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eetsme:

findadventure:

finding-elysium:

happinessisthepath:

“tall people reach. short people rock climb.”

— Ward Byrum, head routesetter at Earth Treks Rockville

A few decent “reachers” who are 6 feet tall or close to it:
Chris Sharma, Dave Graham, Fred Nicole
If only they knew how to climb. 

I’m sensing some tension between the heights.

Everyone knows there are advantages and disadvantages to everybody type and since you can’t standardize that everyone just climb and most importantly have fun

as I stated after posting that quote, it’s not a rule, it’s not true in every situation, and I certainly don’t think all tall people can’t climb! (I thought I posted something after people got peeved then, but apparently I didn’t. I swear I explained this before…but I must not have, sorry.)

size isn’t the only thing that’s important - it’s strength, it’s skill, and it’s smarts. obviously Ashima, Sasha, and Ramonet all crush super hard as short people, and so do people over 6’0” (Ondra, Sharma, Graham, Nicole, on and on and on).

when I posted that quote, it was after a day of taking crap from people in the gym belittling my climbing because I’m short and therefore don’t weigh very much. mostly I’m just tired of having my accomplishments downplayed because “if I were that small, I could do it too.” I’m also tired of being told “go crawl back in your hobbit hole” (gotten that one before) and hearing people say while I’m climbing “he’s a freakin’ midget, that’s the only reason why he can do that” (gotten that one on many occasions).

and I realize I’m probably coming off as someone doing the same regarding tall people, but I can guarantee you I’m not. trust me - I have absolutely nothing against tall people, and I certainly think they can rock climb plenty hard, and many of them much, much harder than me. when I see someone tall send a hard climb, it doesn’t make me think “man, only cause he’s tall.” it makes me think “man, only cause of dedication, hardwork, strength, and skill”.

the point of the quote is that short climbers generally have to be very technically strong, very smart when it comes to reading sequences, and very efficient with their climbing. not to say that tall people aren’t. but if you take your average climber in the gym, both climbing V5, the short person is more likely to have better refined technique because he/she can’t just reach past bad holds or difficult moves. at least that’s what Ward suggests!

there are climbs for short people. there are climbs for tall people. there are climbs that short people can do but will have to work harder on than tall people. there are climbs that tall people can do but will have to work harder than short people. there are climbs short people will never do. there are climbs that tall people will never do.

everything evens out in the end.

the important part is we’re all climbing.

sorry if that quote pissed people off. that wasn’t the intention.

anothertelepathicrendezvous:

In all honestly though. The things I do for rock climbing.