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Here are your responses ending with those of the experts originally surveyed for this thesis. Thank you for contributing. Question 5. Do you have any anecdotal evidence that suggests how safe gym climbers are when they begin climbing natural rock? ME i started right on the rock. I will admit that i couldnt climb a 5.12 withought pratice. anybody that dosant know what they are doing isnt going to get up the mountian verry far. Thats the beauty of starting, if you cant even get 10 feet of the ground you better find something a little easyer. Common sense will save any beginner climber form any accident and if they dont know or dont have a guide to show them, they better drop there "macho" bull and stop giving climbing a bad rap. I love climbing and sharring what i know to any beginer that wants to have a good time on the mountian. If you feel safer starting in a gym DO IT, one thing that i have noticed is that it is real easy to scare yourself literaly to deth. If you feel safe with your abilities and dont freak out on the cliff i think any beginner climber could tackel (with supervision) any climb that he dares. its all a mental thing with a little common since to judge where and how fast your climbing can improve. i wouldnt give a couple of people my gear who are beginers and tell them to have fun. be safe and smart. tim <timdskibum@aol.com> palm springs, CA - Tuesday, August 29, 2000 at 22:08:10 (MST) Ooooops! That should have started.:------- >I am sure there are many people who venture into the "great outdoors" without proper knowledge...........etc (sorry ;-) ) Jill <jillc@mail.com> Edinburgh, Scotland UK - Thursday, August 17, 2000 at 10:44:26 (MST) Iutdoors" without proper knowledge who put themselves and others in danger as a result. However, it is very divisive to assume that all gym climbers are unaware of the risks associated with real mountains and crags. I have years of experience walking in the mountains of Scotland where the phrase "four seasons in one day" could be changed to "four seasons in an hour"! Hypothermia is a scary thing to be faced with and if you last through one experience the one thing you learn is a huge amount of respect for the unpredictability of nature. There will always be people who will venture outside without preparation whether they are walking or climbing. I have recently started climbing at a local gym and have loved every minute of it. I am now venturing outside by booking myself on a course at the National Climbing Centre. If my only option had been to enter the climbing world straight onto rock I may never have made the move simply because the courses are expensive and how do you get to know climbers who are willing to show you the ropes outside if you have never done any! For one thing, I believe that I will enjoy my first outing much more through having built up (a little) strength and technique. This will hopefully allow me to concentrate on learning the safety aspects of climbing properly while appreciating all the differences of real rock. Please don't make it harder for gym climbers to experience real rock by making condescending statements about how stupid and inexperienced we are when faced with the dangers of trad climbing. The only result will be reluctance of gym climbers to ask for help before venturing out, leading to more accidents and more division. Gym climbing can be fun and, for some, the only introduction to climbing that is possible given budgets and geography. Better to encourage and advise, than condemn and ridicule. Jill <jillc@mail.com> Edinburgh, Scotland UK - Thursday, August 17, 2000 at 10:36:35 (MST) As long as they are climbing who cares; it's their business. It's so funny to see self-made belay master's feel this need to critique others. It's thier lives let them do what they want. Now, if they ask for advice, that's a completely different story and should be given accordingly and with a lot of encouragement for using proper techniques. Jeff <jsutton96@hotmail.com> fontainbleau, France Europe - Wednesday, August 16, 2000 at 07:48:27 (MST) As i am a fairly new climber i definitely can identify with those people in the gym that want to get outside. however i am a little puzzled by the elitist attitude of some of the respondants, i agree 100% that anyone venturing outside should do their homework, whether it be learning from an acredited outdoor school for learning lead climbing and placing proper protection or, reading any number of books on climbing (in particular on proper top rope setup) . climbing has certain inherent risks that each person should take the time to assess and minimalize and while climbing on rock is vastly different than pulling plastic in the gym the transition can be made safely. maybe those boneheads talked about in some of the other responses do the things they do not because they come from the gym but because they are boneheads. just a thought Sean O'Farrell <ullrs_elf@hotmail.com> Rossland, B.C. Canada - Friday, August 11, 2000 at 10:13:46 (MST) I learned how to climb in a gym but before trying my hand on real rock I hooked up with two semi-pro climbers who have climbed all over Europe and the Western United States. They taught me things that you just can not learn in a gym--how to test holds, how to place and test pro, what you need for a solid anchor, and the list goes on. I spent 1 year climbing with them, learning "the ropes." After 5 years of climbing trad, sport, and gym, I did a symposium at a University on high risk recreation and contemporary society. A number of studies I read for the symposium stated the advent of rock gyms has revolutionized and popularized rock climbing, but, at the same time, search and rescue teams witnessed an astounding increase in injury and death due to ingorance and stupidity. These are people who should not be on the cliffs but feel a false sense of skill and bravado from gym climbing. For example, I am a 5.9-5.10 climber but have done gym routes listed as high as 5.12. The skills and techniques do not transfer equally from modular to real rock. Martin Smith <martin_s@altavista.com> Salt Lake City, UT - Friday, August 11, 2000 at 10:09:11 (MST) hmmm... Being from the southeast originally, I can agree with what alot of the other respoonses are saying. I have been to most of these crags, and see dangerous, ridiculous, and stupid stuff going on. I have seen people who showed up at the crag (Moore's Wall) with about a thousand bucks worth of new cams, stoppers, and hexes who said that it was their first time outside. They immediatley tried to take on a route that was rated 5.6R. They didn't even know what the "R" stood for!! after about a 3 hour epic they finally chickened out and downclimbed the route. If one of them had fallen it would have been death for them both, because they were tandem climbing and for 95% of the route didn't place any good pro, and missed the only bomber placements on the route. I also witnessed a couple of dunderheads who were free-soloing this loose grimy 5.7ish type crack, and then upon talking to them later, they told me that climbing outside was "lame", and that they were only doing it because the gym was closed... these gym weenies scare me. Cam Snow <casnow@prodigy.net> Logan, UT - Thursday, August 10, 2000 at 19:50:11 (MST) I'll seen all kinds of scary stuff at Devils lake, WI. I toproped Watermark on somebodys rope and I will never do that again without first checking the anchor system 1" tape around a rock and the rope running though the sling no carabiners. After I toped out and walked down I tried to tell him that the rope could melt right though the sling. his reply was "it hasn't yet so don't tell me that it will" I told his girlfriend not to climb the route and she said that she had already climbed it and lowered down. I think that rope's waxy coating to make it a "dry" rope is the only thing that kept somebody from augering in that day. Any climber new to rock needs to have training in anchor systems as a minimum and toprope only or just stick to the gym. Paul <nsprig@maqs.net> Montello, WI - Thursday, August 10, 2000 at 15:45:27 (MST) Several years ago a couple of sport/gym climbers stopped to check out T-Wall. Disappointed at the lack of bolted lines, they went into Chattanooga to buy a rack--all SLCs. On returning the leader--who said he climbed 5.11 in the gym--struggled up Goldenlocks, a 5.8 hand crack. The belayer could not get off the ground. I volunteered to clean the climb for him, and not a single piece of gear would have held a fall. At the top I found him anchored to a dead pine about the size of a baseball bat and a cam jammed below a loose block. I hope the tongue lashing a gave him did some good. jcclimbs <jcclimbs@aol.com> Cumming, GA - Monday, August 07, 2000 at 12:16:07 (MST) I am fairly new to climbing and since I can only buy so much equiptment at a time, do a lot of climbing in a gym. The people who work there have been very good to let me know the differences between real rock and gym climbing. They also invite me on some of the easier climbing they do on rock. I'm cautious and careful 'cause those who taught me have been. The inherient risk in climbing seems to make large gyms, which would be more likley to lack 1:1 interaction, a breeding ground for caviler behavior. I'm not surprised that most of the responses suggest that gym climbers are more dangerous Daniel Winings <peace_hawk@go.com> Somerset, WI - Sunday, August 06, 2000 at 21:14:20 (MST) should have spell checked previous response frank <irockclimb@excite.com> spartanburg, sc - Friday, August 04, 2000 at 09:33:30 (MST) At a local top-rope crag (crowders mtn) in NC, a friend and saw two guys setup a top-rope anchor over a 5.4 useing a single sling and biner on a SMALL tree branch. The tree itself was 7to 8" in diameter and would have made an excellent anchor point. The branch had to be less then 2". They never fell on the anchor but did lower on it a number of times. The limb bent like crazy. We told them (I a nice way) they should use the tree instead of the limb. We were told "We know what we're doing". They said they could climb a lot harder in the gym and would not fall on the anchor. At the same crag, I have seen two other incidents. One when a belay dropped his friend by pushing the blight of rope through the belay device but not through the carabiner. Thank God it was a harder route a the guy fell early. Only broke his ankle. The guy said this was his third time outdoors and he was use to the gri-gri's at the gym. Thrid incident was when a guy and his girlfriend were trying to lead a 5.5 route. The guy was leading, the route was 120 feet and he didn't bring enough gear. He made an anchor half way up , brought his girlfriend up, then both decided to repel. He laft and anchor which he tried to clean by warking around to the top of the route and repeling (off a very questionable setup). He got to his original anchor and used a prusik to hold him while he cleaned. His prusik was too long, it jammed out of his reach. He could have climbed a little 5.5 to reach it - but froze. His girlfriend asked us for help. He had me walk to the top an clip his knife on his rope and drop it to him. He was going to cut the prusik - I was afaid he would cut his own rope. He finally got down after spending more then 5 hours on a 5.5 climb and only getting half way up. He could have easily just topped this climb by belay from the top. frank <irockclimb@excite.com> spartanburg, sc - Friday, August 04, 2000 at 09:29:46 (MST) I saw a guy who is 99% gym climber get off route on a NC friction bolted route, the belay achors are about 10 feet left and 15 feet above the last bolt and we told him to look for a obvious belay ledge but he just kept going staight and ran out of rope about 50 above the only anchors. scott perkins <toppnobb@aol.com> alpharetta , ga - Wednesday, August 02, 2000 at 21:58:37 (MST) We're finding many cases of climbers who are stranded being the ones who have not learned even the first basic things that you would learn in an outdoor climbing school. -Jed Williamson. I know of a couple people who broke their ankles. They are frequent gym climbers at the gym in Phoenix. They went out to an area called Atlantis and there were two broken ankles in the same week. I don't know if there's a direct correlation between them being gym climbers and their accidents, but I do know that belaying in the gym, you're not concentrating on pulling in the loose rope. I'm not sure how many people understand that they fall twice the distance from the last protection and they don't account for stretch in the rope and the impact a fall puts on protection. -Jim Waugh. We have already had numerous accidents that might be associated with learning either in the gym or learning on a short cliff. People don't tie into both ends of the rope anymore and, people are lowering their partners off the end of the rope. It would have saved us seven accidents, including a fatality, if climbers had tied into both ends of the rope. Most of those were very serious accidents. -Brad Shilling. I have seen people who climb a lot in the gym be really cavalier about belaying. In gyms, since the environment seems so benign, the tendency is to get used to those falls and those rhythms and sort of assume 'it's no big thing.' If somebody is in the middle of a conversation with someone else and all of these things happen at once, you're looking at a bad situation. I really worry about that. -Chris Raypole. Recently it has been reported that people have fallen or been killed setting up top-ropes. My guess is they are trying to make the local crag look like the gym. -Peter Lewis. I see more people who get an indoor background and a book background and not so much an outdoor background. In the middle of September 1993, we had a group of two guys who were mainly indoor wall climbers and they were good enough to climb 5.10 in the gym. Therefore, in their minds they thought they were ready for the big mountains. They had trouble route-finding, because indoor gyms do not take into account the difficulties of route-finding on a major peak like Longs. They took on a route rated much easier than what they climbed in the gym, but when they got on the technical part of Kieners, a 5.4 or 5.6 dihedral, these guys were not able to climb it. It is at 14,000 feet, right below the summit. This feature is not really hard to find if you know how to read the mountain. These guys were used to starting at a bolt at the bottom of a climb and going straight to the top to another bolt. They don't look around and think of the other possibilities. They got tunnel vision and they could not figure out how to do the diamond step. That happens up there at least once a year. -Jim Detterline. 
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