Retiring gear that is unquestionably damaged or unsafe is easy to do, but what about that piece of gear you’ve had for a few seasons now that seems to function just fine, aside from a couple of nicks and scratches? “It’s well loved,” “it’s broken in,” or perhaps you go with the old adage, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

I’m a first-time owner for much of my gear. I just purchased my first rope a few months ago, right along with my first set of draws; I purchased a few slings and some spare carabiners to make alpine draws and my PAS – everything I needed for sport climbing. Albeit just a few hundred dollars worth of gear, I can’t fathom replacing any of it already. I certainly don’t look forward to replacing expensive cams on a regular basis.

My lack of enthusiasm for replacing gear is largely due to my financial situation – I don’t make a lot of money, especially for where I live. So replacing hundreds of dollars in gear every year is hard for me to stomach. But when enough is enough, will I be able to replace my gear?

I’m scared to think that the answer might be “no” and that might not change until either myself or someone I’m close to suffers the consequences of using gear that should have been replaced.

That’s a scary thought, I know. The prospect of seeing anyone hurt by damaged or unsafe gear scares me a lot. But the reason I’m afraid I won’t replace gear that isn’t obviously broken is because I’m still using my harness that I bought in… 2002, I believe.

Sure, it passes all visual inspections, but the article on backcountry.com states,

Nylon has an ideal shelf life of about 10 years. This is how long a harness will maintain it’s strength if it sits in a climate-controlled room without ever being used or exposed to sunlight.

10 years. I’ve been using mine on-and-off for 8 years, meaning I should probably have purchased a new harness when I got back into climbing regularly – about 2 years ago. I’ve had a couple of discussions about it with my girlfriend, who has strongly recommended I purchase a new harness. But I haven’t been able to pull the trigger because my harness SEEMS to be functioning just fine.

Maybe what I should be doing is taking advantage of the free shipping offer over at Backcountry.com right now.

As for the rest of my gear, I’ll be bookmarking these two articles from Backcountry so that I can remind myself to check my gear regularly AND so that I know what I’m looking for.

• When To Retire Climbing Gear Part 1: Ropes, Harnesses, Slings, Helmets
• When To Retire Climbing Gear – Part 2: ‘Biners, Cams and More

So tell me, what signs do you adhere to when choosing whether a piece of gear should be retired? And (do I dare ask), have you ever experienced the consequences of damaged/unsafe gear being used and failing? (Kind of a macabre question, I know, but sometimes it puts things in perspective to hear the bad stories.)

After talking about a Climbing Plateau I felt like I had reached, it seems as if the natural progression of things has started pushing me on to the next level.

For starters, I have met and developed some great new friendships with a group of people who climb on a regular basis, and I climb with them at least once, if not three times a week. I also get together with them for non-climbing activities, which has resulted in the busiest and best social life I’ve had since graduating college three and a half years ago.

Back to the gym. Ever since returning from my injury in May, I had been focused solely on climbing routes. I learned how to lead climb, which opened up the entire gym. I’m now setting my sights on some of the hardest routes set in the gym because, quite frankly, I want to see if I can do them.

Last night I led a pretty tough 5.10 out of the cave. I worked it on Thursday of last week, but realized later on I had cheated towards the top, using a couple of holds from a 5.12 of the same color tape that tops out next to the 5.10. So I got on it again last night and sailed through it.

If you’ve kept up with any of my new videos (the new iPod Nano is GREAT for shooting little videos at the gym), you’ll see me lead climbing my first 5.12. I have began to realize that my two biggest strengths are the gym are REALLY small crimps, and arête climbing, which is exactly what that 5.12 was comprised of. I led that 5.12 again last night, and while it wasn’t quite as pretty, it didn’t work me quite as hard as I was expecting.

With an hour of climbing left before the gym closed, I decided to get over into the bouldering section by myself and see what kind of damage I could do. I started out working some V4s and V5s, but wanted more of a challenge. I worked a V6 for a while, but couldn’t lock down the sequence. I can make the holds, but my feet still need some work to keep me from peeling off the wall.

Then I spotted a V7+ marked in black tape. I don’t know what it was, but something about that problem just screamed my name. This problem was littered with absurdly small crimps, and some cool traversing that really required watching your transfer of weight. It took me one or two tries to make the second move in the problem, but once I did I sailed through the route (with a little grunting and screaming here and there). I will try and get a video of it on Thursday.

In addition, I locked down another V7 next to the black V7+, and a V6 on the 45 degree wall. On my project list is the V6 I mentioned above, and a V7 with a start that is going to take some serious work (comprised of two small crimps about 10mm deep, on a slight overhang).

I’ve been an athlete most of my life, and I’ve always been very driven when it comes to sports, both recreational and competitive. I’ve always wanted to be the best, and I usually push myself to the very edge in order to be (or appear to be) at the top of my game.

But let’s be honest, that was a lot easier when I was 16 years old. Now that I’m 25, I find that I’m not quite as determined to be the best, and I certainly don’t feel like pushing myself to the edge in order to keep up with some of the other guys/gals at the gym (people who clearly devote a lot more time to climbing than I do).

Now, this doesn’t mean I’m growing tired of climbing – that couldn’t be further from the truth! I’m just really satisfied and content with what level I am climbing at. I am able to onsight most of the 5.11s that go up in the gym, and I feel very comfortable and relaxed when climbing 5.10s and 5.11s – it’s where I feel “in my element”. I have climbed a couple of 5.12s at the gym, and while I can usually get through them (eventually), I find they require enough extra physical exertion to take them out of enjoyable realm and make them kind of annoying (albeit satisfying when you do reach the top).

As I said, I don’t really know what all of that means for my climbing. In the last 8 months I have come a long way in climbing. I’ve worked my way up to climbing 5.12s, I’m bouldering v5s (although I don’t boulder very much after my tendon injury), I’ve learned great climbing technique from instructors and other climbers at the gym, and I’ve learned to lead climb. I’m looking forward to getting even better – I’d like to take a few more of the classes at Sportrock, I want to learn trad (which I will be doing in a couple of weeks, more to come on that later!), and I want to increase my climbing endurance.

But I don’t have any desire to be pushing myself to the edge, because I’ve realized that climbing is purely recreational for me and I don’t want to risk ruining that by pushing myself to a point that offers little reward.

I had decided in advance that tonight I was going to push myself pretty hard. I would warm up on a 5.9, and then climb nothing less than a 5.10. Ended up climbing several 5.10s and 5.11s extremely successfully, and not feeling too worn out.

My brother has found a 5.11 that he is quickly turning into his strongest route. After climbing it once (and making it look easy), he decided he wanted to see how quickly he could climb the route. I took the “under 2 minutes” guess. He knew the technique and moves for the route, and flew up the wall. One minute, ten seconds later he was at the top. Not bad for a 5.11 on a 40 ft. wall!

I wanted to finish up my evening on a 5.12 I had climbed a few times prior. I knew the route pretty well, and knew the most difficult move was three from the top – a really nasty pinch that most people struggled to hold onto (especially after all the small crimps that lead to that move). I was able to take a good rest on a couple holds down, and mentally prepare myself for that small pinch. Surprisingly, I made the move with little difficulty (was even able to bump with the other hand while holding that pinch), and sent the 5.12 flawlessly for the first time. I did give out a little yell at the top, between the adrenaline rush and the onset of fatigue, but I was so stoked to finally send that 5.12 (which I hadn’t seen anybody else do that evening).

There are a few other 5.12s I would like to hit in the gym, but perhaps it’s time I start playing around on some of the 5.13s??

My youngest brother had climbed at Peak once or twice before, so he made arrangements with the gym in advance for my brother Jonathan and I to take our belay and lead certification tests (yes, they require you make an appointment to take their tests). It took about 45 minutes to go through all the motions with them, but neither of us minded. They did at least seem to be a little more attentive to proper technique and safety procedures than Sportrock (who passes just about everyone that takes the test, even if they don’t know what they are doing – but that is another story for another time!).

My brother Christian (the youngest) had given us a heads-up on a few things that were a little different than the way things were done at Sportrock, but I went into the experience with a positive attitude and excitement towards climbing at another gym.

That excitement dropped pretty quickly. There were three major things that really bugged me about Peak Experiences:

1. Peak Experiences has somewhere between 50-60 top ropes set up for routes (I don’t remember the exact number). Every single one is a static rope. I haven’t climbed in that many places but never before had I climbed at a gym that exclusively used static ropes, and I didn’t like it one bit. On top of that, the ropes were pretty outdated and were in need of replacing, largely as a result of annoyance #2. The ropes did not slide smoothly through equipment, and you were left with a strange black residue on your hands after belaying. Some of the ropes were difficult to even get through an ATC due to how swelled and dirty they were.
2. The floor at Peak Experiences is comprised of thousands of little river rocks. I had never climbed at an indoor gym with a floor like this before, and wasn’t quite sure of the benefits. Naturally, I asked the kid who was giving us our belay tests “why the stone?” The response I got had something to do with better weight distribution when you take falls on it (he also made sure to toss in that the floor was better than that at Sportrock, like he had something to prove). He proceeded to tell me about someone who hit the deck from near 50 feet and nothing more than some scratches and soreness. While I can’t verify the results of taking a 50 foot fall onto that stone, jumping off the wall from 2 feet hurt like hell. It also made it very difficult to maintain your footing when belaying someone who took a fall (but I understand that is something you deal with outdoors, so I’m not subtracting points for that). Lastly, the nature of the floor made it impossible to clean, so everything got dirty when it touched the floor – ropes, shoes, feet, rope bags, etc. I was virtually covered in a disgusting dirty white substance after the first 30 minutes.
3. Apparently with the latest management change, Peak Experiences decided to stop using tape to mark routes and start using colored holds (not illustrated in picture above, mind you). “Great idea” I thought to myself before arriving. “Stupid idea” I thought to myself after climbing three routes. The problem with using colored holds and not tape is that you get very little variety in any one route because all of the holds that are, for example, bright orange, are exactly the same. You don’t have a small, crimpy move to a big jug for resting. Instead you are left with small, crimpy move to identical small, crimpy move followed by another small, crimpy move. And this continues all the way to the top. Combine this with poor route planning and not marking very well for feet, I found myself having to power my way through 5.8s because there were no feet to use and the hand holds were in absurd places in relation to each other.

We lasted about 2 hours before calling it quits, primarily because we had grown tired of the gym. We got tired of climbing routes where the first 10 feet offered everything the next 30 feet would, we didn’t enjoy lead climbing on “declined” routes (what exactly is the term for something opposite of an overhang or roof?) because one slip would have meant sliding balls-first down the wall, over the edge and into another arête, and we really didn’t like top-roping on static ropes.

I had been informed that things used to be much better at Peak Experiences, before the new management took over. My guess? The gym must have come on hard times and was looking for ways to cut back on costs (at least I hope that is the reason, and they aren’t just being cheap!). The end result? A sub-par gym in my opinion that offered more frustrations than enjoyment. Would I go back again? If I was visiting family down in the Richmond area and they wanted to climb indoors, sure. Would I recommend anyone go out of their way to try out Peak Experiences? Not really. From what I was told, there was some pretty cool outdoor climbing at some old railroad supports near the river that would probably be worth checking out first.

Phase One of getting ready for “The Beta” is almost complete. I’ll finish lead climbing class tomorrow evening and be certified to lead climb and belay at the gym, which means I can start practicing without the supervision of an instructor and start working my way to lead climbing 5.10s consistently. Jonathan starts lead class on Monday and will be finished in three weeks.

Phase Two of “The Beta” involves equipment. My brother and I are both going to pick up a set of six quickdraws, which will give us twelve to use while in Atlanta (so we aren’t bumming gear off my cousin and his wife). I’ve been checking out the major websites (REI, EMS, HTO), and there are a number of options available in the quickdraw department. Having ZERO experience in purchasing quickdraws, I’d love to hear what you have and have not been happy with, in terms of cost, performance, reliability and durability. Wire gate or not? Tell me what you do and do not like.

The other integral part of the plan would be to purchase my own rope. This is yet another field I have little to no knowledge in. Is there a standard length rope that covers you for most casual outdoor climbing? Are some brands better than others? More reliable? More impervious to dirt and moisture, and ultimately longer lasting? Again, I would love to hear your thoughts on equipment you have used, and any recommendations you might have.

The other major piece of equipment I may pick up in the next few months would be another pair of shoes. You may remember, I picked up a set of the La Sportiva Nago’s back around Christmas, and I have absolutely fallen in love with them. However, I already feel like I want something a little more aggressive, something I can really get down and dirty with the toe. Being so happy with my current pair of La Sportiva’s, I have had my eye on the La Sportiva Solution, a velcro shoe in the upper tier of what La Sportiva has to offer. The downside, as I am discovering, is that not many stores in the area carry this shoe, and I refuse to purchase a shoe without trying it on first. I’m sure somebody has it, but it’s just a matter of tracking it down…

One of my cousins lives just outside of Atlanta and happens to be an enthusiastic climber. I ran into him a couple of weeks ago when he was in town, and he invited my brother and I down to do some climbing. So in preparation for that trip (probably in September), and the upcoming Lead I class at Sportrock, my brother and I have been focusing exclusively on top-roping at the gym.

I got off to an easy start, staying primarily on 5.6 – 5.8 routes, wanting to test the finger and see just what it was capable of. Fortunately, with the help of its three friends I’m not having any major strength issues in my right hand. I am taking precautionary measures and taping the finger and wrist to try and keep the tendon moving around too much. Not sure if that really does more than provide me a little piece of mind.

I’ve only been to the gym three times since my return, but already ramping things up and feeling pretty good about it. My brother and I didn’t really venture past the 5.10 plateau at the gym before I got injured, but we also weren’t taking falls on routes. For both of us, I think it was more of an endurance factor than a difficulty one. We are both bouldering in the V4/V5 range, which means we should be climbing 5.12 routes. While we could complete each move individually on a 5.12 route, doing the entire route without stopping was inconceivable.

Last night we decided to step it up a level and start climbing at our threshold. After warming up on some easier routes, we turned out focus to two routes: a 5.11 and a 5.11+.We both ended up taking one fall on the 5.11 at the crux move. We had worked the 5.11+ the other night and were familiar with the route, so we both completed that route without too many difficulties. The 5.11 was arguably more difficult, but both routes were a lot of fun.

As I mentioned, Lead I class is just around the corner (June 1st), and we are both excited to start sport climbing. Even though that date is just around the corner, I think we’d both like to be climbing 5.11s consistently by June 1st. I personally would like to have completed at least one, if not consistently completing, 5.12 climbs by the time we head to Atlanta.

I started thinking about my options. I realized they were as follows:

1. Get the MRI and discover one of three things – (A) I have nothing more than an overworked tendon that just requires rest and being careful with it, (B) I have a partially torn tendon, which requires rest and being careful with it, (C) I have an injury that requires surgery (unlikely, seeing I have full range of motion and a great deal of strength still in my finger).
2. Don’t get the MRI, save $215, and allow my finger more time to rest.

So either way, I was going to need to give my finger rest and simply be careful with it. So I cancelled the MRI and I’m canceling my follow-up appointment with my doctor to go over the MRI results. I’ve sent the gym director at Sportrock an email letting her know that I don’t want to freeze my membership for the month of May.

I figured that the most I can do is continue the monitor the injury and not do anything to make it worse. What that means to me is, I can still climb, but I need to be smart about it. No dynos to the right hand, no powerful lateral movement (how I injured it in the first place), and avoid really small crimps. If I avoid those things, there is no reason I shouldn’t be able to get back in the gym and at least keep up my strength and work on my endurance. If the injury gets worse or doesn’t get any better over the next 4-6 months, then I’ll go get the MRI and find out what is going on.

So May 10th I will be back in the gym climbing, and I couldn’t be happier.

1. Really, really overworked tendon and muscles
2. Partial tear of the tendon
3. Partial tear in the sheath that holds the tendon to the bone

Since my insurance requires their office to call and authorize the MRI, I’m waiting on that. Then I can get the MRI and finally determine what is really going on in my finger. Most likely, I’ll be out of climbing for quite a while still. For a partial tendon or sheathing tear, I’ll have to wait for it to heal before I can climb. If I have just drastically overworked the tendon and muscles, all I can do is let pain be my guide and start climbing when the pain subsides to a tolerable level (right now, it isn’t).

Looks like I’ll be putting my Sportrock membership on hold for another month. I’m hoping I don’t have to start discussing canceling my membership all together, as I can only freeze three months out of the year, and this will be number two.

*sigh*

I definitely should have been smarter about the whole thing and just gone to the doctor first, rather than think I knew what was best.

Curious to see what the specialist says. The doctor was pretty convinced I didn’t have any sort of tear, because I have full range of motion in my finger. He thinks I just sprained it really, really badly, and said it could take 6-12 months to heal completely.

I briefly explained how frustrating that was, and he told me not to worry too much yet, because depending on the type and extent of injury I may be able to climb sooner than expected (it will just hurt). So now I’m keeping my fingers crossed (9 of them, at least), that the specialist says “climbing won’t do anymore damage, it’s just going to hurt”. As soon as I get the OK, I’m back on the wall REGARDLESS of the pain.

Buy stock in tape and ALEVE®.