UKH

Dow CragAfter a good day on Dow this Friday we were quite surprised on our walk out to pass a pair geared up walking in- harness on with all their gear jingling away- personally I would find this a bit annoying and possibly unnecessary. They still had rucksacks on.  Would any of you do this and if so why?!

This was on the path just where it leaves Walna Scar rd.

How else will walkers know they’re proper climbers?! 😂

Watch out for them posting on future threads saying you can  'get everything you need for mountain routes in a 15 litre bag'.

Maybe they don't like taking big packs? Anyway, don't want to get in the way of an opportunity our open and welcoming community to pour scorn on some people that dare to stray from how we did it back in my day etc.

It makes sense in very specific circumstances, e.g. for routes/crags where you won't be returning to the base. I did it recently at Carnmore as the descent isn't that close to the base of the crag. And for Avernus on the Lleyn, where the walk off the top basically takes you back to the parking. In both instances I didn't take my rucksack, instead I wore my harness with half the rack and a rope and my partner took his bag, which we then climbed with.

It's pretty rare though - it's a grim way to walk in with all that crap clanking around and tbh I generally try to avoid climbing with a bag full stop because it's awful. Never really understood why it seems to be so common nowadays - I see it everywhere, even at short multipitch crags with ab descents (e.g. the Grochan).

How else would one transport the celebratory pork pie to the summit??

Internally.

I could see myself doing that if it meant only having one rucksack between us, worn by the second, containing stuff like jackets food and water.

Years ago a prospective new member (to our Mountaineering club) turned up to pub night.  Talked a good game of all the climbs they’d led.  At next meet I picked him up on the Friday outside a railway station not far north from London.  He was all kitted up in a Goretex jacket, harness, shiny gear, and what looked like new ropes over his shoulders.   We were driving to a campsite in Pendeen, Cornwall.  Does that count as the earliest gear up for a route?

To top it all, despite being told it was a camping meet , he had no tent or camping gear.  Someone lent him a spare bivvy bag. Despite being dry and warm all weekend, we never did see him without the Goretex on.  Plus he couldn’t lead routes several grades easier than what he claimed.

The ultimate bullshitter or Walter Mitty?

Once saw a party do it for Scafell! To be fair I think they were European where it’s more common. I’m not sure they were that used to British trad they preceded to get very lost on a severe. I think it makes most sense on very long routes in Europe when you both want to carry small packs on the route. 

banter/ˈbantə/noun

the playful and friendly exchange of teasing remarks.

I was in a cafe in Keswick many years ago  and there was a couple of lads all geared up harnesses nuts, the lot, drinking tea at a table. 

Unbelievable.....

I agree on carrying the bag, always felt a pain in the arse.

I never even liked clipping trainers to my harness and endured the pain of descents in rock shoes

Always used to walk down to Wintours Leap fully geared up to save carrying bags or returning to the bottom.

And yes, it was annoying.

I saw someone in Stickle Ghyll car park a few weeks back fully racked up, and i mean fully racked up, enough gear to protect Gimmer top to bottom, i did wonder where they were off to.

I often walk in to crags with hardware on a bandolier carried over my shoulder. Means bag can be so much smaller so handy if carrying up the route.

Wearing the harness would be a step too far for me personally. But if they had hex's on cord I reckon that's all good

It could be they didn't want to take the time to take everything off their harnesses and put them into their sacs properly as they wanted to get back to their transport/accommodation quickly, nor did they want to just dump their geared up harnesses straight into the sacs because of the fustercluck it makes. More restful to do that at home later on ?

I've done that before, particularly when camping/hutting, as there's not a lot to do while the food is being cooked. A lot depends on how far from where the sacs were stashed to where the car is.

Caveat - this doesn't apply to large hexes, which should always be put into the sac (unless you want to break your kneecaps).

I was on dow on  Friday, just started using an ultimate direction fastpack (20L ) for running and have been thinking it would be good as a small climbing pack, turns out it was, doesn't move around at all almost to the point of forgetting you have it on. Imagine my smugness as I'm  sipping water and staying hydrated in the heat when my two companions had throats like a budgies cage !

There doesn't seem to be much "exchanging" here.

Pretty common up there!! I've seen it frequently in the past......we were on gimmer once and some novices were giving up and walking down fully loaded in new shiny stuff. Literally hours later we walked in to the ODG and the same blokes were sat with it all on in the room nearest the toilets talking a big talk to some young couples who'd come down the band after a day's walking! Comedy gold....we sat close by and listened....proper experts they were!!! 😊

Did you say hi, get chatting and ask them?

They were walking in to the crag-which is about an hour from the carpark to the crag.

Pah! The folk you saw were half-arsed. Years ago I was having a beer late afternoon at the ODG after a baking hot summer day on Gimmer. Guys strolls into the beer garden, harnessed up, full rock rack plus ice screws, screamers, warthogs, technical tools, deadman.

Top class tumbleweed moment.

Have you got really short legs

It is customary to engage the subjects in the banter rather than belittling them behind their backs

Who's belittling?

I can't see anything wrong with this. I often wear my wetsuit in the car, both to and from surfing. Just saves time.

Makes you feel prepared, in a rubber sort of a way....

Going somewhere geared up used to be grounds for arrest.. 

People do odd things!

 As a youngster new to climbing I remember feeling like a true explorer by getting on a bus one snowy winter with a climbing rope wrapped around me. All I had in my rucksac was a sleeping bag and some food. No one to climb with. No climbing gear. Just the rope. 

The bus took me about 20 miles to Alnwick. I walked the 4 miles to  Corby's Crag in the dusk as it began to snow. I slept in the cave. In the morning I dug myself out of the snow covered cave and set off walking back to Alnwick to get a bus home.

I have no idea why I did this other than to experience something about climbing even though I was never going to actually climb anything in reality. It still puzzles me to this day what I was thinking.

I'm sure some of the people who saw me that day wondered what on earth I was up to!

An odd interpretation of a nice bit of humour.

I think many people confuse entirely one sided mockery with "banter". Not to say there's anything necessarily wrong with mockery when it's well deserved, but it's not "banter".

I accidentally wore my chalk bag to the pub after the crag.  Didn’t realise I still had it on until I went to the loo.

Felt like a right eedjit.  My pals noticed but thought it was funny not to tell me.

Does it really matter, are they doing any harm  to anybody ? 
 

I do something similar before I go dogging.

Perhaps training for the greater ranges. To be fair, in the alps it’s common to wear your harness to the route, with a few bits hanging off it (not an entire rack though).

Gear jangling off my harness tends to give me ASMR so I don't mind at all doing this. I do it more often walking from the crag than to the crag because I cannot be bothered to sort (and/or clean) gear on the spot and I'd rather do it at the bar/hut/café/car. Also, load distribution is often more comfortable with the iron on my harness than in a lightweight (alpine) pack.

I find berating/belittling people for doing this quite gatekeepery to be honest. As long as the gear makes sense for the route and season (the bloke carrying winter gear to a summer crag, that's funny )

I can certainly imagine having the following conversation with my wife and climbing partner:

/* Oh blimey my shoulders hurt from carrying everything up to gimmer yesterday, don't fancy having to do it again!

-shall we just rack up now? Save our shoulders a bit wouldn't it?

But we'll look silly, and itll be annoyingly jangly!

-Ah no one will care, doubt anyone would notice!

Ok, i guess less pain now means more fun later, let's do it.  */

That's not to say we wouldn't feel very self conscious on the way up of course!

(And this wasn't us, to be clear!)

Edited4typo

It used to be fairly common to see people strutting around Chamonix racked up.

Banter inherently involves mocking someone or something, it can be OK if they go along with the joke.  If you do it when they are not present it is not banter.

I really struggle with rucksacks because I'm so short. So they hang down over my harness, making it really difficult to access my gear loops or my chalk bag. If I hoik it up a bit so it's not fouling my harness then the lid tends to stop me moving my head around. Either way is not ideal for climbing. I have wondered (like climber34neil) about taking my 10l race vest for routes where I just want to carry food and water but I've not tried it yet. TBH it's very rare that a route in the UK is long enough that I feel the need to take anything beyond maybe a granola bar stuffed into a pocket. I took a bag on Fantan B last year because that's 6 pitches but on the route my hands ended up so covered in bird shit that I couldn't eat anything out of disgust!

However my loathing of walking off in rock shoes outweighs any discomfort of climbing with trainers clipped to my harness. TBH my most controversial climbing opinion is that I would have every mountain crag equipped with ab stations so that I never had to walk off ever again.

Fair enough, banter was the wrong word. However, there hasn't been any mocking on this thread,  nobody is giving the people in question a tough time and it's all pretty good natured. A couple of posters seem to think otherwise but I'm not seeing it.

I was going to ask whether I was really the only one who likes the sound of gear jangling (particularly hexes), but I see there's at least one other! 🙂

More cowbell!

If you don't want to lose an hour returning to the bottom of the crag (as there are easier ways to get to the car park / pub from Dow Crag over the Old Man or the road), nor be encumbered by larger rucksacks while climbing, it seems a reasonable trade-off which some people would make.

I geared up in the ODG car park to go up Middlefell Buttress with my daughter last year, as she hadn't abbed before and we intended to head up to the path and make a beeline for the Sticklebarn for an ice-cream after. Meant I could climb with just a small pack for trainers, water and snacks. Got a few funny looks at the Sticklebarn, but whatever.

You don’t wear your harness walking into the hut from the valley though or do you?

I don't live in Bristol anymore but when I did I would quite often park at the top of the gorge, maybe next to the ice cream van, gear up and walk down to sea walls area. Quick multi-pitch after work with a ice cream finisher and straight back into the car and home. Never felt an idiot walking down or even queuing for an ice cream. My dad introduced me to this method so maybe it was something of the 70s era??

That is fantastic, I love it.  I hope he asked for some ice cubes to melt in a jet boiler.

That's how climbers used to walk round Ambleside in the 60s. You could see them clinking up to the Golden Rule with a hawser lay rope round the shoulders and a couple of nuts dangling from a sling. And real climbers wore corduroy half breeches.

Mate did that after the climbing wall once.  Leaning at the bar, it looks like a mini bunny tail.

Same. Never found one that fits. But I don't really like not having anything - eg if going up somewhere like Tryfan where the walk off isn't going to short or simple, the chance of a rolled ankle etc very much exists, and the weather may well be totally different to on the climb. 

I just wish we could make packs a bit wider and shorter for this issue. Even the 'small' packs are too long...

I'll pass on the ab though

One steaming hot summer day a long long time ago I lead the last pitch of the Avon Old Main Wall girdle, reached the top/ the fence, tied the rope off, and went and got and ate an ice cream before bringing my second up. He would've been melting on the last stance 

If you're reading this, sorry, Bob. Very sorry 

Wider then gets in the way of your arms though . My idea sack would be short and extend out backwards, though I guess that would be less than ideal for the way the weight is distributed when it's full.

I just have my windproof or nanopuff clipped to my harness for belays and walking off. Usually whoever's seconding the pitch has both sets of trainers clipped to theirs (how I wish my climbing partner had smaller feet!). Guidebook is stuffed down the second's top, or more recently we've been taking photos of the guide and just taking a phone in a plastic phone case you can wear around your neck. I will go to some lengths to avoid taking a bag - I hate it so much! 

I originally thought they were walking out. I'd never even contemplate going TO the crag that way !

I now come down squarely in the "that's very strange behaviour" camp.

Yes - I'm only 5'6" and I have even bought my own sewing machine to save money on all the trousers that I have to turn up before I can wear them.

Many years ago (late 80s) Mrs R and myself saw a chap in Asda, Stockport pushing his trolley round whilst wearing his rock boots.
We did wonder if he had a pair of red walking stockings to pull over them when he reached the spillage in aisle 3.

Maybe it was Mork, he used to nearly always wear rockboots, but then he was in Boulder Colorado.

I'm the opposite. I would always prefer to walk off in my rock shoes to carrying trainers. 

I envy your adamantium feet!! The amount of climbing I can do in a day is highly correlated with how much my toes hurt - walking off e.g. Dow in rock shoes would likely mean we wouldn't be doing another route!

I once back in the 80’s after climbing on gimmer crag walked into the ODG with my chalk bag still on. Felt a right biffer when I realised! Ha ha

Have happily let my partner keep his helmet on in the car back.

Only my sniggering in the motorway services alerted him to the fact that something was awry. 

Light hill running shoes are very light. A second carrying both pairs is probably equivalent to a couple of cams.

A phone case around the neck sounds like quite a good idea. what kind do you have? any issues/advice with this?

Think ours is this one - https://www.tiso.com/eatvo9ti0108/trek-mates-phone-pouch

Seems to work well. Better than having it stuffed in a pocket anyway. Haven't experienced any drawbacks with it, other than the risk that you drop your phone if you get it out en route. It's less obtrusive than a guidebook stuffed down my top and it means I can have a camera handy too.

One day I'll have to look into getting a pair. My rock shoes are comfortable enough that I don't view it as an issue on anything but the longest descents. Also I find they can be an advantage on descents as much as a disadvantage if some climbing moves are required. 

Using chalk on Gimmer for a start 

If multi pitch, then the second would have a small sack with lightweight running shoes, and tops in case weather came in.  Strangely both of us were keen on leading all pitches 😀

I used to climb a lot on the concrete boulder in Heeley Millenium park in Sheffield. A guy once turned up fully geared up with all sorts of stuff on his harness. He popped a friend in one of the pockets and hung on it whilst trying to fit more gear in somewhere. He said he was going to Yosemite the following day and was learning how to aid climb. After failing to get anywhere at all in twenty minutes he took his friend out and left. I wonder if he actually went to Yosemite, and if he managed to get off the ground.

Doesn't it just increase the wear on the harness, with the belay loop rubbing on where the leg loops are attached? Maybe not if there's no load on it.

I've noticed that when abseiling a long slab, the leg loop saws back and forth on the belay loop as you walk.

... and therefore carrying one pair should be similar to one cam?

Totally agree though, didn't even notice I had them at the weekend; pretty sure they made zero difference to the climbing. Different for a chimney obviously!

By accident, last week, I discovered that carrying a very comfy pair of rock boots and climbing any  harder pitches in tight boots worked very well.  

Might also  be cheaper to buy some oversized rock shoes secondhand than lightweight trainers.

I wonder if someone somewhere, is having a right old laugh at the UKC splutterati storm they have caused.

‘Half Breeches’ what are Breeches then? 🤔