Crack climbing 101

They say crack climbing is the essence of climbing. Without hesitation, I say thats bologna, but those tough folks climbing cracks certainly commands respect! Watch anyone who is a good crack climber, it seems so easy and effortless for them to flow up seemingly insurmountable walls. Watch a beginner crack climber, like myself, and witness the flailing, shaky instability! It is not easy to shove any part of your body into a crack and force it to expand to hold you in place. I have been putting off learning how to jam for some time, but moving to CA I cannot avoid it any longer. The fact of the matter is, almost no matter where you are climbing, there are going to be features that resemble cracks. It is simply a natural part of the weathering and erosion that is occurring on everything on this planet.

So, to remedy my fear and general avoidance of cracks, I enrolled in a crack climbing course at the local indoor climbing gym with several climbing colleagues. We formed a real formidable team, headed by Leslie, a long time local gym climber who has a real knack for making friends with anyone cool. Chef Dan and then myself completed our small group. Dan is the Executive Chef for the Concordia Argonaut Club in San Francisco, he's a real dude who has been climbing for only a short time and I must say progressing rather quickly.

We heard about the course by another climber at the gym who had taken it. She had nothing but great things to say about it. We met Lucho, our young instructor last Tuesday, Cinco de Mayo. Without any delay from the days Corona and lime infested festivities (just kidding, but Dan brought Coronas for after the class, super cool and much appreciated!) we spent 30 minutes learning how to tape up our hands. The indoor gym surface has perhaps 5 grit sandpaper for walls and is super abrasive on skin, making athletic taping of the hands absolutely necessary. My hands still bled by the end anyway, but it is not a good climbing day unless blood is bled by someone right?

The basic idea is to shove your hand in the crack, being careful not to rough it up too much, and then flex your thumb to make your hand bigger. This is the basic concept of the hand jam, as demonstrated by myself above. Another technique Lucho taught us was the finger lock, this is when the fingers are inserted as far as possible into the crack, thereby "locking" them in place. When this method works, you are literally hanging by your bones, and it is never without some pain! Leslie shows the finger lock eloquently below:


Constantly flex your thumb, intuitively trying to make your hand bigger to hold in a crack, and then allowing it to go limp to pull it out is super tough. Chef Dan was climbing a great crack with great style, as I tried to tell everyone that night, it is all about looking good, even if you're getting worked, like we all did!


Just to give you an idea of the abuse your hands take, Dan took a photo of his own hands after our training session:

Thanks to Dan by the way for taking many of the great pictures of that evening.

All in all it was a great, highly informative session. Ultimately, crack climbing is one of those obscure activities that can only be perfected with heaps of practice, at the dispense of your hands. I'm glad I had some cool cats to hang with while learning all about cracks, I look forward to polishing my skills at any one of CA's splendid climbing destinations!

Bye!