SummitPost.org

I am writing this after giving a lots of thoughts to the way we get in contact with potential partners and the level of expertise we comunicate to them in order to climb with them. I felt that I wanted to write this also after an exchange of e-mail I had with a guy I met a couple of years ago and with whom I went ice climbing one time in Catskill and a few times in the gym.

When we first met he made a lot of noise about big expeditions in remote areas and alpine climbing, therefore I understood that he had enough climbing experience not only to climb outside but also to lead some stuff.
We started the day with a solid WI4 and after leading it I asked him to follow me instead of top roping because I wanted to show him the top of the other climbs around and the descent route.
To my surprise he had a lot trouble following, leaving even a screw behind and when he got to the belay he had a hard time anchoring himslef and giving me the gear. The excuse he gave me, was that it was the first time ice climbing in two months and that he had to get re-aquainted with the whole thing....
Later that day I asked him if he wanted to lead something but he refused even in front of a WI2...than he revealed that i had never led something before....
After that day he asked me to go out climbing again several times, but I put it off until another time the next year, this time we where a team of 3 and I felt more confortable having this guy with me (The story though was the same...with him talking the whole day about big expeditions in India and not doing much else...), other than this we only climbed toghether at the gym.
While climbing at the gym I got to know the guy a little better, and I got a good feeling about the person but a terribile feeling about the climber…He went out climbing in famous places several times during the year (Black Canion; Bougaboos; Cody, Wyoming; Boulder, CO) always with guides and always with a superstar guide (Vince Anderson, Steve House, to name some of them…)
I kept asking him if he had starter leading, or if he had a chance to learn gear placements, self rescue, or other necessary trick for climbing during these trips, but he said he just climbed….
Now a more than a year has passed since the last time I saw him, and I got an e-mail from him telling me that he was coming to Geneva for a few days and he wanted to go alpine climbing with me or, he asked, if I was not available if I could suggest somebody to climb with him.
I replied that I was not available that week since I am at the seaside…but I also replied that I could only hook him up with people if he could lead and take care of himself on the mountain because alpine climbing is not like roadside climbing…No response from his side…
Recently I saw the pictures he published on Facebook about the climbs he did with a guide in Chamonix that week he was around Geneva…
All this bring me back to a discussion I had with SP’r WouterB about the possibility of rating partners on Summitpost, in order to have a system the help us taking the right decision about climbing with a new partner…

What do you think?

It sounds like you are advocating a rating system for an actual person based on ratings submitted by other climbers. I think this may work if it is done right, but I can already see serious abuse of something like this.

Anytime I climb with a prospective new parnter, I take them up an easy trad route, one that I would be comortable soloing. Simply observing your new partners' habits says a lot. Is (S)he dressed, and packed, and ready to go in a reasonable amont of time. Divide the pitches from the guide book or the ground and stick to it. You will find out right away if your new parnter shirks pitches, can't place/clean gear, is slow, whiney, smelly, etc pretty quickly.

He basically used you as a free guide. Non an uncommon experience. The fact you continued to go out with him, I assume you must have enjoyed his company. To devise a rating system to warn the rest of us about his abilities? I see his kind coming a mile away. I sure would not need or use it. Seems a bit foolish to me. It would just cause bad feelings, etc.

As far as the other. Veteran SP members add routes to SP that they have been guided up all the time, even such popular routes as the 50 North American classics. Written as though they climbed it in style or led part of the route. Pride, honor, self worth, all mean different things to different folks. That truth is probably best left unexplored on this site.

A good read on the subject.
Another story about the same guy (albeit under a different name).

borutbk wrote:

knoback wrote: ... If someone can belay safely, why not climb with them? ...

+1
That's also my definition of what a climber is: someone that can belay safely.

Well...I agree with this if you are doing roadside climbs or few pitches in a non remote area...But when somebody asks you to go and do a TD route on a North Face, long 15-20 pitches, traversing a crevased glaciers.....belaying is not enough...
Good and fun reading about EpicMike though....from here...I am sure being with him on the climb was a different thing...

What I was thinking about the rating system could be that each time time you climb with somebody you share the contact info of that person you climbed with, like it would be the reference for a job search, therefore your future partner could shoot him an e-mail to ask about your past performance...There are short falls with this system as well...but not system is perfect...

climbxclimb wrote:When we first met he made a lot of noise about big expeditions in remote areas and alpine climbing [...]

Start with a simple principle: stay away from people who babble a lot about themselves (not only in climbing but in all areas of life). people with personality complexes rarely tell the truth about themselves and are never easy to get along with.

climbxclimb wrote:All this bring me back to a discussion I had with SP’r WouterB about the possibility of rating partners on Summitpost [...]

http://hotornot.com/

You folks need to take responsibility for your own decisions. If you climb a "TD route on a North Face, long 15-20 pitches, traversing crevassed glaciers" with someone you met on the internet and had no reference or knowledge about their skill set outside of that source.....you best be capable of guiding the route. Don't blame an inadequate partner for any of your own shortcomings.

This is so entertaining! I can see I've been pretty lucky. Thanks for the hilarious links. Epic Mike...the routefinding skills of "a bowl of lumpy oatmeal"

When we first met he made a lot of noise about big expeditions in remote areas and alpine climbing, therefore I understood that he had enough climbing experience not only to climb outside but also to lead some stuff.

Just because the guy climbed on a few expeditions doesn't mean that he has technical skill or can lead climb. You should not have assumed that.

This is not a difficult problem to solve. Ask some simple questions before your trip and then agree on what each of your roles will be during your climb.

-Can you lead climb?
-What have you lead? (And do you have the sunburn to prove it?)
-I expect us to alternate the lead during our climb. Are you up for that?

I'm always amazed by this kind of thing. I think this kind of stuff is really serious, I mean, life or death, right? So you should only report what you know you can do. If I say I can climb 5.9 I'll never try to shirk a 5.9 lead, there just won't be any discussion at that point. The place where I'll start hemming and hawing and yammering one way or another will be at grades above the one I said I could do. I just don't see any other way to make the act of meeting new climbing partners relatively sane.

Another important thing with alpine stuff is that a 5.12 climber might seize up on 5.6 loose alpine rock terrain. It boggles my mind. Maybe because for me the only way to reach the exalted heights of 5.12 is by a vast and slow pyramid of experience that will statistically contain enough bad terrain that I'd know how to deal with it by that fabled date. Sometimes I've been on climbs with climbers like this and my expectation that we could fly up the route were dashed because we made time-consuming belays on the chossy, pokey approach pitches that would normally be simul-climbed or soloed. Oops!

At least these disappointing days out result in fun stories.

mvs wrote:I'm always amazed by this kind of thing. I think this kind of stuff is really serious, I mean, life or death, right? So you should only report what you know you can do. If I say I can climb 5.9 I'll never try to shirk a 5.9 lead, there just won't be any discussion at that point. The place where I'll start hemming and hawing and yammering one way or another will be at grades above the one I said I could do. I just don't see any other way to make the act of meeting new climbing partners relatively sane.

Another important thing with alpine stuff is that a 5.12 climber might seize up on 5.6 loose alpine rock terrain. It boggles my mind. Maybe because for me the only way to reach the exalted heights of 5.12 is by a vast and slow pyramid of experience that will statistically contain enough bad terrain that I'd know how to deal with it by that fabled date. Sometimes I've been on climbs with climbers like this and my expectation that we could fly up the route were dashed because we made time-consuming belays on the chossy, pokey approach pitches that would normally be simul-climbed or soloed. Oops!

At least these disappointing days out result in fun stories.

A 5.12 climber should be able to handle 5.6 loose, but a climber at that level puts their pants on (or tutu's or whatever else they wear) the same was as anyone else. I know world reknown climber (name withheld to protect a nice guy) who got spooked on a crappy, loose pitch even though the guy has done things that were MUCH worse (atleast based on what a witness had to say). Why did he get spooked, beats me but who cares. I've gotten my butt handed to me on things that should be relatively easy. I'll tell you out right that last week I got my butt handed to me on a 5.11 slab in Squamish. Something I should easily handle since I've been climbing .12's and .13's all year on basalt and sandstone, but its been a while since I've been doing slab (now Alaskan Highway was fun since the steep, burly stuff I am used to). I think anyone who has climbed for a while can tell similar stories about themselves.

What am I getting at? To expect that someone is perfect on all rock types, all the times is a stupid expectation. If they call themself a climber of (X) skill and they flub up on a climb at (x-1), cut them some slack unless proven otherwise.Everyone can have a bad day, not used to specific rock types,.... Now if they flub up badly on a climb (x-2,3) then I'd be more wary. Most of us need a couple of days to make transitions from one rock type to another. To be critical of someone because they don't uphold a specific expectation is stupid. Its also stupid if you aren't critically aware though.

Now the subject of someone who calls themself a climber that doesn't correlate to their ability is misleading. It happens. As Dow says, don't go after big objectives with someone untested. Do less ambitious objectives to suss out the climbing relationship.

Personally, the only reason I'd be against a rating system is that someone with a grief with someone could abuse such a system and really slander them. For me my number one rule is never to slander anyone, and if I don't have anything good to say about someone, to keep my mouth shut.

I've been on both sides of this dilemma. There have been times when I have climbed with a new partner and have found his skills to be much less than he had made them out to be. (not just leading, but belaying too.) I've been dropped by an incompetent belayer, and I've looked down from an overhanging ice pitch at my belayer only to see him rummaging around in the pack, no hands on the rope. I've been misled on numerous occasions and ended up "guiding" people on climbs where I expected us to be equal partners.

However, I have also been the idiot gumby on occasion. To my knowledge, I've never let anyone down on my belaying or attentiveness, but there have been times when I have underestimated the climb and/or overestimated my abilities or fitness, and have wimped out on leading things that I should have been leading. I've had to swallow my pride and get hauled and batman up a pitch (or back off a pitch) that turned out to be well beyond my abilities. I've also been known to get horribly off-route more than once.

So, I try to be careful when evaluating new partners, and I also try to be forgiving when my partners don't perform up to my expectations. For partners who are simply unsafe, and/or are inattentive belayers, I don't typically ever climb with them again. However, for partners who got in over their heads, I will often climb with them again if I enjoy their company. I find that it's only after several climbs that we work out the partner dynamics and figure out what we can and can't climb together.

Kai wrote:I've been on both sides of this dilemma. There have been times when I have climbed with a new partner and have found his skills to be much less than he had made them out to be. (not just leading, but belaying too.) I've been dropped by an incompetent belayer, and I've looked down from an overhanging ice pitch at my belayer only to see him rummaging around in the pack, no hands on the rope. I've been misled on numerous occasions and ended up "guiding" people on climbs where I expected us to be equal partners.

However, I have also been the idiot gumby on occasion. To my knowledge, I've never let anyone down on my belaying or attentiveness, but there have been times when I have underestimated the climb and/or overestimated my abilities or fitness, and have wimped out on leading things that I should have been leading. I've had to swallow my pride and get hauled and batman up a pitch (or back off a pitch) that turned out to be well beyond my abilities. I've also been known to get horribly off-route more than once.

So, I try to be careful when evaluating new partners, and I also try to be forgiving when my partners don't perform up to my expectations. For partners who are simply unsafe, and/or are inattentive belayers, I don't typically ever climb with them again. However, for partners who got in over their heads, I will often climb with them again if I enjoy their company. I find that it's only after several climbs that we work out the partner dynamics and figure out what we can and can't climb together.

You said alot of what I was getting to but more eloquantly.

Very interesting thread. I do not see why one would overestimate what they could and cannot do by a mile (it puts both people in danger). As a relatively new climber I always told people what I have done, grade I am usually comfortable leading/following, and my concerns/strengths/weaknesses. It is important information. Some people do not understand 'consistent leader of X' and 'I lead X couple of times.'
"Expeditions" vs climbing trad/ice on lead are two different things. Climbing west buttress on Denali didn't help anyone lead 5.12/WI5 yet : (

CC 5.11 slab?! THAT IS INSANE! (at least ones in Toulumne I have seen...look featureless)

Kai, that's a great point.

EpicMike! AHHAAHAHAHA would be fun to read about how two epicmikes climb something together...

Vitaliy M. wrote:I do not see why one would overestimate what they could and cannot do by a mile (it puts both people in danger).

I can name a couple of reasons since I've been out with many new or untested partners and am used to attempting to screen them for their adequacy as partners:

1. They have poor self-assessment.
e.g. when I request partners for a route with x-thousand feet of gain and y-miles (scrambling or approach), I've had many people express interest in the climb who had never done x-thousand feet of gain or y-miles in a day, but they considered themselves fit and assumed they could do it. When I tell people about a route, I never assume their interest in attempting it means that they have a realistic concept of what the details of the route really mean. I ask them things like how many feet or how many miles they've done in a day and how easy was it, highest altitude reached and how they felt (for higher altitude peaks), their perceived hardest day out and why (quite revealing and gets across things not shown by numbers). Similar thing with technical details. I don't assume a 5.11 leader can handle a 5.9 chimney or OW, or that they'd be comfortable simul-climbing. Of course you can't know everything from questions, but I think it is good to anticipate for a given route what is really critical and probe deeper on those details.

2. They have poor risk assessment

They see climbing as similar to any other sport, not fully appreciating the risks, and expect it to be fine for you to pick up the slack if/when they become inadequate partners. Similar thing to watch out for when taking a sport climber on a trad climb, cragger on an alpine climb, etc. on their conservatism on their self-assessments and self-reliance when entering increasingly less predictable and more dangerous terrain.

I've had a few bad cases of partners in this category. I'd say their core problem is that they don't fully appreciate the potential danger of these climbs and what can go wrong if they get in over their heads. In fact one of the worst cases was with a guy who I climbed with based ONLY on personal references from a climber friend and some general resume stuff like 'climbs 5.xx on sport, boulders Vx, has been leading trad for a year and is just starting to do some alpine climbs & looking for more alpine experience'. That was a mistake

-------------------

I watch closely to see how well people match up to their claims of adequacy in both of these areas- some people underestimate themselves and some overestimate themselves. Getting that sense of a partner helps me determine how to view them in the future as partners in terms of adjusting my expectations of their strengths, abilities, judgment, and blind spots. It is also enlightening to pay attention to how they cast themselves in the future when they fail to meet expectations (bad day out, innocent mistake, or blatantly misleading or dismissive?).