Hot Takes 2025

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If your climber says take or is at the anchor and as the belayer it takes you more than one arms worth of pulling out slack + a squat down/sit in the rope for you to get the climber on a taught take - then you don’t know how to belay/have very poor rope management skills as a belayer 

Chris Outings wrote:

If your climber says take or is at the anchor and as the belayer it takes you more than one arms worth of pulling out slack + a squat down/sit in the rope for you to get the climber on a taught take - then you don’t know how to belay/have very poor rope management skills as a belayer 

Really? I gotta take a seat especially if the pitch is long on one of those stretchy ropes. And I have long arms.

Klaus theK wrote:

MP is the best forum on the Internet

Hey this is the HOT takes forum.

The flip side of this is short roping the climber just as they reach the anchor

Always worth a laugh, ratchet your buddy into the anchor and then pretend to be busy.

Nate Slavin wrote:

Really? I gotta take a seat especially if the pitch is long on one of those stretchy ropes. And I have long arms.

Maybe one arms length and a jump-into-the-rope-and-sit. Haa

Botty McBotFace wrote:

Its 2025, the climbing community is nothing like it was in past decades. 

I'll co-sign on this hot take. My eye twitches whenever I read "climbing community" - there are literally millions of climbers these days, from once a month gym casuals to dirtbaggers for life. 

We can stop pretending there's any real overlap in values just because you call yourself a climber. 

Tal M wrote:

Nah, no way this comment was just left by someone who complained that land-manager sanctioned and installed footsteps in the descent slab and land-manager requested practice anchors at the base of a crag you've never visited wasn't LNT enough. 

Cold Take: None of the above are hot takes, they're instead called "Cognitive Dissonance".

These viewpoints of mine aren’t contradictory. One can think we shouldn’t chip descent holds because one can just easily rappel and still think some other conservation practice is unnecessary.

Also, let’s not stoop to childishness and start making ad hominem arguments. In other words, arguments that go like “what this person said over here is wrong because they have bad character, said this thing over there, etc.” Attacks on character to discount an argument are not logical and are childish.

I’m sorry you don’t like my argument; I likewise don’t like yours. Let’s not start taking blows at each other’s character.

Kyle O wrote:

Also, let’s not stoop to childishness and start making ad hominem arguments

This ship sailed like 2 decades ago.  

Warm take >> Rungne is a gumby driven pyramid scheme. 

climbing festivals are cash grabs not acts of community service

Peevish Tepid Takes 2025 is more like it

Jay Crew wrote:

the word "set" should never be mentioned in the context of establishing an outdoor route

But what about in the Glue Mountains of Australia where you rap down with a tube of glue and some lengths of threaded rod, decide which flakes you want to keep, glue and bolt those ones on to the wall, and break the rest off?

At the Arrivals wall at Bell, someone broke the beta and downgraded the climb, so the FA went back and "reset" it to make it harder hahahaha.

* I promise not all of our rock is quite that bad. But tiny holds tend to be, and the steep hard sport routes need the tiny holds, especially the new ones as chossier and chossier rock is developed. Like Bell.

Hot Take (for one person):

I don’t care what Katie Lamb climbs, just stoked that she climbs it. Ref’ing her sorta restrictive views of what she can and can’t climb because of her own perceived “style” and “what counts as a boulder”. It’s all climbing. Just do The Fly and say “rad climb green check, no comment on grade” 

The amazing gri-gri saves your bacon when your belayer gets incapacitated.

There are more gri-gri accidents (by far!) than there are incapacitated belayers. 

Hence, the not-so-amazing gri-gri causes more accidents than it prevents.

Consequently, I'm safer belaying with (and being belayed by) a tube device than a gri-gri.

  Q.E.D.

Patrik wrote:

The amazing gri-gri saves your bacon when your belayer gets incapacitated.

There are more gri-gri accidents (by far!) than there are incapacitated belayers. 

Hence, the not-so-amazing gri-gri causes more accidents than it prevents.

Consequently, I'm safer belaying with (and being belayed by) a tube device than a gri-gri.

  Q.E.D.

1) Symmetrical boards are soul-deadening. 

2) The TB2 is way overhyped in a symmetrical configuration. Monotonous to climb and set on - especially with all the woods being basic as hell, prioritizing manufacturability above all else.  MB woods are way better.

Granite B-Sides wrote:

1) Symmetrical boards are soul-deadening. 

2) The TB2 is way overhyped in a symmetrical configuration. Monotonous to climb and set on - especially with all the woods being basic as hell, prioritizing manufacturability above all else.  MB woods are way better.

I don’t have a hot take about this, you’re just wrong 

Vertical and Overhanging routes pale in comparison to Slab routes, which are overwhelmingly better and more fun.

 Crack climbing is tedious and overly painful compared to face climbing