ski resorts melting unseasonably early. Trunz of RSTTR wanted a product that’s as non-toxic as possible for his kids and all humans. MAD’s Agueda and Garcia wanted to do something about the staggering levels of plastic in their sport. And Mullens of Greenholds believes that “sustainability and respect for nature are intertwined with our climbing sport.”

Of course, another common thread is that all of these innovative hold-manufacturers are tinkering away in the labs of Europe. Many of them have also faced challenges in entering the U.S. market. I’m sure there are U.S. innovators that I’ve overlooked. But I do hope that this story spreads awareness about the radically sustainable ideas shaping the climbing holds of tomorrow across the pond.

Ultimately, Mullens says that in a couple years, we could see a shift in the climbing holds market. But he doesn’t see that happening without policies designed to trigger that shift. “Laws and regulations will be necessary to push the transition towards sustainability,” Mullens predicts.

Thomas Ferrandi, Director of Marketing with Artline holds, says, “It’s a change in the way of working and thinking about indoor climbing.” Hold manufacturers, hold brands, climbing competition organizations, gym owners, and gym climbers all have a role to play in embodying that change. And maybe one day, we can pull on recyclable plastic—or fungi or bioresins—in good environmental conscience.

The post Peace Out, Plastic. These New Climbing Holds Are Made of Mushrooms. appeared first on Climbing.

While climbing the remote Laila Peak in Pakistan, famed German Olympic biathlete Laura Dahlmeier died on Monday, July 28, while rappelling. Dahlmeier was descending Laila Peak (20,000 feet), a tooth-like summit in the remote Hushe Valley with her climbing partner, Marina Krauss, also from Germany. At an elevation of around 18,700 feet, the women were struck by rockfall.

According to a statement from Dahlmeier’s team, published on her Instagram, the pair were rappelling when their rope dislodged rocks that hit Dahlmeier. Krauss remained unharmed, and immediately sent out an SOS with her satellite messenger. She then tried, for several hours, to reach her fallen partner, but the difficulty of the terrain and the risk of further rockfall stymied her attempts. As night fell, Krauss descended to her base camp.

Rain, wind, and poor visibility initially impeded efforts to rescue Dahlmeier by helicopter. By Tuesday morning, rescuers in search helicopters had managed to spot the fallen climber, but they saw no signs of life and could not descend to the ground due to poor weather. A ground team reached Dahlmeier’s body later that day, and confirmed that she was deceased. “Based on the severity of her injuries, her death is “presumed to have occurred immediately.” It appears that, due to the dangerous nature of the terrain around the accident site, no body recovery will take place. According to Dahlmeier’s team, it was her “express and written will that in a case like this, no one should risk their life to rescue her. Her wish was to leave her body on the mountain.”

In a subsequent memorial post on her Instagram, her team said that, “Laura enriched the lives of many, including our own, with her warm and straightforward manner. She showed us that it’s worth standing up for your dreams and goals and always staying true to yourself. We are deeply grateful, dear Laura, that we were allowed to share our lives with you. Our shared moments and memories give us the strength and courage to continue on our path.”

Laura Dahlmeier was 31 years old. She held two gold medals from the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics. She was the first female biathlete in history to win both the sprint and pursuit events at the same Games. She also won 15 World Championships medals over the course of her career, including seven golds. She won five of these gold medals at a single Championships, in 2017, becoming the first women to ever do so.

Dahlmeier retired from the biathlon in 2019, at age 25, to devote herself to alpine climbing full-time. Among other climbing accolades, she holds the female fastest known time on Nepal’s Ama Dablam. She scaled and descended the 22,349-foot mountain in just 12 hours. Since 2023, Dahlmeier had worked as a mountain and ski guide, and was a volunteer for the mountain rescue team in her hometown of Garmisch-Partenkirchen.

The post German Alpinist Laura Dahlmeier Dies From Rockfall in Pakistan appeared first on Climbing.

Every day, I face the weighty struggle of getting myself to the climbing gym. It’s hard, which is unfortunate because climbing is what I do.

Even as a teenager, I’ve already dedicated a large portion of my life to climbing, but 99 percent of the time, I’m not excited to train or climb. I procrastinate until the last minute, often coming up with an excuse to cut my training days short, all to get a reprieve from the constant pressure of expectations.

Voices in the back of my head tell me that I will never be good enough, that I’m wasting precious time, and that I could be spending this time on more neglected parts of my life. This makes it extremely difficult for me to find the joy in training.

This, I’ve begun to understand, is called burnout. And I’ve been experiencing it off and on for the last three years.

 

This story is about burnout, but it’s also about learning to balance different aspects of life. It’s about shedding light on the effects of training on elite young athletes in the age of social media. Most importantly, it’s about keeping your love for what you do bright as our lives shift over time.

What does burnout look like for climbers?

“Athletic burnout” is a state of mental, emotional, and/or physical exhaustion caused by excessive stress and training, according to Sterling Sport Mindset. But burnout can be caused by many things, and it can show up for climbers in a variety of ways. While one person may need a weekend break from the climbing gym, another may simply need a shift in how they approach training. Others may never climb again.

Many researchers hypothesize that burnout is a large factor in depression in athletes as well as chronic stress. The most typical signs also include decreased motivation, irritability, chronic stress and fatigue, weakened immune system, higher resting heart rate, or low self-esteem. Lack of self-esteem itself can be a singular cause of burnout, often leading to plateaus or declines in performance, which tend to stem from over- or under-training. This is something I’ve dealt with significantly, as I often compare myself to other climbers in harmful ways.

It’s also important to mention the cumulative effects that social media has had on young athletes over the last decade. The majority of people posting on social platforms only render the best versions of themselves. I know this may seem obvious, but many recent studies reinforce the harms of the continual comparison resulting from social media. The rising depression rates, decreasing attention span, and general mental health crisis tied to social media also contribute to burnout. This not only stems from the direct effects of social media on mental health, but from the constant pressure placed on climbers and other athletes to be as “perfect” as what they see in their feeds.

The devastating emotional effects of burnout on athletes can even change their relationship with the sport. Feeling the joy that climbing once brought me fizzle out has been heartbreaking. A loss of passion often goes hand in hand with depressive symptoms and resentment—something that I’ve spoken to peers about in the past. Once training becomes too much, resenting climbing arises as a pretty common theme.

Why I started resenting training

I’ve struggled a lot to find a way to juggle my social life with training as an elite athlete. This has especially been an issue over the last two years. As I started to set higher goals, such as sending my first double-digit boulder outside and making finals at National Championships, I must dedicate more considerable chunks of time and energy,

Let me back up: I’m from a small town in eastern Washington. I commute two hours each way to the nearest climbing gym, where I’m on the team. Two years ago, my family decided it wasn’t sustainable to continue driving there three times a week anymore. So we built a home gym in our garage. Now, the majority of my training is at home, and I only travel to the gym once or twice a week.

Last year, I dropped out of high school to homeschool so I could focus more on training. While this did wonders for my climbing, I steadily lost the motivation to get to my home gym to train.

Why? Because I couldn’t see my friends as much as I needed to. I was struggling to get my school work done. And the idea of climbing was fast becoming more unappealing than ever.

For the first time in my life, I hated my sport.

I dreaded training for hours only to get sub-par competition results that didn’t reflect how good I actually was. I didn’t love the process either. And without the process, why was I even there? I envied the athletes who thrived when they trained as much as possible—the ones who truly loved the process.

I spent years of my life trying to understand why I couldn’t enjoy hard training. It’s been difficult for me to accept that it will probably always be harder for me to motivate than some of my fellow competitors.

My challenges with training—which increase during these extended periods of burnout—have never fully gone away. Even now, I feel somewhat repulsed at the idea of going to the gym and training by myself for three hours, even though I know once I’m there, I’ll feel just fine.

It all comes down to balance

Once I stopped comparing my relationship with training to that of my peers, I felt the freedom to redefine what training could mean for me.

Nine months ago, I started working with a remote coach and created a personalized plan geared toward my individual needs and goals. I began training more—six to seven days a week—but with intention. Instead of chaotic unplanned training days, I followed consistent drills and exercises every week. As I saw progress in both my technique and my mentality, I finally felt like my hard work was paying off.

This new found flow continued for four months. I felt strong and proud of the climber I was growing into. But in the last few weeks of 2024, my new training program became unsustainable once more. I wasn’t seeing my friends enough, and all my motivation was going towards climbing. This imbalance, mixed with seasonal depression, made for a terrible combination. I felt another wave of burnout fast approaching as I failed once again to balance climbing with other aspects of my life.

For the first time, I considered quitting completely.

But this bout of burnout was different from my past experiences. It wasn’t just the result of overtraining—it stemmed from a three-year plateau, toxic inner monologues, and chronic stress. This time, I could feel it set in. I recognized the slow decrease in motivation, the panic when I thought about training, the lack of joy that climbing brought me.

I knew I couldn’t continue training at this intensity. And I realized that I needed to prioritize other parts of my life before I could find my love of climbing again.

5 things that can help teen climbers with burnout

Six months have passed since that last experience with burnout. Here are my very own strategies that have made a legitimate difference since then.

1. Find balance

For the first time since becoming an athlete, I began prioritizing my teenage social life. For years, I put training before seeing friends. Then I would wonder why I was feeling so unsatisfied. I waged many internal battles over the experiences I was missing out on. A common one was after-practice hangouts, especially in the weeks leading up to Nationals. Typically, I’m the only one from my team to qualify for Nationals, which means my friends’ competition seasons are over a month before mine. Once summer hits, we have a habit of leaving practice 30 minutes early and jumping in the river. Because I have to dial in my training leading up to Nationals, I usually tell them to go without me.

It may seem small, but moments like these have made me question why I continue to put in the effort that I do. I hated that I was forcing myself to say no every time. Of course, sometimes I’ll have to miss out on plans. But finding balance between training and my social life has made the choice to climb—and climb hard—much easier.

To strike that balance, I created three simple guidelines for myself:

• Rule 1: See friends outside of practice time at least twice a week.
• Rule 2: Don’t beat myself up about missing a lighter day of training.
• Rule 3: Climbing doesn’t define or control my life.

Allowing myself to tend to my other needs made a huge difference. If I could have only made one change, it would have been this one: Reminding myself that I am allowed to enjoy being a teenager, and that doing so doesn’t make me any less of an athlete, lazy, or uncommitted to my goals.

2. Remember why I climb

I am learning to lead my training with my love for the sport. One way I’ve been able to do this? Just-for-fun days at the gym or crag. I don’t track them, but I try to do them as soon as training starts to feel mentally draining. Here’s the mindset I adopt on fun-oriented climbing days:

1. Decide what I feel excited to climb that day
2. Forget about the grade
3. Don’t worry about not doing “proper training”
4. Let myself find that feeling that first hooked me on the sport
5. Climb until I feel done—no shaming, just simply stop when I’m no longer enjoying myself

Ironically, these sessions tend to be some of the longest for me because I can shed the feeling of heavy responsibility that comes with harder training days. This leaves me excited to climb because it genuinely makes me happy.

The minute I start to lose that sense of joy, training immediately becomes a battle. This shift often looks like listening to my body. If I’m exhausted, I take a day off and remind myself it’s a process, not an all-or-nothing situation. This has made an enormous difference and has become a bit of a mantra for me:

Do it because you love it. Do it because it brings you joy. 

3. Switch up the setting

When I’m in a headspace where I struggle with motivation to train, it’s hard for me to get my schoolwork done. I’ve combatted this by going to a bakery or cafe, getting myself a coffee, and sitting down to do my school work for a solid couple hours. In doing so, I’m able to efficiently get schoolwork done while still having the emotional energy to get down to the gym and train.

This tactic might not work for everyone because most kids aren’t homeschooling like me, while others struggle to focus around external stimulation. But I’ve always been able to focus better in settings where there are other people around.

Similarly, when training becomes repetitive or excessively draining, venturing to the crag or heading to a less-visited gym can be a really good way to physically step away from the toxicity, while still climbing.

4. Prioritize earlier mornings

I generally hate waking up early, but I’ve found that starting my day before 8:00 a.m. makes a really big difference for how productive and vibrant I feel. When I wake up and can get my schoolwork done by 2:00 p.m., I have more time and energy to train. I end up having more balanced days when I’m able to effectively manage my time. I also end up feeling more accomplished and pleased with my day when I don’t feel like I wasted my morning sleeping in.

5. Find a sustainable training schedule

One of the biggest factors in avoiding recurring burnout was actively speaking up for myself about how I train. This looked like doing the thing that my performance anxiety fears the most: training less. I cut down to four training days a week, and those sessions were a bit shorter, closer to two-and-a-half or three hours, as opposed to three or four hours.

Reducing my training schedule made a significant difference in my mental health. I haven’t once felt overwhelmed with a training day since I made this change. While my progress has maybe slowed a small amount, the positive changes in my wellbeing and mental health have made training far more sustainable. In the long run, this change has been unbelievably good for my climbing. I am stronger than ever, and most importantly, I adore climbing once again.

Am I sometimes reluctant to get down the gym to climb? Sure. But the shift in balance made an immediate difference in how I felt about training. On a recent debrief call with my coach, I told him I loved this training plan. I shared how much joy the sport has been bringing me again, and how I feel as if I’ve found a balance in my life that I haven’t had for years.

Burnout-free for six months and counting

I’ve come to realize that no perfect solution exists for avoiding burnout and mental challenges as a competitive climber. What I can do is keep my training schedule fluid with my priorities as they continue to shift down the road. Nothing is concrete, and rigidity and guilt have done nothing for me as a climber, nor as a person learning to navigate the world.

There are still days when it’s hard. Voices in my head still tell me that I’m not good enough. Some days, I still struggle to motivate. But these five changes in both my life and approach have made profound impacts. They have also taught me a lot about what I need in order to maintain healthy training as an elite athlete, while allowing myself to nurture the other aspects of myself and my life that deserve attention.

Now, I’m almost 17 years old, and have a far better relationship with climbing than I have in a long time. I’ve grown exceptionally as an athlete, both mentally and physically, over the last nine months. And I’ve learned enough that I want to share my story to hopefully make a difference in the lives of other climbers or athletes facing similar struggles.

Since making these changes, my mental health has been better than it has in years. Decreasing the stress I put on myself has lowered my performance anxiety and helped me stay motivated. Cutting a few hours of training off per week gave me enough time to prioritize other parts of my life that bring me joy. In turn, this has helped me rekindle my love for the sport. In the end, more is not always better.

The post Burnout Hit Me Hard as an Elite Teen Climber. Here’s How I Overcame It. appeared first on Climbing.

One hundred feet above the ground, I found myself stuck headfirst in Flavor Blasted (5.13-) in Moab, Utah.

This past summer, I have been training in my Moab garage for Century Crack (5.14b), a monster offwidth roof crack in the White Rim. Every four weeks or so, my partner and I have been climbing an offwidth outside to stay sharp. The crack trainer is great, but we wanted to make sure we were strong not just in the simulator, but on real rock.

That deload week, after hitting our training goals, we decided to try a local offwidth we hadn’t done yet, Flavor Blasted (5.13-). It’s a horizontal roof crack with shade, and it looked like a good challenge that wouldn’t totally wreck us for the next training week.

Flavor Blasted starts in a tight, awkward chimney below a long roof about the size of a #6 cam. The horizontal roof dips down before it expands into a number 7 cam size. Toward the end, as the roof turns vertical, it widens into size 8 territory for about 30 feet up to the anchors.

Climbing in Moab in July isn’t ideal, but we live here. You can’t change the weather, you just seek shade, hydrate, and do your best.

Getting Stuck

The common beta is to chicken-wing above the anchor, invert into the sixes, then layback the roof, making progress by pulling on holds along the left wall. After shuffling far enough into the sevens, you reach a hand jam, re-orient upright, and head into the tight vertical chimney.

I tried that beta on my first go that day, but it didn’t feel great for me. I have small feet, so instead of going feet first, I often do better leading headfirst with my upper body in tight,size-6 roofs, then progressing forward using a combination of arm bars, gastons, and leg bars. This route also had great footholds on the left wall, so I could push off those while driving my right shoulder into the opposite side of the crack. It felt much more efficient for my body, so I went with that beta.

The downside was that instead of skipping the tight, initial transition zone by inverting, I had to go through it. On my second go, I was adjusting beta and trying to stay tight to the wall when my head scraped along the interior and… wedged.

Right above my ears. Like a perfectly placed nut.

At first, I tried to stay quiet and work it out. I shifted forward, backward, up, down. Nothing. Finally, I said it out loud.

“This is new. My head is really stuck.”

Don’t Panic

I’ve learned that panicking never helps. Thrashing would only get me more stuck, so I stayed calm and focused on my breathing. I bumped a cam closer and higher above me and clipped my Petzl Connect Adjust to it.. My goal was to make sure I didn’t wedge myself into the constriction in a worse way.

I pulled the tether tight so I could rest. I love the Connect Adjust. It’s great for back-cleaning roofs, working beta, and in this case, precise emergency tethering.

I didn’t want my belayer to take, since the climbing rope might pull my body in a direction I couldn’t control with my head stuck. I reminded myself: If I got it in, I can get it out. That mantra helped me stay logical.

I tried shifting again, still no movement. Then I remembered to tilt my head.

That gave just enough clearance. I slipped free.

Watch Eden stay calm and dislodge her skull from the rock:

After hanging in my harness for a moment, it felt right to keep going. The plan was to refine the beta to avoid that same pinch point, so I back-aided to the belay. After a ten-minute rest, I sent the route clean using the same torso-first, non-inverted beta, this time remembering to duck my head.

Reflection

A helmet would have prevented my head from fitting in that tight space, but it also might’ve made the rest of the route impossible to fit. The vertical section is so tight it could’ve been a liability, which is why I chose to go without in the first place. In retrospect, maybe the only real lesson is this: Don’t climb offwidths.

If something goes wrong, breathe. Stay calm. Self-rescue is the best rescue if you can manage it.

Ideally, you don’t get stuck in the first place. Helmets are cool, and I would’ve preferred my helmet to get stuck versus my skull. But if you do get stuck, keep your cool, and maybe you’ll wiggle free.

The post How to Get Unstuck from a Crack, According to Someone Who Got Her Head Stuck in an Offwidth appeared first on Climbing.

Have you ever launched into a whole bell pepper as if it were an apple before tying in? I hadn’t until last weekend when I decided to expand my climbing snack horizons by trying the go-to snacks of various pros during a trip to Idaho’s City of Rocks.

Lately, I’ve been stuck in a climbing snack rut—bars, the occasional apple, and peanut butter-filled pretzels that form a thick cement on the roof of my mouth. So the former food writer in me decided to take a ridiculous deep dive into some unconventional pro climber snacks, evaluating them based on several factors, from nutritional value to portability. (Note: Due to a lack of actual nutrients, Adam Ondra’s pre-send warm water habit was not considered in this experiment.)

Whole bell pepper (Alex Honnold)

If you’re paying attention, you may know that this highly aesthetic vegetable has been intertwined with Alex Honnold’s personality for over a decade. “I love red bell peppers,” he told Bon Appetit in 2015. “Bell peppers in general, really. I like to eat them like apples. They’re so crunchy and delicious.”

Before free soloing El Capitan, Honnold mixed sliced peppers and other veggies into a stir fry. For his bachelor party, Honnold’s buddy and Climbing contributor James Lucas catered their day at the crag with enough whole bell peppers for all 20 to 30 attending climbers (listen to Lucas explain why on this episode of The Struggle podcast).

One might even argue that Honnold wants to be seen—even documented—eating peppers at the crag. In a recent YouTube episode of The Struggle, Honnold chows down on a bell pepper for all to see (check around the 16:44 mark). He also put down a whole pepper on the set of The Sound. Is he secretly sponsored by Big Bell Pepper? Or are these things just that good?

Nutrition: 9/10. It turns out, Honnold is on to something. According to the USDA, a bell pepper has one gram of protein. It’s also rich in fiber and Vitamin C, with a little potassium, iron, and Vitamin A mixed in. With six grams of low-fat, low-sugar carbs, it delivers enough energy to power your next go.

Taste: 10/10. Why haven’t I eaten a whole pepper before? Crunchy, slightly sweet, a little piquant—a pepper’s a true delight on a hot day. Also the seeds and pith were not as problematic as expected.

Portability: 8/10. On the one hand, a pepper is very lightweight. On the other, it takes up as much room as a #5 cam in your pack. You could solve this by slicing the pepper, but then you lose the joy of eating it whole.

Cost per serving: $1-$1.25 per pepper

Overall: 9/10. More climbers should consider this highly underrated snack. The bell pepper is a refreshing fuel choice at the crag that’s as fun to eat as it is good for you.

Biltong, aka beef jerky (Paige Claassen)

Bumping down on the food pyramid, beef jerky packs a protein punch and is the crag snack of choice for Paige Claassen. Specifically, she feasts on South African biltong, which unlike traditional jerky, is air-dried rather than cooked, with vinegar and seasonings like coriander and pepper. Claassen’s South African husband makes his own biltong making it an easy go-to for the pro climber.

While I couldn’t find biltong in time for City of Rocks, I ordered some online from Biltong Depot and intend to give it a go. We did bring along some beef jerky to Idaho though, which, compared to a bell pepper, keeps you full longer.

Nutrition: 7/10. While it may not have the health halo of Honnold’s pepper, biltong is a lean source of protein, depending on the cut with which it’s made. It’s also loaded with protein and potassium, but comes up short in the carb department, meaning you won’t get the quick boost of energy you may need to power through the proj. The high sodium levels could also be a downside, unless you’re sweating out salt and slipping off slopers on a hot day.

Taste: 9/10. While I haven’t specifically tried biltong, I’ll take the fact that Claassen calls it her “favorite way to consume protein” and “like snacking on steak” as a good sign.

Portability: 10/10. By virtue of the dehydration process, biltong is a compact, lightweight snack that will easily fit in the brain of your pack.

Cost per serving: <$.60 (at Biltong Depot)

Overall: 8/10. Don’t wait for a far-off bouldering trip to Rocklands to try this premium jerky; biltong deserves a spot in any omnivorous climber’s pack.

Cat food (Yvon Chouinard)

During his days as an impoverished Yosemite Stonemaster, Yvon Chouinard once subsided off cans of cat food. It was the mid-`60s, the early days of Chouinard Equipment, which would later become Black Diamond. I picture him taking bites of questionable wet mixed meat, using one of his handmade pitons as a spoon as a raptor flies overhead.

Many years ago, I got to meet Chouinard at a Patagonia Grassroot Tools for Activists Conference. I asked him if he ever ate cat food for old time’s sake. He laughed. The answer: A hard no. But does it ever make sense for the dirtbaggiest of dirtbags to consider this highly portable and dirt-cheap source of lean protein?

Nutrition: 5/10. With 91 calories per can and a maximum of 78% moisture (whatever that means), a can of chicken Fancy Feast delivers protein with minimal fat and apparently maximum hydration.

Taste: 0/10. While I couldn’t bring myself to try cat food, based on Chouinard’s decision to leave his former diet mainstay behind upon becoming the financially solvent leader of Patagonia, I’m guessing it’s largely inedible.

Portability: 10/10. A can of cat food will never spill in your pack, is easy to carry, and is also fully recyclable.

Cost per serving: $.88 per can

Overall: 3/10. True dirtbags shouldn’t entirely rule out this affordable and compact protein source artificially enriched with the vitamins they’re likely deficient in. But most climbers will not want to sink quite so low.

Dried fruit (Amity Warme)

As a nutritionist who sends hard, Amity Warme knows a thing or two about elite climbing snacks. She argues that the ideal crag snack should be high in carbs, low in fat, and low in fiber. This makes it easier to digest, providing quick fuel and minimal digestive issues.

But that doesn’t mean you must turn to, say, Starbursts, between burns. “For me, that usually looks like oats with fruit and other toppings, banana or apple, or yogurt with berries,” Warme says. And for quick fuel between routes? She recommends dried fruit.

Nutrition: 9/10. If a nutritionist says dried fruit is where it’s at, we’re throwing it (almost) all the points—we dock one for sugar and dental health. I chose dried mango, which dishes out nine percent of your daily carb intake per serving, but also contains between 17g to 25g of sugar, depending on the brand.

Taste: 10/10. Dried mango—or raisins, plums, dried apricots, etc.—are all pretty universally loved, even by my extremely picky five-year-old.

Portability: 10/10. Like jerky, dried fruit is lightweight and takes up little room in your pack. This also makes it a great snack option for multi-pitch or big wall climbing.

Cost per serving: ~$1

Overall: 9/10. Warme knows what’s up when it comes to snacks. Don’t sleep on dried mango and other fruits for quick crag energy.

Dale’s Pale Ale (Michaela Kiersch)

Can a beer be a crag snack? Yes, if your day of climbing is decidedly mellow. Or if, like Kiersch, you manage to drink beer and climb hard. Or, if like me last weekend, you are taking an extended break due to heat. After climbing from 9:30am until 3pm, we were ready for a cold one. Nothing sounded better than the Dale’s Pale Ale tall boy that I picked up at the legendary Rock City Mercantile pizza place and general store in Almo, Idaho.

Kiersch may be sponsored by Oskar Blues (the maker of Dale’s), and therefore only feigning her love for this iconic Colorado craft brew. But her #ad reels are so good, I genuinely believe she cracks open a Dale’s post-send.

 

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Nutrition: 5/10. Using Warme’s logic, a Dale’s Pale Ale is a good source of quick energy, with 18 grams of carbohydrates (according to BeerBoard) packed into every can. But the nutritional value stops there.

Taste: 9/10. On a hot day, there’s not much better than this balanced beer with a moderate level of tasty hops. While I typically prefer a hoppier ale, Dale’s strikes the ultimate balance between “goes down easy” and “sandbags your palate.” This particularly holds true when you’re dehydrated and borderline bonking.

Portability: 2/10. Bulky and difficult to keep cold on the go, beer is not a practical choice for climbers unless we’re talking about a roadside crag.

Cost per serving: ~$2

Overall: 6/10. As a post-climbing snack, Dale’s Pale Ale might just be second to none. But as a mid-climb crag snack, it doesn’t stack up when it comes to nutrition, portability, or cost.

Conclusion: The best pro climber snack is …

It’s not as buzzworthy as biltong, nor is it as sexy as a bell pepper. But dried fruit delivers the energy you need in a compact vessel at a cut-rate cost per serving. On paper, dried mango may reign supreme. But the bell pepper—our clear runner-up—is my new personal favorite source of nutrition at the crag.

The post You Should Eat a Bell Pepper Before You Send. Just Ask Alex Honnold. appeared first on Climbing.

The June 2025 Writing Contest asked writers to describe the most important move of their lives in 500 words or less. The following submission won fifth place and a one-year Outside Digital subscription.

The move wasn’t hard. But it was stupid.

The kind of stupid that sneaks up on you mid-route—where you’re too far off the ground to backtrack, but not far enough to justify your life flashing before your eyes.

We were a few bolts up a route at a scrappy little roadside-crag, one of those neglected blips of rock that doesn’t show up in the guidebook unless you squint and tilt your head. Still, it was better than staying home.

The beta said to step around a bulge and pull onto a blank face using “creative feet.” Beta that uses the word “creative” is almost always lying.

I moved up anyway, smearing through dusty footholds and sun-warmed lichen, until the ledge thinned into a mossy corner. No obvious holds. Just a damp smudge of green and what looked like the suggestion of a rock feature if you squinted with emotional investment. It smelled faintly like mildew and panic.

I pressed against the wall like a nervous date, overthinking every inch. My right foot skated on something that didn’t deserve to be called rock. My left foot dangled, waiting for its moment. I hugged the arete like it might change its mind if I showed enough affection, forehead resting on stone, whispering quiet, half-serious bargains to whoever might be listening.

“I just don’t want to die doing something I’m not even good at,” I muttered. “Is that too much to ask?”

There was a flake—thin, fragile, barely attached. I needed it to shift my weight and get balanced, but it looked like it would break if I exhaled too hard. Still, it was that or take a sideways fall into a bush that looked like it hadn’t moved since 2003. I’m not sure if it was alive or just quietly decomposing in place.

So I did the move. Left foot onto a smear of lichen. Left hand on the flake. I held my breath like that would make me weigh less, and pulled.

Somehow, everything held. For one slippery second, I was levitating on moss and prayer. No muscle, no style—just the ghost of a miracle. Then I was over the bulge, back on solid ground, heart hammering, laughing too hard to clip the anchor.

When I got down, my friend said, “That was the most unnecessarily stressful five feet of climbing I’ve ever witnessed.”

Fair.

But the thing is, I can still feel that moment. Not the fear, not even the flake, but the fact that I moved anyway. I wasn’t confident. I wasn’t strong. I wasn’t having some epic send day. I was just willing. And that, somehow, was enough.

Climbing hasn’t made me fearless. But it has taught me how to be scared and move anyway, to lean into uncertainty with my whole shaky self and a little bit of hope—to try even when nothing feels certain.

That day, it was a flake. Tomorrow, it’ll be something else. But now I know: Even when I’m terrified, I still reach.

And sometimes, the rock holds.

Read more winning essays from the June 2025 Writing Contest at the contest results page.

The post Sometimes, the Scariest Move Is the One That Holds appeared first on Climbing.

In a word, how do climbers, parents, gym owners, and youth coaches from around the U.S. describe the dialogue on dealing with kids in climbing gyms?

“Torturous,” says Grayston Leonard, owner of Long Beach Rising, a climbing gym in California.

“Contentious,” says Lily Kral, owner of Boardworks, a board climbing facility in Bend, Oregon.

And to Allyson Gunsallus, creator of the film series Hand Holds: Climbing after Parenthood, it’s “enlightening.”

Whatever the word for the discussion on this increasingly timely topic, issues related to sharing space with children in gyms revolve around both etiquette and safety. I interviewed parents and child-free members of the climbing community for this story, and together, we went over the common grievances we’ve heard—or had. I also did some Reddit rant deep diving.

Complaints mostly center upon kids with non-climber parents. Adult climbing gym-goers cite kids hovering over a single problem in packs or jumping on a just-brushed climb. They witness children of all ages sprinting, somersaulting, belly flopping, or rolling like a log on the mats. The cherry on top: when parents are too busy chatting or on their phones to notice.

These grievances grow into genuine concern for risk of bodily harm when kids end up in bouldering fall zones. In one such situation, a climber shared a video of himself falling on a girl in February. The reel now has more than 12 million views and a lot of inflamed opinions. Pro climber Alex Johnson chimed in with a comment last month: “I’ve seen this dozens of times in the gym and have almost been a victim of it myself, and so have friends. Kids running or climbing underneath people is so dangerous. Zero situational awareness. They need to be supervised, just like they would in a workout gym, it’s not a playground. 100% not on you.”

As many of the comments on that video and others like it reveal, a blame game emerges and ensnares parents, adult climbers, gym owners, gym staff, coaches, and the kids themselves. How can these parties free themselves of fraught social media discord and real-life tension, and find ways to better share the space? As a mom of a toddler who I hope will be a more frequent gym-goer soon, I wanted to see what the sport’s different stakeholders had to say about the issue. We also weighed solutions, ranging from communal correction to age-specific spaces.

“Set up for conflict”: How frictions arise with families in climbing gyms

Mike Rougeux has coached youth climbing in Bend, Oregon for more than 20 years. He’s brought his son, who’s now seven, with him to local climbing gyms since he was three. So in the past, it hurt to hear his friends in the climbing community complain about kids at the gym.

But as climbing gyms grow and commercialize, Rougeux understands how frictions arise. More casual climbers and individuals who are just climbing-curious are heading to the gym. “We have facilities where it’s a rainy day and parents are like, ‘What should we do today? Oh, let’s try rock climbing,’” Rougeux says. “So you have parents and kids entering a space where you just bring your kid there, and the parents don’t understand the social norms of how to operate within that space. Of course, neither do the kids. We’re set up for conflict to happen.”

All the climbers, coaches, and gym owners I spoke with agree that parents—however new they are to indoor climbing—should be closely monitoring their children. Not just nearby, but staying right on their heels. They also agree that gyms need to supply families with the information they need to understand the urgency in doing so. “For first-time folks going to the gym with a kid, the parental obligation is extremely high,” says Joey Churchman, a climber and father of three children ages one to five. “They need to be responsible for their child. It’s constant attention.”

But these folks also agree that the conversation shouldn’t stop there. Yes, parents need to watch their kids. But what else can be done before, during, and after mistakes are made? To start, Rougeux and the others say that a little grace for families goes a long way. “It’s intimidating going in and trying something for the first time, and you’re the adult trying to lead your kid,” he says. “You don’t know what to do. So now you’re relying on the 16-year-old behind the desk to tell you. The gyms, staff, and community can probably do a better job of helping.”

“It takes a village”: Sourcing ideas from other sports communities

Grayston Leonard, 35, didn’t start climbing until he was in his 20s. He grew up skating, and when I spoke with him, he was in his car on the way to go surfing. To Leonard, a father of three and a gym owner since 2019, indoor climbing could use more of the clear communication he received as a kid getting into sports. “In surf and skate, you’re constantly sharing these places,” he says. Out on the water, Leonard saw adults telling off adolescents all the time. “No one holds back,” he says. “No one’s shy about this. You’re teaching them the rules of how this works, how you share this space, and how you do it safely and respectfully.”

Adults and kids then return to those spots, recognize each other, and eventually learn from each other. “People will see you pushing your comfort zone and cheer you on and root for you,” Leonard says. “That then creates this feeling of belonging.”

At the gym, however, Leonard doesn’t apply quite as gruff of an approach to correcting kids. But he is direct with them. “People should feel more freedom to speak up to kids,” he says. “Kids don’t care what their parents say, but when they hear it from someone else, it freaks them out.”

When Leonard spots a kid running underneath him while he’s climbing, he doesn’t let it slide. He’ll go up to the kid and calmly explain the risk: “Hey, you ran underneath me. It’s really dangerous. I don’t want to fall on you.” It usually invokes momentary stranger danger and a dash to the parents. Leonard will give them a little wave. “That’s really all it needs to be,” he says. “Instead, there seems to be this really passive aggressive behavior of: ‘Why don’t these kids know any better?’ There seems to be no forgiveness, no grace, no leniency toward this. I get it. But let’s not act like we weren’t all kids ourselves, learning all of this stuff at some point. That’s where this saying takes on a whole new meaning: ‘It takes a village.’”

Allyson Gunsallus emphasizes that there needs to be a level of tact to these interventions. As a mom to a three-year-old (with another on the way), Gunsallus has climbed for nearly two decades, primarily in Yosemite. In an effort to learn from pro climbers who have navigated the challenges of becoming a parent, she created the documentary series Hand Holds. She tries to empathize with families who are new to the oft-unspoken norms of climbing gyms. “It’s important for us to consider how we would receive the correction we give, to help us be welcoming and helpful, rather than abrasive and confrontational,” she observes.

But giving the groms a chance to learn doesn’t mean letting inattentive parents off easy, Leonard cautions. At his gym, Long Beach Rising, parents to kids under 12 must closely trail them at all times. No bench sitting, no “la-dee-da-ing.” The staff has only had to pull people out of the space, refund them, and send them away a few times, but it’s something Leonard is willing to do if rules are repeatedly broken. “I would rather tell someone they can’t come back for a period of time or that their session is done for these reasons, than be afraid of the negative Yelp review,” he says. “You have to be willing to have those uncomfortable confrontations.”

Whether in the form of uncomfortable parent call-outs or direct communication with kids, this communal approach relies on active engagement. But not all adult climbers may want to step in. Not everyone wants to discipline someone else’s kid—and not every parent is receptive to it.

Boardworks owner Lily Kral remembers encountering that resistance. “I’ve seen it many times and heard about it many times, when there is a gentle correction and the parent doesn’t react appropriately,” Kral says. “In order to really facilitate those rules and ensure they’re enforced, you need a lot of front desk staff that are trained and have the confidence to correct parents.”

In her early years of working at a climbing gym, Kral didn’t necessarily feel equipped to do that. “I kind of cared,” Kral says of her time working the front desk as a 16-year-old. “These are really large spaces and front desk staff are busy checking folks in. They’re watching to make sure rules are enforced, but they can’t be everywhere.”

Another route: Designated climbing spaces for adults and kids

In 2021, Kral created a gym with no front desk staff and a few other unique features. Boardworks is a 24/7 climbing facility in Oregon dedicated solely to adjustable boards: Kilter, Decoy, Grasshopper, Tension Board 2, 2016 Moonboard, and a spray wall. But she also decided to make the space dedicated to adults: 18 and up for members, 16 and up for guests.

Kral chose to limit Boardworks to adults to suit the small gym’s 24-hour, staffless model—and to avoid “increasingly complicated” insurance policies related to minors. But the concept of offering climbers an adult-centered space was also enticing. She hadn’t seen many adult-only indoor climbing options. “People appreciate being able to climb without worrying about all of the problems we know can arise with climbing around kids,” she says. “Having a dedicated space for adults to work out, do their thing, and not worry about safety hazards or other complications.”

But adult-only gyms aren’t necessarily a knock on kids, Kral believes. “I have a lot of parents at the gym,” she says. “I don’t think that having a dedicated space for adults means that the intention behind it is to paint children in climbing gyms in a negative light. It’s purely to provide a more safe and dedicated space for what some adult climbers want to pursue.”

A group of dads that Kral has dubbed the “Dad Squad” go to her gym after putting their kids to bed. When they go indoor climbing with their children, they visit other gyms in Bend. They didn’t choose Boardworks to get away from kids, but rather to take advantage of its board-climbing focus and later operating hours. “The value of an adult-only climbing gym isn’t that there aren’t kids, it’s that you’re surrounded by adults,” says Daniel Ling, a member of the Dad Squad. He finds that the group’s night sessions at Boardworks provide a time and space in which trading stories about their kids throwing vegetables across the room is as enriching as swapping beta.

Adults aren’t the only demographic that could use dedicated space. In 2023, Rougeux opened the nation’s second youth-only climbing facility as the new HQ for Bend Endurance Academy. Before the facility opened, Rougeux coached climbers in the shared space of commercial gyms.

Back then, he tried to minimize his team’s impact by giving pep talks about representing the organization well in a public setting. He used to draft plans for practice that dispersed the kids rather than concentrating them on one wall. “But it was weird, because then, I had constraints placed on the coaching,” Rougeux says. “A lot of times, the way I was designing practice was strictly based off of managing the group and the impact the group would have within the gym.”

Now, the kids get their own version of a gymnastics center. Bend Endurance Academy hosts camps, the occasional birthday party, and one of the top-ranked competition climbing teams in the U.S. “No members, no day passes. It’s just youth programs, just like gymnastics,” Rougeux explains. “When they see those pads and want to do flips, we’re like, ‘Sick, let’s do flips.’”

The youth-centric space has brought something new out of Rougeux as a coach and the kids as climbers. “My coaching has totally changed,” he says. “It’s so much better across the board, from my highest-level athletes to our kindergarteners. It’s a better experience because we can design the space specific to the needs of who’s in front of us.” The kids at his gym are free to listen to high-tempo music, huddle up with more space, and hone specific movements. There’s been an energy shift, Rougeux says: “It elevates their experience in ways I didn’t really foresee.”

Rougeux recognizes that Bend Endurance Academy’s facility model isn’t feasible for youth recreational and competition climbing programs everywhere. But other gyms are already starting to adopt youth- or adult-designated spaces and time windows. The Circuit in Bend, for instance, has a contained kids’ climbing area with a slide in the middle. The gym has also introduced youth reservations for busy days like weekends and school holidays. Ruckus, a gym in Greensboro, North Carolina, offers a kids’ zone with challenging climbs for short wingspans.

Gunsallus encourages further exploration of these concepts and other ways to support families. She hopes to see the return of childcare, with which some climbing gyms used to experiment. An open, designated family area away from the mats would also help, or even allotting an unused yoga room. “A designated family space outside of the climbing fall zone could create a community among gym families that may even be strangers to each other,” Gunsallus says.

Though Rougeux and Ling both enjoy spending time in dedicated spaces, they also admit they miss the commingling of kids and adults. To them, and to Kral, it’s worth pursuing both options instead of pitting them against one another. They echo Leonard’s points about acting as a village to get along in shared spaces. Separate climbing facilities can also be harmonious within one community, as seen in Bend: Boardworks and Bend Endurance Academy have partnered up before, allowing the former’s adult climbing team limited access to the youth training center.

“As a community, the climbing world could be more inclusive to youth participants,” Rougeux says, “but I also directly see a need and a place for specific facilities or times.”

Final thoughts: How can gym communities approach solutions?

No single fix-all solution for safe, peaceful coexistence between kids and adults exists at climbing gyms. But the ideas that these gym owners, coaches, and parents shared with me may be able to alleviate some of the building tensions around kids in those spaces. From holding all parents of kid gym-goers to higher standards and communal communication strategies, to dedicated adult or kid spaces, many of these solutions can work in tandem to address the issue.

On my part, as a gym user, I’ll work on picturing different perspectives: of non-climber parents who don’t know what they don’t know, of the gym staff who feel uneasy squaring off with an inattentive parent, of the adult climbers who are just trying not break a little set of limbs, and of the kids who just want to play. “You can’t fault the children,” Kral says. “They’re kids. At the end of the day, it’s never the kids. It’s easy to forget that when they’re the ones running around.”

The post Don’t Fall on the Groms: How Kids and Adults Can Better Share Climbing Gyms appeared first on Climbing.

One hot summer day in the early 1990s, my friend John and I watched, dumbfounded, as a pro climber misted himself off with a spray bottle at the Hell Cave in American Fork Canyon, Utah.

“What a loser,” I said, sotto voce. “As if that’s going to make a lick of difference.”

The pro climber explained to his subman, now enlisted to mist off his exposed back, that the water brought his core temperature down, in turn cooling off his fingers and toes so he could send harder. “Ooh, my core’s on fire—mist me off, bro!” John and I snickered from behind the trees like the snarky little creeps that we were.

Who is this guy who cares so damn much about climbing? I wondered. But then also: I wonder if it works.

Hot climbing, of course, is a misery: your hands sweat, nuking friction; sweat pours into your eyes, obscuring the holds; your shoe rubber feels squishier than a grilled-cheese sandwich on a hot dashboard; you get dehydrated, crampy, and grumpy; and there’s even a risk of heat-related illness like heat exhaustion or heat stroke, though we climbers generally do a good job of avoiding the scorching sun.

Which is to say, why not try to cool yourself off when the “sendex”—heat + humidity—is high, be it with fans, spray bottles, cold packs, dry ice in the chalkbag (yes, people do this!), or the clever, little gizmos called Narwhals you may have seen in bouldering videos or at your local gym?

Made by the small company Apex Cool Labs in Boulder, Colorado, Narwhals showed up at my local training and boarding gym, The Campus, a month or so ago, but it was spring then so I paid them little heed. However, even climbing gyms have varying conditions, so I was happy to give the Narwhals a spin on a handful of hot, muggy late-June days (70-degree air temperature, 63-71 percent humidity), the kind where sweat flows the moment you do more than three moves in a row and your dermis flays off like onion skin.

The Narwhals are easy to use—you simply unscrew the lid, add water, grab the “Cool-Not-Cold” packs out of the freezer, drop them into the water, screw the lid shut, and let the Narwhals sit 10 minutes so the copper coils can chill. Then you hold the coils as you rest—perfect for between routes or board rips, and also a good way to prevent idle hands from doomscrolling.

Per Apex Cool Labs’ site, there is some science behind palm cooling. Our palms and soles contain glabrous (smooth) skin with arterio-venous anastomoses (AVAs): the prodigious blood flow in these “direct connections between small arteries and small veins” means that you get a 10X cooling effect over other skin regions, claims the website. So, if you’re overheating, one of the quickest ways to cool off is via your palms or feet.

Watch Matt Samet test the Narwhal:

The Narwhals were developed for endurance athletes (cycling, running, etc.) who routinely experience high body temperatures but also people who work in jobs with exposure to prolonged heat (firefighters, etc.). So it just happens to work to us climbers’ advantage—despite the fact that ours isn’t really an endurance sport—that you also grasp the Narwhals using our main point of contact with the rock. In other words, we get the double benefit of cooling our bodies and our palmar skin.

So, did the Narwhals work, or was it mumbo-jumbo? As I said, these were far-from-prime days when I used them, providing ideal conditions for testing. I began by holding them between burns on my warmup and mid-session climbs, doing one problem a minute in the V4-V7 range for 10 minutes on the Tension Board 2, with my heart rate up, breathing accelerated, and sweat lightly flowing. The Narwhals are deliberately cool—not cold—so you can clasp them for minutes on end without frozen skin: these aren’t painful cold packs. The cooling effect was subtle and pleasant, and I did notice feeling overall less hot and sweaty, which in turn made me less frantic on the board.

But best of all, with my chronically slick, hard, dry skin, the coils’ near imperceptible moisture made my palms and fingers “sticky,” and I was able to, with a chalk base on, often go straight to TB2 after holding them, skipping my usual ritual of spraying my hands with a spray bottle (yes, I know…), lightly drying them, and then chalking.

The real test would be sloper problems, where cool hands are king. First, I selected the TB2 Classic The Silver Mountain (V9 at 35°), which has a stab off a micro-crimp nugget to a full-hand sloper which must be controlled, bumped off to a soap-bar slimper, and then recycled for the finishing lunge. The Silver Mountain had eluded me, so I gave it a whirl despite the 70 percent humidity.

Lo and behold, I sent The Silver Mountain on my third go after nearly doing it the first two, when I came up a centimeter short on the last move. After I grasped the Narwhals for a few minutes before each burn, my skin felt pliant, gummy, cool, and grippy, and the sloper felt like a jug, whereas before I’d often dry-fire. Maybe I was just having a good day. Or maybe it was placebo—a few of us boarding joked that the real magic was the mere act of doing something between burns; I could just as easily have come down and hugged a teddy bear. Regardless, I saw positive results, and, as this first session wore on, the cooling action had a welcome painkilling and skin-preserving effect, letting me climb a good four hours, versus my usual two or three.

On another, even worse day on which I was a sweaty mess—having just come back from cragging in the Flatirons—I used the Narwhals to good effect again on my warmups and then pulled up another unvanquished baddie from my project list, Spinnin, a V9 at 40°. This problem starts on tiny crimps and underclings, but then revolves around deep locks to rounded slopers on its upper half, including the final match—another sloper test requiring cool, sticky skin. Moves that had eluded me went quickly, and I wrapped up the problem in a handful of tries. Late in the session, tired but curious to test more, I pulled up the classic V10 (@45°) Might of Manon—more sloper wrestling, with a powerful crux lunge. I gave it my best effort to date, nearly sending, and look forward to coming back with fresh skin, after cooling my scene off with the Narwhals.

So would I recommend the Narwhals for climbers? Yes, absolutely—they work. They are expensive at $399 a pair (though they seem basically indestructible, so will last you a lifetime), and if you were taking them to the boulders or the crag, they weigh three pounds, which is not nothing. But if you are serious about your skin, training, and results—gym and rock—you have no reason not to try. They felt perfect for limit bouldering, and would likewise be ideal for sweaty work like 4x4s, lead doubles, and so on, great for bringing your body temperature down during those welcome five-minute rests between sets.

Plus, sitting there holding Narwhals looks way less dorky than having your subman mist you off—and likely works a hell of a lot better, too.

Buy for $399 (set of 2)

Pros

• Successfully keep the hands and body cooler while training on hot, muggy days
• Copper coils feel soothing on the skin, reducing skin pain during long sessions
• For dry skin, coils impart palpable humidity, making palms and fingers “stickier”

Cons

• Pricey, but hopefully your local gym or an obsessive-boulderer friend has them
• Would be heavy to transport to the rock, with a filled weight of 3 pounds

The post Does This Weird Hand-Cooling Device Actually Make You Climb Harder? appeared first on Climbing.

The June 2025 Writing Contest asked writers to describe the most important move of their lives in 500 words or less. The following submission won second place, a $100 cash prize, and a one-year Outside Digital subscription.

I don’t remember the color of the sunrise that morning on Rainier, only that it never touched the shadows beneath the snow bridge.

We’d been climbing since midnight, our boots chewing up hours of glacier in darkness, our headlamps slicing halos into ice. The mountain had a stillness I’d seen before—the same stillness on my mother’s face when I told her I was leaving home. She’d stared at me, unmoving, as if that might somehow stop the inevitable. I was 17 then, a daughter of refugees pressed into sacrifice. Now I was 27, a guide-in-training on a rope team with three clients, still trying to prove that I belonged in rooms and mountains that weren’t built with me in mind.

The snowbridge came after a long traverse. Wide enough to suggest safety, narrow enough to lie. Below it: a yawning crevasse, deep as memory, dark as the ocean between my parents’ homeland and this one. The team stopped and looked at me.

“Your move.”

The clients waited behind me. I didn’t look back. The rope between us was taut with expectation. I tested the edge of the bridge with my boot. The snow hissed softly, as if exhaling a warning.

In Vietnamese, there’s no clean way to say “I love you” without sounding like you’re apologizing for it. There’s only implication: Have you eaten? Do you have enough layers? Did you get there safely?

This move, this step—this wasn’t the summit. This wasn’t even the crux. But it was the moment that cracked something open. The moment I stopped waiting for certainty. The moment I stopped needing an invitation. The moment I went from known to unknown, trusting that I would be okay.

I took the step.

Weight shifting over the void, crampons skittering for grip. The bridge bowed slightly but held. I didn’t look down. Not because I wasn’t afraid, but because I was. Because I’d been afraid my whole life of falling short. Of taking up too much space. Of being too soft, too queer, too Asian, too much in a world that mistook quiet for weakness. But that morning, the mountain didn’t care. It asked only for presence. For momentum.

And I gave it.

On the other side, I planted my axe and turned to belay. My team crossed one by one, not knowing that my heart was still dangling somewhere midair. I smiled at them, said, “Good job.” Just like my parents used to say when I brought home perfect grades. Pride and pressure, folded into two words.

One year later, I still think about that step. Not because it was extraordinary, but because it was mine. Because it asked me to be more than careful—it asked me to trust the other side, just as my parents did all those decades ago. And I said yes, not with words, but with action.

We didn’t summit that day, with bad weather conditions. But that bridge, that step, that move?

That was everything.

The post I Took a Step Over a Crevasse. I Didn’t Expect to Find Myself on the Other Side. appeared first on Climbing.

Sometimes, it all comes down to one move.

The jump across the abyss. The dyno that hits just right. The last-second dodge of rockfall. Whether it’s a near miss, a dream fulfilled, or the catalyst to a decade-long quest, everyone’s got one move that’s more memorable than others. From Alex Honnold’s ropeless karate kick 2,000 feet off the deck to Mélissa le Nevé’s six-year quest to latch a two-finger pocket dyno, we want to hear about the move that meant everything to you.

The Climbing June Writing Contest invites you to tell us about the one move that’s been—or will be—the most important to you. We’re looking for vivid imagery, rich storytelling, and a sense of momentum. You do not need to climb any particular grade to enter. Just wow us with your writing. Make it creative. Surprise us. And most importantly, leave us just as obsessed with this move as you are.

• Submit your entry using this Google form.
• Bonus points if you have a photo, video, and/or illustration to go with your story.
• Submissions open Friday, June 6 and close Friday, June 27 at 11:59pm Mountain Time.
• Keep your initial submission to 500 words or less. (Published stories will be edited, in collaboration with the writer, and may run slightly longer or shorter than the original submission.)
• We will select three winning stories, all of which will be published on Climbing.com. Cash prizes are as follows: $350 (first place), $100 (second place), $50 (third place). In addition, the top five stories will receive a free, 12-month Outside Digital subscription. This includes unlimited access to 10+ publications in the Outside Network, including Climbing, plus digital access to Outside Magazine. It does not include access to mapping tools or streaming content from Outside TV.
• The winning entry will be read aloud onstage at the 2025 International Climbers’ Festival in Lander, Wyoming.
• We may also publish runner-up stories. By submitting your story, you give Climbing permission to publish it.
• Please do not submit stories that have previously been published elsewhere.
• We will aim to respond to all submissions before announcing the winners, but our response time may vary depending on the volume of entries. There’s no need to follow up on your submission.

Complete contest rules can be found here.

The post Calling All Writers! Enter Climbing Magazine’s June 2025 Writing Contest appeared first on Climbing.