Climbing
Choosing partners: the most consequential gear decision you make
People research ropes for weeks and choose the person holding the other end because they were available. That is backwards.
Climbing
Rock, ice and alpine — movement, systems and judgement.
Climbing
Fear: what it is doing, and what to do with it
Fear in climbing is usually treated as a weakness to be overcome. It is better understood as a signal with a variable accuracy rating, and the skill is in calibrating it.
Climbing
Skin care for climbers: the tissue that decides your session
On sharp rock and in dry weather, skin fails before strength does. Managing it is unglamorous and it directly determines how much you can climb.
Climbing
Rope soloing: the systems, and why most people should not
Climbing alone with a self-belay is a legitimate technique with a real place in the sport. It is also unforgiving of exactly the errors that a partner would otherwise catch.
Climbing
Crag etiquette, rockfall and not dropping things on people
The most common way to injure someone at a cliff is not to fall on them. It is to send something down at them, and almost all of it is preventable.
Climbing
Via ferrata is not safe climbing, and the difference matters
Steel cable and rungs make exposed terrain accessible to people without climbing skills. They also introduce failure modes that ordinary climbing does not have.
Climbing
Alpine starts: why competent people leave at two in the morning
The early start is not machismo. It is the recognition that mountains are dramatically safer in the hours before the sun does its work.
Climbing
Bouldering falls, pads and the injuries nobody expects
No rope means no rope failure, and it also means every fall ends on the ground. Bouldering injury rates are not low, and most of the damage happens in the last metre.
Climbing
Multi-pitch efficiency: speed is a safety system
On a long route, the thing most likely to hurt you is not the climbing. It is being on the wall at six in the evening when you expected to be down by two.
Climbing
Training fingers without wrecking them
Finger tendons and pulleys adapt far more slowly than muscle. Almost every finger injury in climbing comes from that mismatch, and it is entirely predictable.
Climbing
Rappel accidents: the most avoidable deaths in climbing
Rappelling is entirely under your control, takes place on a system you built yourself, and kills experienced climbers with grim regularity. The failure modes are few and every one of them is preventable.
Climbing
Ice screws and what good ice actually looks like
A screw in good ice is remarkably strong. A screw in bad ice is a decoration, and the difference is visible from the ground if you know the signs.
Climbing
Placing gear in soft rock and other unhelpful geology
Protection is rated against steel test rigs. Real placements fail because the rock around them fails, and different rock fails in entirely different ways.