Things climbing-related that annoy you

"Definitely both are slab because of the wall angle is <90 degrees".

I disagree with this definition. While I can't say at exactly what angle a 'slab' becomes a 'face' , it is surely well under 90 degrees. While balance and footwork are important in all aspects of climbing, on slabs, they are doing most of the 'work'. Once the upper body comes more 'into play', I consider it to have transitioned to face climbing. This seems to be the more common understanding.

Hmm interesting. I guess my definition hinges on not having any low angle slab like they do on granite out west. That’s the perks of being a RRG climber I guess. I accept your definition with the sad realization that I cannot practice my slab technique at the red 

People who tell everyone they are "rock climbers," but have only ever climbed in the gym. 

curt86iroc wrote:

People who think being a dirtbag cool.

You know what’s cool? Not living in your car…

Yeah probably cause you like to go hiking with a rope and rack. Once you start actually rock climbing (5.10) it might get a little more fun and you’ll start to get it. Until then go to the grocery store and put the dishes in the dishwasher carpet walker 

Mr Rogers wrote:

Put your chalk in a blender and get über fine. Then dry it on the oven for 15-20 mins at 400 to pull all moisture out of it then mix with ISO. I found this mimics the best of liquid chalks that don't use rosin.
I think the finer you get the chalk the better when making your own liquid, the drying in the oven thing is just really for when I use the chalk "normally".....it makes the ground up chalk feel like a cloud. If you've ever used Bison chalk, they bake their chalk to pull all moisture, and why I was inspired to do it many moons ago. It truly does make a difference in feel of the powder and seems to coat the hands better compared to just grinding the chalk up fine. YMMV.

After baking in the oven to get rid of the water do you add the alcohol that's 30% water or the alcohol that's 9% water?

Alan Rubin wrote:

"Definitely both are slab because of the wall angle is <90 degrees".

I disagree with this definition. While I can't say at exactly what angle a 'slab' becomes a 'face' , it is surely well under 90 degrees. While balance and footwork are important in all aspects of climbing, on slabs, they are doing most of the 'work'. Once the upper body comes more 'into play', I consider it to have transitioned to face climbing. This seems to be the more common understanding.

To me, the definitive feature of slab climbing is “when the wall angle is low enough, I can lean in such that when moving my hip, I don’t automatically pop off “just” because my whole body would barndoor away from the wall.” Under this condition I can rely mostly on my lower body (though pulling hand holds help generate momentum and maintain balance).

When I have to actively pull my upper body into the wall all the time, I would start to call that face climbing. So 80-85 degree is definitely face climbing to me. Just my 2 cents haha

Harrington B wrote:

Yeah probably cause you like to go hiking with a rope and rack. Once you start actually rock climbing (5.10) it might get a little more fun and you’ll start to get it. Until then go to the grocery store and put the dishes in the dishwasher carpet walker 

Don’t joke, I have a kick ass dishwasher…

Chris Wernette wrote:

Hmm interesting. I guess my definition hinges on not having any low angle slab like they do on granite out west. That’s the perks of being a RRG climber I guess. I accept your definition with the sad realization that I cannot practice my slab technique at the red 

Even using my definition ( which is pretty similar to 'Weekend's' ), there is some slabbing in the Red---the routes in the far right end of Roadside immediately come to mind.

If your toes get pumped before your arms do, it's slab

The definition depends on if you intend it to be an insult, too cool for school, or textbook

Victor Creazzi wrote:

After baking in the oven to get rid of the water do you add the alcohol that's 30% water or the alcohol that's 9% water?

I use 91%
Have used 70% but felt like it just took longer to dry once applied.

Ricky Harline wrote:

Slab climbing is frequently separated into thin slab (what you're describing with your credit card crimping) and friction slab. I hear old timers who are also confused about this "thin slab" idea and who say back in their day it was just face climbing. 

These are just silly distinctions. And the "old timers" you know may be confused but I'm sharp as a tack thank you. People who climb this stuff are not confused about it.  As others like Al have commented, it's all about the angle.

In the beginning of time, people would talk to other climbers if they wanted some info on a route.  Your description might start with "it's slabby" to "it's steep" or "it's just off vertical" or It's overhanging".

in this story, I will only discuss "it's slabby".

Slabby routes, defined by the angle, can be face climbing protected by bolts, crack climbs protected by gear, or a combination of the two. Look at my feet in this photo of Adrenaline 11b  in Yosemite Valley, which is a slabby route, and a face route (a lot of the feet) and a crack route (a lot of the hands). It's mostly protected by gear.

That's what frictiony and slabby add up to - what people are for some reason feeling the need to call  "friction slab".

Like Al said, you can tell slabby by what's doing the bulk of the work, upper or lower body. Here's a pic of me leading a route on the South Flank of Daff in Tuolumne (I think it might be "It is finished" 11b, but I can't remember).  It's solely protected by bolts.

I'm standing on my feet. The only thing my left hand is doing is helping with balance.

As for the whole edge thing, plenty of slabby routes have edges.  In Joshua Tree and other places, some slabby routes don't have edges but they'll have little undulations, either concave or convex, that, combined with the friction of the rock, allow upward progress.  Some people may feel compelled to call it "friction slab", because there is a lot of friction in the texture, and it's slabby, but it's just face climbing. When you start getting the edges, you can increase the angle somewhat and the difficulty somewhat and still make upward progress.  On GPA and In the Meadows, nickel-size edges are typically in the 5.9 range, dime size edges are typically in the 5.10 range, and "holds" smaller than that are razor like things that you pull up on by virtue of the callus in your fingertips.  When you put your feet on these you are mostly sticking via faith, friction and sticky rubber.

Another clue you are going to be doing a slabby route is the name of the place.  If you go to Iris Slab in Rock Creek between Mammoth and Bishop, Almost every route is going to be slabby, even though most of them only take gear.

(Gear I used on a slabby 5.8 on Iris Slab)

And yes - the whole thing with steep and off-vertical routes being called "slabby" started as a diss by people newly enamored of their ability to climb severely overhanging rock with the benefit of bolts.

End of today's story time.

Sometimes I tell myself the vertical face I’m climbing is a slab.  Helps me stay on my toes and not death grip so much.  Worked this weekend actually.

Annoying: No one being willing to clean routes.

Also, fear of failure.

Caleb wrote:

Sometimes I tell myself the vertical face I’m climbing is a slab.  Helps me stay on my toes and not death grip so much.  Worked this weekend actually.

Hahaha, Caleb, good job!  I'm a not particularly strong older woman, so when I'm leading something overhanging, I always tell myself "you are massively strong", and that often works!

phylp phylp wrote:

These are just silly distinctions. And the "old timers" you know may be confused but I'm sharp as a tack thank you. People who climb this stuff are not confused about it.  As others like Al have commented, it's all about the angle.

I did not intend to state that I thought old timers are confused about what slab climbing is, only at the youngsters calling steep thin climbs as slab climbs. If you think about it even briefly the old timer's definition of low angle makes way more sense, but the word "meme" apparently is just a synonym for the word "joke" now. So in my mind it's either accepting that linguistic descriptivism and the complete nonsense language changes that come with it or a descent into madness where everyone in your life learns what the original definition of the word Meme is and about Richard Dawkin's work on evolutionary biology, y'know? 

If someone wants to call a dead vertical route a thin slab climb than cool, I understand what they mean. And if an old timer rolls their eyes at that idea, I get that too. 

Great post as always, phlyp, appreciate you. 

Sitting in Flatiron Coffee before sunrise, waiting for business colleagues to go to a meeting, knowing there is no time at all to play on this trip. To top it off, John Prine is singing “to believe in this living is a hard way to go.”

But I don’t really believe that. I’ve been blessed in this climbing life so no tears for me.

Finger injuries. Elbow tendinitis. Unsolicited beta spray. People making climbing videos when they can’t place gear. Shoe manufacturers discontinuing clutch shoes. Sky high gear prices. Mushy micro cams. People who do all those little hops to keep max tension on their top roping partner. Gear explosions/roadblocks all over the trail. 

When I have more aches and pains from the approach than the climbing.

rogerbenton wrote:

Finger injuries. Elbow tendinitis. Unsolicited beta spray. People making climbing videos when they can’t place gear. Shoe manufacturers discontinuing clutch shoes. Sky high gear prices. Mushy micro cams. People who do all those little hops to keep max tension on their top roping partner. Gear explosions/roadblocks all over the trail. 

I agree with poor climbing videos, especially the ones with nothing but go-pro shots. Boring hand and foot moves.Also the lousy music and poor editing.

Peter Czoschke wrote:

When I have more aches and pains from the approach than the climbing.

Haha.  I take that as a win.