Climbing Goals for 2024

Same as last year, to recover enough from leukemia to start climbing again. Didn't quite get there in '23. A good remission, but still havethe disease, it is just knocked way back for now. Hope to regain enough strength and endurance again. Looks likely for 2024.

mountainhickwrote:

Same as last year, to recover enough from leukemia to start climbing again. Didn't quite get there in '23. A good remission, but still havethe disease, it is just knocked way back for now. Hope to regain enough strength and endurance again. Looks likely for 2024.

I hope you reach that goal! 

Ira OMCwrote:

I hope you reach that goal! 

Appreciated. Hope you reach your goals too!

mountainhickwrote:

Same as last year, to recover enough from leukemia to start climbing again. Didn't quite get there in '23. A good remission, but still havethe disease, it is just knocked way back for now. Hope to regain enough strength and endurance again. Looks likely for 2024.

You got this!!  Laura and I really hope you get some days on the rock in '24

• Recover from long covid 

• Send V8 

• Have fun 

• Connect with nature 

• Help other climbers 

Jeff Gwrote:

You got this!!  Laura and I really hope you get some days on the rock in '24

Thanks Jeff (and Laura). Glad you are back at it with the new shoulder!

Big picture: Continue my "old dog learns new tricks" journey of converting myself from endurance climber to boulderer. Less time climbing volume, more time focusing in on projecting harder boulders.

Process/training/logistics goals:

- Buy a newer and more reliable car. This is kind of a prerequisite for basically everything else. Can't send if you can't get there. Then build out said car with a nice sleeping platform setup.

- Spend the majority (i.e. at least 50%) of sessions on boulders than I cannot send in one session. In other words, more time projecting hard boulders. This applies (separately) to both my indoor and outdoor climbing

- In the gym, more time on spray wall and less time on the set boulders.

- 52 hangboard sessions. Doesn't strictly have to be 1 per week, but 52 across the year.

- Keep up enough of the general strength training to keep the body healthy.

- Address my pathetically weak triceps so I can press out past lockoff.

- Don't try to send things in July/August. Take a step back and rebuild.

Travel goals

- 3 trips to Bishop.

- Visit the Battle Tanks Boulder in Tuolumne

- Lots of time in the usual Tahoe spots

Performance/Grade Goals

- Build out the upper part of the pyramid at V9 level 

- Send a V10

- Send some anti-style (vert, closed crimps) V8s

Similar to brother Tanner, setting few goals for this year

• Finish first edition of guidebook for area I’ve been developing
• Start and finish a video to coincide with said guidebook
• Find a sustainable source of passion in climbing once the above goals are complete

I’ve got a lot of sub goals as a result of those three but as long as those 3 are met it will have been a victory this year.

Cherokee, your comment reminds me of a quote introduced to me by Tanner actually, and will be my driving mantra for 2024 -

I would rather be ashes than dust!
I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dry-rot.
I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet.
The function of man is to live, not to exist.
I shall not waste my days trying to prolong them.
I shall use my time.

- Jack London

JCM, I liked your format, so I'm going to take it. ;)

Big picture: Improve my overall head game so I can try harder things while still having fun. Keep getting miles of all kinds for more experience and more improvement. Get physically stronger with more endurance to facilitate all that.

Process/training/logistics goals:

- Climb more trad. Follow, but especially lead. Pick stuff well below my grade limit, and earnestly give it a try.

- Fall off more, in situations where it's safe to. Don't default to a take when a move feels <90%, and instead try it and take the fall if it happens.

- Indoors, project more. Work out moves over multiple sessions, be inquisitive, and try different ways of doing things, even if I think I know how they should be done to start with.

- Put up and use the hangboard I just bought. It's a home, so needing to be at the gym isn't a blocker anymore.

- Maybe actually do a bit of targeted weight and resistance training.

Travel goals:

- 3 Week trip to Kalymnos in the fall. I'm already saving money. While I'll have other trips this year, everything else is directed at this, so I'll be taking less trips that require unpaid time off otherwise.

Performance/Grade Goals:

- Work on a good pyramid that supports pushing into sport 11s more.

- Send V7 in the gym, V4 outside.

- Send at least 5 trad leads.

Outdoor

• Fall a lot more (aka: actually try hard)
• Climb the Grand Teton
• 100+ climbs in the year
• Climb in 5+ new places (Tetons, CoR, Little Cottonwood, West Desert, Lone Peak)
• Nearly every day out try a climb currently at my limit (5.10+, 5.11-)
• Redpoint 5.11c/d
• Send V5
• Onsight 5.11a
• Flash V3

Indoor

• Redpoint 5.12c
• Exercise 4× per week (climbing or otherwise)
• Stretch 4× per week
• Send V7

TJ Bindseilwrote:

Climb the diamond 

Sunshine route?

Goals, in descending order, some non-climbing ones:

-Continually move closer to God and away from my old life of atheistic meaninglessness.

-Love my wife, be a good husband, be a good father. Maybe knock her up again and keep growing the clan. ;) 

-Support my wife on her post-birth recovery goals: Leading 5.12 in the gunks and wrapping up some old 12+ TR projects she didn't get to send before our baby grew too big in her belly.

-Wrap up my own long-term goal of redpointing 30 gunks R/X rated 5.12s. Only a few left for me.

-Send 5 gunks R/X rated 5.13s OR send 5 5.13s all in varying styles(Hard face/slab, fingercrack, OW, overhanging endurance, roof). Would love to trade "roof" for 5.13 dihedral but I'm not aware of any in the Northeast. Will take recs if anybody knows any. I have the rest picked out already, not sure which direction to commit to.

-Wrap up some local bouldering projects that I always promise myself I'll get back to and never do. 

-Knock my wife up again FOR SURE if she starts to get too strong after giving birth. I can't have her day burning all my projects.

-Keep preparing for SECRET GOAL Fall 2025.

Vinnie Villegaswrote:

Sunshine route?

While that looks like a cool line, I will probably be going for the casual route.  Stretch goal is pervertical sanctuary if I can get solid enough for it.

Hbu? 

Eric Marxwrote:

-Send 5 gunks R/X rated 5.13s OR send 5 5.13s all in varying styles(Hard face/slab, fingercrack, OW, overhanging endurance, roof). Would love to trade "roof" for 5.13 dihedral but I'm not aware of any in the Northeast. Will take recs if anybody knows any. I have the rest picked out already, not sure which direction to commit to.

https://www.mountainproject.com/route/107601350/house-of-cards

13a dihedral, entirely gear protected, nice looking line, Southern ADKs. Seems like an solid candidate for you.

On the crack side of things, have you spent much time at the Spiders Web yet? Zabba would be an awesome finger crack objective.

Where are you going to find a 5.13 OW in the northeast?

Been enjoying the YouTube videos, btw. (I'm assuming you're the Headpoint Handbook guy?).

JCMwrote:

https://www.mountainproject.com/route/107601350/house-of-cards

13a dihedral, entirely gear protected, nice looking line, Southern ADKs. Seems like an solid candidate for you.

On the crack side of things, have you spent much time at the Spiders Web yet? Zabba would be an awesome finger crack objective.

Where are you going to find a 5.13 OW in the northeast?

Been enjoying the YouTube videos, btw. (I'm assuming you're the Headpoint Handbook guy?).

Wow, perfect Rec! Thank you, I had very low expectations. Horcrux at Dickey was a consideration, but sport so eh. Yes, I have, many trips. The web is amazing for sure. Zabba is the 5.13 fingercrack prize. Bulletproof at Farley Ledge is the OW. I’ve spent a session on it two years ago and was danger close. Zabba I tried 5 years ago and couldn’t make heads or tails of a single move! 

I am, thanks dude, trying to build the gunks community up.

I like the idea of this topic a lot. Maybe writing out some goals with the thought that random strangers on the internet will hold me accountable will help give me some extra drive

• Be well-rounded up to V4 at the gym by the end of winter/mud season
• Lead 5.9 on bolts comfortably 
• Lead 5.8 on gear comfortably
• Gain more power over my often crippling fear of heights
• Find a consistant partner

If all that goes well and I'm where i want to be in the Fall:

• Climb The Eaglet (Hiking past The Eaglet is what made me really want to start climbing)

Not Climbing related but :

• Single day Pemi Loop

JCMwrote:

On the crack side of things, have you spent much time at the Spiders Web yet? Zabba would be an awesome finger crack objective.

While there are sections of finger crack on Zabba, defining it as a finger crack is misleading.

Jon Clarkwrote:

While there are sections of finger crack on Zabba, defining it as a finger crack is misleading.

Here in the east if a climb has two hand jams it becomes  known as a hand crack and people  start  training on it

• Climb a 100m+ ice multipitch
• Lead WI4
• Clean and equip 5 new sport routes at my "local" crag, at least one of them in the 11 range
• Have a group of people I've never met before climb at and enjoy said crag
• Have Fritz FA the overhanging offwidth at said crag

- East Face Direct, Mt Idaho (Sep. 2nd)

- Shune's Buttress (Oct. 4)

- The Heretic (Before Dec. 31)