Samson's 5 Tips for Entering the World of Trad

My buddy Samson's humorous take of 5 tips for entering the world of trad. enjoy.

climbingzine.com/portfolios…

Haha,

Pretty good advice. But as I am nearing "Old Guy" Status, it sort of hurts, not "Butt Hurts" though...

Best advice is #5. Be friendly. I always say hi and talk to folks at the crags. You never know who might have to help carry you out?

Prod.

Hilarious! Love the Zine

The world according to Samson:

Put bluntly, these guys are bitter.  The most climbing they’ve done in the last month is the moment first thing in the morning (and again after their afternoon nap) when they climb out of bed…The closest these old guys get to V3 is the V8 they have in the morning with their daily fiber drink.

Maybe your work or high school is filled with catty, backstabbers that talk shit, but climbing is not like this.

Well, if we exclude folks like Samson, that is.

I fucking love my hexes

PBR pic -- oh hey, isn't that a hex placement??

blogs, graffiti with punctuation.

Oh Prod, I wish I were as close to old guy status as you are. . .

Yuck Yuck Yuck!!!!!!

Trying too hard to be cool but not hard enough to be grammatically correct.

A noob obviously placed that bigbeerbro. Sling in the middle? Really? Always slide the sling over to one side of the can. By the way, the knot in that dyneema will reduce the strength of it by 72.5498256% exactly. I know because I saw it on MP.com

Be friendly, don't spray, and leave the ego at home. And talk as much trash as possible about old guys who [actually] know how to place passive gear!

The cowbells scream noob or old dude, but damn they work well. And they sure are nice to bail from instead of a cam. Always carried a few bail hexes and bootied stoppers on longer trad routes.

Great article. And sure, there's some hypocrisy going on, but the author pokes fun at both old timers and young guns, unlike some of the stuff I've seen around here.

#1 rule for all of life comes from Bill and Ted: be good to each other. And that applies to trad, sport, gym, whatever!

Other than the "don't buy hexes", what does any of that have to do with trad climbing?

the people who are most offended are likely those who it applies to the most ;)

the intraweb forums are pretty irrelevant for climbing ... they are however fun on those rainy days =P

If you are going to get "butt hurt" by mountain project, maybe you should be a sport climber instead?

I get it, you’re nervous and want to defuse it. Cooking up sprayberry pies helps you feel competent and strong. Thing is, you sound like a jackass.

"sprayberry pies" is my favorite part of the page

Ah, I remember a time not long ago, when forums progressed naturally - without moderator interference, lacking moronic questions posed by noobs. When the old dudes and young alike traded quips without getting all "butt hurt." Those were the days...

It all changed when Bob D. erased his profile and all of his contributions. Now we live in a politically correct(ed) mountain project world, where people get offended by random anonymous posts that must be deleted at once for fear of hurt feelings. What has this database come to? Where do we go from here?

IDK, something about mediocre climbing ability mixed with mediocre understanding of climbing all the while wanting people to appreciate your opinion seems to be the trend. If they don't hold your hand and tell you what a nice job your doing out comes the whining. I spect when you have jumped through some "hoops", and have actually accomplished "stuff", it gets harder to offend.

Ryan Nevius wrote:A noob obviously placed that bigbeerbro. Sling in the middle? Really? Always slide the sling over to one side of the can. By the way, the knot in that dyneema will reduce the strength of it by 72.5498256% exactly. I know because I saw it on MP.com

best reply!

hopefully no one is getting their panties in a bunch too much over this one, Samson wrote this to get some laughs, and just give a couple pointers (especially the part about not buying hexes). I mean how many of us bought hexes to start and then sold them off to a younger climber? I know I did.

(Now I'm going back to the weed debate. Legalize IT, uuuuuuhhhhh.)

-CC