Establishing great climbing partners is obviously one of the most vital aspects of the sport. I'm a Scorpio and one of the hallmark characteristics is that it takes a long time for me to develop trust. I struggled with finding good partnerships at the beginning and I feel like I'm not the only one. This blog covers key attributes that I value in climbing partnerships and explores the methodology I've used to adopt climbing partners. It also includes a couple of anecdotes at the end.
Top Attributes:
Trust - self explanatory
Reliability - if you have a partner who is the greatest climber on earth but never follows through with the plans you will never get out.
Compassion - when I'm not climbing at my best or need to back off, a bit of understanding goes a long way to prevent discouragement.
Fitness - people who are conscientious about their fitness will inherently be conscientious about their climbing.
Risk Profile - self explanatory.
Personality - I want to be in the mountains and do climbing trips with people's whose company I enjoy. Seems obvious but I'm sure we've all been out with people who we just don't get along with.
Gratitude - I like climbing with people who laud me for doing a good job on the route, encourage me to get better and appreciate my meticulous trip planning skills. It gives me a confidence boost and I feel more likely to achieve greater heights
Bottom Attributes:
These are areas that might seem important on the surface but for me have proven to be much less important than those described above.
Experience: If you are both at the same level, you can learn and grow together. Moreover if somebody is at a lower level but is a quick learner and displays many of the top attributes, get your mentorship hat on !
Strong Climber: This is somewhat important. But more important to be at the same level and if the strong climber doesn't display the top attributes its probably not going to work.
Competitive: A bit of a competitive nature is good for encouragement and enthusiasm. However, I have found that climbing with people who foster a competitive dynamic have excited my ego in a negative way. This causes me to take unnecessary chances, loose perspective and get discouraged very easily when I don't live up to expectations.
A wise mountain guide once told me . . . "COMPARISON IS THE DEATH OF JOY"
This has wrung true at almost every turn.
Methods That I Have Used to Build Partnerships:
In all cases its important to play the statistical game. Don't just focus on developing partnerships with one or two people but cast your net far and wide.
Turn your existing friends into climbers - I have done this on two occasions. Friends who display the top attributes and have an affinity for the outdoors are the best candidates.
The first experience was asking two colleagues to take an outdoor climbing course with me. The friendships blossomed and we were able to hone our craft together.
The second experience came later in my climbing career. I asked my circle of friends who would be interested in getting into it. Then I set up a top rope belay course in my front yard with a ladder and a tree. This developed into some people taking a belay test and developing a gym climbing routine. This further translated into outdoor partnerships.
Join your local climbing community (ie. Alpine Club of Canada) - Meeting people one on one is a bit of a struggle and feels unnatural for me. Being tied to one person at a meetup increases the feeling of commitment which I hate. The Alpine club directionally allows for meeting in a group environment. The auxillary benefit of meetup groups is that it inherently improves your statistical chances of finding a strong match. Key events that solidified partnerships included:
Weekly gym meetups
Group cragging days
Ski traverse trips
Group courses with guides
It takes a while to find great people and build partnerships but the results will be worth it.
Methods that haven't worked the greatest for me:
Cold meeting people through online groups - I'm inherently leery of this (see Scorpio comments above). The few times I have used this I have kept the commitment level low (crag days). These types of partnerships have been good for one off days but have never really blossomed into strong partnerships.
Trying to curry favor with strong climbers I see on the socials - unfortunately I have sometimes resorted to showering people with empty praise or offered non-sexual favors to get these people to "take me" climbing. This hasn't worked and kind of felt demeaning.
Some Anecdotes:
Business Trip Failure - I tried to get Aditya to go to the climbing gym with me in Houston on a work trip. This was before he started climbing. He kept saying no and didn't want to go. I applied subtle pressure relentlessly for the next little while and eventually he came to the tree day described above. This was the beginning of a long and illustrious relationship. Moral of the story - apply statistical advantage to those who display the top attributes and don't get discouraged.
Overprotection on Edith Cavell - I climbed this with a group of three and took the role as lead climber. I hate climbing without a rope so unanimously everybody decided to go along with the decision to rope up. We pitched out one area and then simul-climbed most of the upper mountain. In addition, I raced ahead to get the car at the end of the day. We were car to car in ~13hrs which is considered respectable for the objective. I heard later that one of the climbers lamented me behind my back for holding him back and overprotecting the route. This behaviour displayed the antithesis of the prissy climbers top attributes. I do not hesitate to terminate toxic climbing partnerships and neither should you.
The Winds of Change Blow - sometimes great partnerships have come to an amicable and natural end for a variety of reasons. Nobody likes changes but I have surprisingly dealt with these types of changes quite well in the past. Good communication is important. Also speaks to the need for compassion and how I might actually have some. Moreover I have maintained great relationships with all of these people despite the fact that the climbing part has changed:
People have naturally progressed away from climbing and towards other sports as a result of changing interest level and headspace issues.
I have often climbed with significant others who have not progressed at the same level or who have lost interest.
People move away, have kids or get into a relationship that necessitate putting climbing on the backburner.
Final Remarks:
Climbing has ultimately proved to be a great way of building and enriching friendships. A lot of non-climbers complain that its hard from them to make new friends in their adult life as they get older
. . . to the contrary for the Prissy Climber !
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