Time to start posting

Well, for anyone who doesn’t know me, my name is Jon Rippe…Derek’s younger brother.  He seems to want me to start posting some of my own climbing stories and thoughts, and seeing as how I’m bored at work at the moment, I’m making my first post.

I’ve been climbing now for a month.  Derek took me and our younger brother out to Sportrock on Christmas Eve to do some climbing, and I signed up for my own membership that day.  I usually try to get there 3-4 times a week for a couple hours.  Now I’ve been taking kickboxing for almost a year (currently training to be an instructor), so I certainly had a bit of an advantage starting out with a low body weight of 130lbs and a decent amount of upper body strength.  I started climbing with the ability to climb a 5.8, a couple 5.9’s, and some V1’s.

We went out and got me harness, shoes, chalk, ATC, etc…everything I needed to start climbing.  Got a pair of lace-up 5.10’s.  They are quite comfortable to wear even when not climbing, so I’m certainly happy with them.  I started climbing in shorts for the first week or so, but the harness I bought doesn’t quite tighten as much as I’d prefer, so I’m climbing in jeans these days.  Actually, jeans seem much better to climb in.  My knees and ankles are much less banged up.  My brother and I also went out just the other week to use the $50 HTO recruitment bonus to buy some nicer ATCs.

I took my belay course within the first week so I could belay my brother.  It was easy.  Only took about 15 min.  I just finished with my FF1 class last week…it helps so much with technique.  My instructor, Patrick, helped me hit a V2 I’d been having trouble with.  I can also pick out correct and incorrect technique that the more experienced climbers are using.  It’s amazing to see how even climbers that can do 5.12’s use absolutely horrible technique and simply power their way through stuff.  Hopefully I’ll be able to stay on the right track with my technique as I get into more difficult routes.

I just recently finished my first 5.10 (without stopping or taking a break), and I managed to top out on 2 V3’s.  I almost had a V4.  Just couldn’t quite hit that last hold.  Sadly they changed the routes around the next day, so that particular problem happened to disappear.  I’m certainly going to get out to Sportrock tonight and hopefully get to the top of another 5.10.  We’ll see how it goes.