Guide to the New Gym Climber

Submitted by ctardi on 2006-06-06

This article is meant as a bit of a guide to the new gym climber, and answers some of the questions that I had throughout the beginning of my climbing career, which although it is still just starting out, will hopefully last for many more years. I have no qualifications, other than wanting to help out those who go though the same things that I have. I’ve been climbing just over two years, and only made about 20 trips outside, several hundred inside, and have been lucky enough to have many hours with a mentor that has been able to answer almost all of my questions.

I started climbing when I was invited to a birthday party several years ago. At this point, I was what would be referred to as an Unconscious Incompetent. This means that I was unaware that I would even need any skills to continue from there. It’s just pulling yourself up a wall, how hard could it be? Several years, and birthday parties, later, I saw an article in the local paper about a climbing gym having an open house, with climbing, and a B.B.Q. outside. Didn’t have anything else to do that day, the gym was only a 15 minute drive away, and I always wanted to get more into climbing, but never really knew how to get started, so didn’t pursue it.

Upon getting to the gym, I had a harness put on me and did a couple of climbs, even the ‘upside down one!’ This left me with the nagging question, how do you get more into this sport? And what in the world does a climbing team do? Why does the harness strap go through the buckle 3 times? What do all the key chains on the wall do? How about those silly looking things coming out of the floor? I signed up to an intro course / belay course, so I could learn to ‘hold the ropes’. Still at that point, I didn’t believe that there could be any more to it than running it through an upside down Easter basket, and pulling up the wall like a mad man.

The course only put even more questions in my head, but I didn’t want to take away from the other participant’s course, so I held on to them. I wanted to know what stuff was made of, how do you build your own wall, and if this had any relation to climbing outside. At this point, I was a Conscious Incompetent. I knew that there were many more skills that I would need before I could go further. I started climbing whenever I could, in order to build on the little skills that I had at this time, and to start seeking answers to the questions that I had burning in my head. I learned things like the key chains are really quick draws for lead climbing and the aluminum carabiners shouldn’t get dropped onto anything hard.

By this time, I was hanging around with the gym owner, who was great, able to answer all of my questions and told some great stories, as he had had a hand in developing one of the local outdoor climbing areas. About three months after I started climbing, I was getting to the Conscious Competent stage in my climbing. I thought I knew everything there was to know about climbing, although I was very wrong. My belaying, however, impressed someone, as I was asked to work for the gym. This was great for me, as I got to spend a lot of time with people, and educate them about our great sport.

I stayed in this stage for a while, but didn’t have anyone to tell me that I was in this stage, so may have given some dangerous advice, which is not something I recommend. The next step after this is to go on to the Unconscious Competent. I couldn’t tell you if I’m at this step yet, or if you are at this step yet, as this is where you don’t even have to think about what you are doing. This may be argued as where you may be very likely to make mistakes, but most of these can be avoided with buddy checks, and slowing everything down. I can think of 3 incidences in the past little while where a buddy check either saved from a potentially deadly mistake, or was not done and the people involved were lucky. One of these was my fault.

I was climbing with someone who had done it for much longer than I had, and they did not finish their knot. Luckily they were able to complete the climb, and lower without incident, but were rather shaken up. So, slow down, have fun, and keep your stick on the ice!