Topher Donahue - Rock Climbing: Mastering Basic Skills

ROCK CLIMBING

ROCK CLIMBING

Mastering Basic Skills

Topher Donahue and Craig Luebben

SECOND EDITION

Contents

Once you know how to use the gear, and use it with redundancy, its time to have fun and try hard with good friends in beautiful places.

Thanks to every one of the hundreds of climbers with whom Ive shared a rope, and to these five in particular: Galen Rowell for inspiring me to take a good camera to bad places, Billy Westbay for sharing my first lap up El Cap on my twenty-first birthday and showing me that you dont need to stress out to go big, Kennan Harvey for thousands of pitches from Alaska to Australia, Jared Ogden for sharing a lifelong passion for first ascents, and Mike Donahue, my dad, for teaching me to think like a climber.

These climbers helped make this book possible: Craig, Silvia, and Giulia Luebben, Vera and the twins, Peggy Donahue, Mark Piche, Eli Helmuth, Joseph Thompson, Jochen Haase, Anthony Everhart, Kristen Felix, Stephanie Herring, Annette Oshana, Rich Farnham, Ledge Long, Moritz Brack, Brittany Griffith, Beth Rodden, Celin Serbo, Jen Olson, Patience Gribble, Alex Puccio, Angie Payne, Dai Koyamada, Heidi Wirtz, Simon Fryer, Gerald Zauner, Micah Dash, Kerry Cowan, Malcolm HB Matheson, Scott Lazar, Bobbie Bensman, Emily Harrington, Jen Goings, Majka Burhardt, Lilla Molnar, Caroline Ware, Elena Mihaly, Nan Darkis, and Bob Chase. Thanks also to all the climbers who were also featured in the first edition, to Jeremy Collins for his great illustrations, and to Mary Metz, Erin Moore, Jen Grable, and Peggy Egerdahl for their work on the editorial and design side of things.

One of the reasons climbing has moved from the fringe to the mainstream is because todays climbing gear is designed and built so well. The following companies provided product support for this book: DMM, Five Ten, Misty Mountain, Sterling Rope, Metolius, Black Diamond, Petzl, CU at the Wall, Fix, Wild Country, Mammut, Edelrid, Trango, and Scarpa. Rocky Mountain Rescue Team, Colorado Mountain School, Canadian Mountain Holidays, and the Salto Caf also helped give this edition the depth and background necessary for such a book. Photographer Dan Gambino provided the beautiful photo of Giulia Luebben on her first trad lead.

Craig Luebben playing the vertical game on the Cliffs of Insanity, Utah

The mountain is what teaches us the most, so Id like to acknowledge these climbing areas for what I learned there: Lumpy Ridge, where I learned to use my feet; Mount Arapiles, where I learned to use my hands; Longs Peak, where I learned to use my head; the Bugaboos, where I learned to use my dreams; and the Verdon Gorge, where I learned to go for it.

The first edition of this book was based on the combined climbing experience of Craig and Silvia Luebben, spanning forty years of climbing at hundreds of destinations around the world, often with some of the best and most respected climbers and guides. The book also benefited from Craigs longtime involvement in the American Mountain Guides Association guide-training programs and his twenty-two years of guiding experience, as well as his passion for introducing others to the climbing world.

Following Craigs untimely death in 2009, Silvia invited Topher Donahue to author this second edition. Tophers father, Mike Donahue, was a mountain guide who got his son into rock climbing when Topher was still a young lad. By the time Topher was fourteen years old, he was guiding rock and alpine climbs in Rocky Mountain National Park, becoming one of the youngest climbing guides in history.

Craig and Topher were longtime climbing partners and friends, sharing a rope on many adventures in the United States, Canada, and China. This second edition is a compilation of their combined experience, and through consultation with guides and climbers from the United States, Europe, and Canada, it is also a milestone in the collective progression of the sport of climbing.

Giulia Luebben (photo by Dan Gambino)

Rock climbing has changed. Today, climbing is cool. Its a great sport for the young and old, and everyone in between. With the explosion in climbing gyms, bouldering venues, and bolted sport routes, its safer than its ever been and more accessible to more people. Not only is the gear better than ever, there is an immense amount of information available on every detail of popular climbing areas. Learning to climb is less daunting than it used to be. It is easy to meet other climbers at climbing gyms and bouldering areas. The youth culture that has permeated climbing in recent years has given rise to a friendly, welcoming, go-for-it atmosphere at many climbing areas. Information and videos on climbing technique are freely shared and readily available on the internet and in a plethora of books. Rock climbing has even been judged to be the sexiest sport according to a widely touted 2010 study.

Rock climbing remains the same. A longtime climbers adage is, The mountain doesnt care. The mountain still doesnt. Gravity is the same as it ever was. A climb or a route could have been ascended five times, or a thousand times, but the precise combination of your protection, your climbing partner, and your movement on the rock is untested each time you leave the ground. In many ways, every ascent is a first ascentfor indeed, no amount of information and fancy gear can remove the potential for a mishap if your judgment is out to lunch. In fact, as information, technique, and equipment have improved, reducing some risks, new risks have risen in the form of crowds, the have-fun-and-go-for-it Gen-X culture, misinformation, and elevated expectations about both equipment and abilities. So while aspects of the game have changed, the price of making mistakes while climbing is the same as it ever was.

Theres still the need to climb safely. This is the fundamental reason for this bookto share methods for safe ascents. However, as the sport has matured and the techniques and gear have been refined, the very same gear and techniques have become a hazard of their own. Why? Because focusing on trying to use the right gear and technique can distract you from common sense and self-preservation, causing you to make mistakes with potentially severe consequences. So as you go through the incredible and inspiring process of learning to climb, save part of your focus for these seven most basic aspects of staying safe while playing on a vertical cliff:

1.Always make sure your harness is completely buckled and your knot is tied correctly.

2.Use a backup friction hitch when rappelling.

3.Make sure you are clipped into a quality anchor system or that you are on belay at all times.