BAD HABITS OF CLIMBERS
We are experts at this. To the uninitiated, climbing itself may seem like one big bad habit. Fortunately for us, it’s a great bad habit, almost a good habit, that we enjoy together. But it’s true, we do have quite a few quirks.
If there’s one thing we climbers are really good at, it’s our bad habits. When Czech artist Kateřina Šedá and her team announced the launch of a collection of national bad habits some time ago, they approached various professional and sports groups. The responses she received were often lukewarm, with a little something from every sport… However, after contacting the climbing community, mainly through eMontana’s facebook pages, she was flooded with a wave of different ideas, snitching, and confessions… Climbers are simply not normal.
We decided to devote some attention to bad habits in our editorial office as well, and we selected a few typical examples from the pile that we find either very funny, apt, or even dangerous. So let’s see how many bad habits you can identify with…
[AJMA KLAJMA]
“Wait, you want to go in a skirt?” Jiřka Dienstbierová blurted out to the author of the article years ago. They were planning to move from one tower to another in Skalák, so it made sense to keep the harness on and run the hundred meters. But since she was raised by Radan Kuchař himself, she immediately explained, “Only people from Prague walk around like that,” and neatly packed her gear into her backpack.
Today, more people are probably climbing than ever before, so this cultural custom is coming under pressure. Some people seem to be broadcasting the message, “Hey, I’m a climber, look at me—I look really drippy. Total sigma move.” They deliberately show off their climbing shoes, ropes, or harnesses, and they don’t care if they’re in a parking lot, riding the subway, or waiting for food at a fast-food counter.
On the other hand, even these individuals are coming under pressure today and, above all, into the line of fire. They are being hunted by the climbing group Rope Hunting Pro. One of its administrators, Matěj Nešpor from Adršpach, describes how it came about: “The main concept was devised by Kuba Krecbach. He collects old guidebooks, and in a brochure for beginner climbers from the 1960s, he found an addendum stating that climbers should not flaunt their heroism in the form of equipment on their backpacks…” The guys thus continued an old tradition, when only ice axes were tolerated on backpacks. So next time you’re in a hurry to pack your backpack at the crag, slow down and remember them. They have eyes everywhere – anyone can be caught.
„I DON’T CARE ABOUT GRADES“
“I don’t care about grades.” “I don’t climb for the numbers.” Sure, you hear that every day, but who can you trust 100%? Some people don’t hide it: “Yeah, this looks like an ultra-beautiful line, but it’s not worth many points,” and they’d rather go for something easy with the hardest part just above the ground. The main thing is to skip the unrewarding routes like 6c+ or 7c+.
Numbers work a bit like money. They’re just there and they influence our minds. Would you buy something/take on something you can’t afford? If I can’t afford it, I probably won’t buy it, right? The bad habit with numbers can be that you let yourself be unnecessarily discouraged by the grade. “I’m not going to try a 7, I’m only climbing 6s at the moment. “ Sure, but we all know how difficult it really is. So you can take a different approach and lie a little to your partner. The best thing is when it turns out well, he sends the route and says, ”If you had told me it was a nine, I wouldn’t have even tried it!“
Some people deliberately look for loopholes in the grading system to boost their ego a little. “Do you have anything passable for a lot of points? It doesn’t matter that it’s not very nice.” Do you see yourself in this? Don’t despair — this bad habit is probably as old as the classification system itself. Vláďa Nehasil recalls the 1980s in Elbe Sandstones:
“Back then, there were routes that someone declared to be ‘easy IXs’. Jindra Švihnos did that, for example. And based on his recommendation, all the Czechs got up and ran to climb it. Or Westkante IXa on Hoher Torstein. Someone climbed that one too and reported: ‘Easy IXa!’. In no time, the whole of Děčín town was there. I similarly praised Westgrat on Falkenstein: ‘Easy VIIIb!’ Milan Krauskopf set off there on our recommendation. But he didn’t finish the route, took a gigantic whipper, so he came to our bivouac at night to throw turf at us because he couldn’t climb it. He buried us in turf as revenge,” laughs Vláďa.
TOUCH ANYTHING
In the city, you don’t see houses, but the cracks between them… Instead of admiring ancient monuments, you think about how you could climb them… You touch and try to hold all the crimps around you wherever and whenever you can, or you do fingerlocks, hand-jams, and fists between tables, couches, or doors… And you comment on it like this: “I could hold this!” At every stone wall, you say, “Hey, good boulder!”
Diagnosis, perversion, or bad habit? Just a climber’s view of the world. The more advanced the patient’s stage, the worse the symptoms. The editors of eMontana documented this type of brain disorder in 2017 when Mára Jedlička climbed the iconic ceiling classic route Zádama IV A1 at Hroší lázně at Prague’s Barrandov bridge on camera. The full story is here.
One of the most severe cases of this disorder in the world was captured by Adam Ondra’s crew in 2020. At that time, Adam sent the mega-difficult Exhumace 8B – a concrete edge that leads to the D2 motorway bridge near Brno, close to the town of Hustopeče. “The best boulder ever built,” Adam said at the time. You can find the video here.
I KNOW EVERYTHING, I UNDERSTAND EVERYTHING
Well, now let’s talk about some of those stupid and dangerous bad habits. This one is becoming increasingly common among beginner climbers… I come to the gym for the first time, borrow some gear, and head to the climbing wall. What about carabiners and belay devices? Just clip them in and you’re good to go. “If my friend from work and these kids next to me can do it, it’ll be a piece of cake…”
Last week, Jakub “Kubajz” Zeman, who works as a climbing instructor and has been quite concerned about the frequency of accidents lately, sent us several examples from recent climbing events. What has he witnessed in Prague this year? He continues in his text:
A pair at Smichoff climbing gym: the belayer with a tuber held both ropes at the same time above the belay device, and the lead climber fell at the last bolt. He fell all the way to the ground, but fortunately, the fall was slowed down because the belayer did not let go of the rope. Both were shocked, very scared. The belayer had badly burned palms, and the climber looked mainly bruised and had a sore ankle, but hopefully nothing serious happened to him. The wall staff took care of both of them.
Jungle: a guy went on the auto belay, but put his harness on backwards – the main loop was on his butt. So he clipped into the chalk-loop and climbed up. The instructor next to him noticed him in time and asked him to climb down carefully.
Mother and daughter on BigWall at the weekend: both inexperienced, they paid the entrance fee, rented everything they needed, and the girl set off to climb the route. She was shaking like a leaf and her mother was belaying her with a tuber. Except that instead of holding the lower rope, she had her hand in her pocket…
Two on BigWall: The lead climber bravely skipped clipping the first three bolts, but then came a difficult spot and he decided to sit and have a rest. “Okay! Take!” Boom! A bruised butt and embarrassment will hopefully teach him a lesson for next time. The poor guy tried to act like nothing had happened.
ON BELAY! (A LITTLE BIT)
It’s a pretty bad habit not to pay attention to your lead climber when belaying. Friends appear on the wall: “Hey, hi, how are you? What are you doing here?” The belayer is using a gri-gri, so he takes a few steps towards them and even shakes their hands in greeting… “You haven’t been here in a while, have you?” “Well, we’re climbing outdoors more now,” and off they go…
A video recently went viral on the internet showing two French climbing coaches chatting while belaying, one of them belaying competitive climber Sara Qunaibet. When she deliberately jumped off the top, the belayer thought she wanted some slack and quickly gave it to her. The unfortunate combination of poor belaying technique and almost complete inattention on his part nearly cost her her life… If you haven’t seen it yet, take a look:
PROPPER STOPPER
This is also a shock that comes out of the blue. The reason may be a poorly shortened rope (one part is cut off, so the old middle-marking can cause you a lot of trouble, editor’s note), a mix-up of ropes, or again a lack of attention… If you deliberately don’t tie a stopper knot at the end of the rope during lowering, you may be in for a surprise. Many serious injuries occur due to the rope unexpectedly slipping through the belay device.
Dad was climbing with his kids in Elbe Valley, and they were doing one 6a+ route on top rope. With the new 80-meter rope, they would have made it safely to the ground, but they apparently took a different rope than they were used to. The joy of climbing the route, lowering… Boom! There was a hollow bang, dust flew up, and then a moment of silence caused by the shock of everyone involved. It was broken by a little girl of about seven: “We’re not going to tell Mom, are we, Dad?” Fortunately, the story ended well, and the man limped down on his own with the help of his friends.
YOU CLIMB AS YOU DRINK
Another bad habit, one could say on a national level, is drinking alcohol in the rocks. Here, participants fall into two categories. 1) The drinking category: you are not alert, but you are not afraid… 2) The abstinent category: you are alert, but you are afraid. Which will you choose? It also depends on whether you are going to climb a sport route or a moral route…
This bad habit is certainly covered in Prcas’s treatise from the Island of Wizards: “The Germans say: ‘Wie trinkst du, so kletterst du. Many people put this expression, ‘How you drink is how you climb,’ in a completely different context. Because most of those who promote this motto get so drunk that they are unable to climb in the morning, and that’s bad. You want to get drunk enough to be fully functional in the morning and enjoy the exercise, not the fact that your head is spinning.“
A beer after climbing – whether under the rocks in a pub or after a hike in a mountain hut… It goes together like Czechs and beer in general. However, if you can’t even manage a morning warm-up without a liquid morale boost, add another bad habit to your list. Even though when you look at the positions of some ring-bolts, it seems that they couldn’t have been put there while the first ascentionst was a sober state.
OLD DOWN JACKET
What about a greasy, thick down jacket? Every climber loves it. The older, bigger, and more patched it is, the cooler it is. This is somewhat related to the first bad habit—showing off that “I am a climber.” Perhaps some evolutionary remnants from the past also play a role here. Female gorillas also seek out the most powerful male, who will protect them and ensure the safety of their young from other males. The number of patches can then signify the amount of experience gained.
Lionel Burgr recalls that his down jacket was in such bad shape that he took pity on it and decided to send it to the company for repair. It was returned to him with a note saying, “This is beyond our capabilities.” Which surprised him a little: “They’re cowards.”
We could go on and on about other bad habits. However, we have decided to end the article here and list the other examples (from our readers and from Petra Konečná’s research, ed.) only briefly in the following table. At the end of the text, it is fitting to quote Jirka “Šerpa” Růžička, founder of the print magazine Montana:
“If everyone were normal, the world would be unbearable.” Jirka „Šerpa“ Růžička
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