I started climbing, with my dad, Alex, and my brother. By the time I picked up climbing, my dad was already in the game for 20 years and for the first 7 to 8 years of my climbing, I basically never had to look for a partner. I basically only climbed with my dad or my brother for most of the time and as in a healthy family, we all supported each other in finishing off our projects and become better climbers. Cheered each other up, exchanged beta and went on some of the greatest adventures. I climbed nearly all of my hard routes with one of them. I climbed El Cap, Half Dome and some other true Big Walls, with my dad, besides an endless amount of mulit-pitch routes all over Europe and the US. With Big Walls, I mean real Big Walls. Like John Middendorf puts it:
Big wall climbs are all about getting out in the wilderness and spending multiple days and nights on the largest rock faces in the world.
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| El Cap |
1. A good partnership foundation is based on similar goals.
All of us, have goals in climbing and in life. While I talk about some of my bigger goals I have in my climbing. Usually I try to be fairly humble about it, even tho it doesn't always work. The first step in finding a climbing partner is somebody who has the same commitment and dedication to a similar or the same goal. This can transform into going out to belay your partner on his project, even tho you already climbed it and there is nothing else in the area for you to do. Or no matter how miserable cold and shitty the conditions are going to be, when your partner calls you up to go climb a mountain, you go with him without a doubt, because he is your partner and you will support him on his goal, the best you can.
2. First choose your partner, then your goal
When I first came to Wyoming, all I wanted to do was climbing. I thought school would go along easily and I basically thought I went to college only to climb more. With this idea, it was a stupid idea by the way, I started to recruit whoever I knew as a climbing partner to go climbing with me. Finding a so called "Belay Bitch", a person who is basically only there, to belay you for an extended amount of time without getting anything back in return, for climbing seemed right. I wanted to climb all the time, no matter how shitty the conditions where or what my plan was, so I saw myself in constant demand for partners. Once or twice I could have gotten hurt pretty bad by those exploits, due to figuring out, that my partners didn't even knew how to belay and in general did not have the proper knowledge to guarantee my safety, so looking back at it definitely wasn't the greatest thing to do. But as I recruited some people to have constant belayers to make Vedauwoo unsafe, I also got recruited as a so called "Wall Bitch". The difference between a Wall Bitch and a Belay Bitch is simple. The belay bitch has the honor to just belay. A wall bitch has the honor to also lead all pitches and give the recruiter the full service of a fully equipped safe toprope, so he can claim that he has done a certain route for his tick list. I had the pleasure to experience this great honor on a fairly serious multi-pitch climbing close to Laramie. The route consisted in major parts mostly of rock choss. Even though, when I look back, it was a fun adventure, I also realize I got fully tricked into it. By advertisements, like "you have to climb this route, if you are a real climber at UW", and all kinds of other stuff to tickle my ego, and saying things like we totally gonna switch leads after every pitch, something that never happened. So what is the message out of this? Because obviously I disobeyed this rule as much as other people did. What I learned is, that this is not a good foundation for partnership. From all the people I bitch called or people who bitch called me, I got into arguments and now barely even talk to anymore. Do I fell sad about it? Of course I am not happy with it. Some of those people definitely were nice people, but I learned over the time that bitch calling may work out over a short amount of time. But after some time, people realize like similar to the example with the bad friend, you only get called for helping somebody else achieve his goal, without ever getting help in achieving your on goal in return.
3. Think in the long run not on a short term
This idea builds up on the previous point. Like in many sports, a team rarely performs on their absolute limit on their first game., rather achieving your absolute maximum, is a step by step process. If we look for example at Basketball. When the Miami Heat first signed Lebron James, they didn't win the championship the first year, because in fact the team wasn't a full functioning unit yet. However in the following 2 years, they dominated the NBA, becoming back to back Champions. In climbing a partnership is very similar and evolves over years to a point, where you feel the connection to your partner through the rope, or where you and your partner work as one big individual. For me, the latter happened when I climbed the Nose of El Captain with my father. At no point of the route, I had to worry about anything else, except the pitch I was leading at that point, because I knew I could fully rely on Alex. This is something every party should work to achieve. It is the most efficient and effective a party will ever be. Therefor it is no wonder, that both Alex and I climbed most of our hard routes always when we climbed together, because we were a functioning unit. On the other hand, there is the point when a partnership becomes more harmful to somebodies climbing then beneficial. A good example about this was for me the summer of 2014, when a former friend of mine called me at 10 pm in the evening, ranting about how all his climbing partners bitched out climbing his dream route with him, and how I would be the only person that could help him, achieving his dream. The route he wanted to climb, was on my list of goals for the season too, so teaming up seemed like the right thing to do, so I answered that we could consider it. So when I got back home a week later, I received a message on my phone, saying that this week we had to go climb the particular route. Not only was the weather report fairly bad, I also haven't teamed up with the guy for over a year. Especially in multi-pitch climbing, where the dependency on your partner is fairly high, for me this seemed like a fairly big risk factor. Besides the fact that there was a clear disapproval of each other in the first place. While it felt to me, that my only role in this partnership was to haul up gear and lead pitches as efficient as possible to guarantee success of the ascent, I on the other hand, expected some recognition from my partner and being able to give some input into the planning, rather then being just told what I am supposed to do. This disagreement in partner equality and trying to force a success onto a mountain, led in the end to a complete failure of the climbing partnership. None of us, achieve their climbing goal, we didn't even went climbing once. Looking back at it, the contrast couldn't have been any better. While like the Miami Heat in their time form 2011-2013 my dad and I climbed together over a long amount of time, to achieve one of our biggest dreams to climb El Captain, the short term partnership that was meant to create direct and forced success, like the Brooklyn Nets in their 2013/14 season failed on their way to the title due to the motto that the team consisted of individual players rather then one big unit.
4. Honesty and Support
Similar to a marriage, your climbing partnership can become deep. I am usually very open to my climbing partners about my life, because I prefer to clear my head of all thoughts, before I go climbing. The same as I try to offer my help in and outside of climbing to my partners. Therefor I think to have an effective climbing partnership, honesty is one of the most important things. Your partner should know what you think about him and shouldn't take critique personally, instead he should try to learn from it. Of course sometimes, there are things you refuse to change, like I refuse to change how I belay with a Grigri for example, but telling your partner for example that you don't feel like climbing this route is a good idea, because it seems to dangerous is better then saying nothing and then climbing hesitant on a route. Since in climbing, often there are routes where returning is fairly difficult, so once you commit, you need to be fully committed. The second part of a successful partnership is supporting your partner. This doesn't mean you have to go to his house and clean it once a week, because he is to buys to do it himself, but means more that if he or she are having a bad time in their normal life, you are also their to back them up. There are many examples of such support. Conrad Anker, taking care of Alex Lowe's family after Lowe dies in an avalanche would be one of this, or one of my climbing partners giving me advice on where to go in my academics, and how this will impact my life. But support doesn't just mean, helping your partner out, it also means helping him to push his limits. Positive competition, where both support each other and wait work on a project until both achieve it.
Finding the right climbing partner can be a long and strenuous quest, that can take some on an endless quest and some find their perfect climbing partner on their first day out.
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| My long term partner Alex and Me after El Cap |
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