What is your good/bad mountain project meetup story with a rando?

I missed the start of this thread

I could add stories of bad & good times

but I think it Seems kind of  "Weak Sauce" to complain,
not everyone is going to find the right balance every time.

Some times the saying To Each: Their Own" needs to be embraced. . . .

I'LL go find the pictures of the day
That  the crusher

I met up with North Col and eventually took him on his first outdoor lead. He was down to wade through waist-deep snow in barely above-freezing temps just for a shot at climbing a short, wet, sandbagged route in the middle of nowhere. Most stoked and curious partner I've ever had, 10/10!

Among other good experiences, I met one of my best friends and my FA partner through a MP partner request.

However when wildfires caused a friend to bail on a Yosemite trip and left me in the Valley without a partner, everyone I tried to reach out to bailed. It's hit or miss for me. 

I am very new and had great luck finding people to climb with and appreciate those with more experience that were willing to climb with me.  I always ask for how to be the best partner I can be and I ask for criticism afterward.  I am also honest about my experience from the start.  So far each person I met has been willing to climb with me again and the feeling has been mutual.  The power of the internet is awesome for finding new friends with like interests.  

I've not had a single offer via the "Partner Finder" thing, nor have I ever just hit up random strangers based on zip code. Partner meet ups have always been through the forums. Then PMs, eventually texts when things get close.

I've replied to a lot of "in Boise for a day, wanna climb" requests. They have all been very fun, meeting people from all over the country, and almost every one of them on their first visit to Boise.

One of those, we hit it off before he ever arrived, and a couple years out now, he is the closest friend I've ever had. We've met up again, now and then, but living in two different states makes it hard.

I've also made many, many, friends on MP, some of them are "family" now, even if we have yet to meet. Some on here, I am now getting to meet, and plans are in the works for a whole lot more of that.

Consider yourself "warned", MP. OLH may be coming soon to a crag near you!

Or, just let me know if you are ever in my neck of the woods. I truly love climbing, but if it came to a choice, if I had to give up the people, or give up climbing? I'd chop off my leg.

Other than the "family", already mentioned, partner highlights include:

• Early on, a mother and son team, climbing with my noob son and myself
• An MP admin, with thousands of climbs, very strong climber, yet climbing easy stuff with me. It's fun to watch very strong climbers onsighting new rock in a new area...perfectly.
• A lady who had lost her climbing and life partner recently, and had to regather her head game mid climb. Some tiny gear placed, lead swapped, swapped back....We were both crying by the time she topped and came down. 
• A fellow who was dirtbagging. For two years. With a bicycle and trailer. Came through Boise from Smith, made a loop through Idaho, had plans to eventually turn south. To Patagonia. On a bike.

I met up with MattN and we climbed together bitd. Those were some awesome trips, I hope I wasn't the loser partner because I really enjoyed climbing with him.

I don't see Priaprism on here much anymore but I drove 7hrs to Yos to meet him and we spent a whole two days seeking out dirty offwidth and trying to climb them. He was a monster OW climber did generator with either side in iirc.

Met up with a random chick off here to climb in SB, it was fun, got invited to tacos and beer after. She was critical of my safety on some things but we climbed together a fair bit after that.

I was supposed to meet up with Guy at Needles one time but honestly I got scared and never made time to do it... I regret that.

When moving to Boston I found a climbing partner here. We climbed together for a few years, until he left town to go to grad school. He was (and still is) a good guy and a good climbing partner, so I'd recommend it to other people looking for partners.

Zay Redux wrote: responded to a last minute partner request.
we each woke up at 4am and drove into yosemite from two different coastal cities.
swung leads up commitment/selaginella.
went swimingly.

I want to be one of your MP stories ;)

Met a fantastic partner on here recently. 
Climbed with weirdos that I didn't meet on here.. MP seems to be a lot more climber oriented than seeking peeps you see at the crag with Quads and PAS thongs or gym weirdos.
 

Back when I started climbing because I didn't know anyone in the climbing community and didn't have a gym to hang out at, I met most of my partners on MP, Honestly never had a bad experience and met several lifelong friends in the process. there were a handful of people that I never got out a second time with but I think that just happens, in general being friendly sets you up to have a good time. That said I think It's important to give prospective partners a hard look, in my experience if you look at someone's MP profile it should make sense, are the grades they say they climb close to their ticklist? are there red flags somewhere in the conversation or do they flake out on the first meetup? if they can't show the first time I'm probably not trying too hard to get out again.

Ero Sennin wrote: My climbing would optimistically be considered mediocre on the best of days, but my memory is impeccable.  I remember everything from WhitneyZone/WhitneyPortal feuds to a certain midget guide out of Bishop wanting to kick your ass.  

The climbing world is such a small place.  Case in point, I remember sitting with some random crag dog on the North Face of Suicide taking pictures of a Millennial leading some old gumby up Flower on May 12th of 2018 as he was barndooring left and right off the thing.  Next thing you know Tradiban shows up and floats up Etude IN APPROACH SHOES after the previous party had set up a top rope.  We saw the same party struggling up the Trough on June 2nd (LOL WTF!).  By that Fall, the Millennial was climbing with Tradiban.  On November 30th, I met Tradiban's neighor at Illusion Dweller but he didn't know it.  He was complaining to my face about some stupid guy (me) making a post about Snow Creek.  Fast forward several months and Tradiban thinks I don't recognize him or his neighbor, but I see them before he removed some old gumby's (the same one from Flower) nuts from Consolation.  It's interesting observing people and their behaviors from the sidelines.  We've all crossed paths in some way shape or form, we just don't always know it.

We were supposed to have either done the East Ridge or the Fishhook Arete, but you were racist back then and preferred to climb with a white dude from Fresno.  There is no confusion on my part.  :-)

Fixed that for ya ;)

Jason Voss wrote: Based on your posting history that’s one smart girl!!! 

You and her would have got along great!! She just didn't like me soloing past bolts to a traverse to set a top rope on a climb, you could walk around and set a TR from the top or you could solo the 5.7 which I had climbed a lot and then do a 10 ft traverse to the .11 next to it and set a TR. To each their own, for the record I did not do that again with her and we climbed together quite a bit. 

I've had mostly good but one time i met up with a guy who said he was a very exp climber and should be able to keep up climbing moderates at Paradise Forks in NAZ. Long story short... we rappel down into the canyon and when he meets me at the bottom he is completely winded from just a single pitch of rappelling. I proceed to climb up the easiest route in the entire canyon. He starts to follow and cant even do 3 moves. i end up having to get another rope and rig a 3 system to haul him to the top. Never got to climb the rest of the day and wasted approximately $20 in gas. What a fucking jerry......

Every experience has been great on here, local groups (fb, meetup) have been... Mostly miss.

No one from MP has told me at the base that I'm going to need to teach them how to use their ATC so that's a plus. 

Can’t recall ever using partner finder but have climbed with many I’ve met through forum posts. All but two were good enough I’d climb with again, many I still keep in contact with and are my primary climbing partners. 

I have met some great partners  thru mp.  I call them mountain project  blind  dates. Some  I have climbed with for years, been on  some  great  trips. The worst was the woman  who claimed to be a good/experienced  climber who fell on a 5.3. She also said she was fun to hang out with and crawled in the back of her car at 7 pm.  And also a guy who fell on every 5.7  that I led.  My biggest complaint is people  over estimating their  climbing  ability.    I almost always  do single  pitch  climbs the  first  day, that has prevented a lot of epics. 

Ero Sennin wrote:

Fast forward several months and Tradiban thinks I don't recognize him or his neighbor, but I see them before he removed some old gumby's (the same one from Flower) nuts from Consolation.  It's interesting observing people and their behaviors from the sidelines.  We've all crossed paths in some way shape or form, we just don't always know it.

Sorry I didn't recognize you, all white people look the same to me.

i've had consistently good experiences meeting up with people on the proj, including meeting solid climbers who i've climbed with on the regular.  i feel like the buy-in to be willing to wake up pre-dawn to drive at least three hours to go get some pitches in really limits the rif-raff.

for sure have heard some real horror stories though, seems like it can be hard out there for ladies....

Not MP related, but I once met a guy to partner in the gym.  He's strangely chatty about my job - it's fine at first, but then wants to know am I happy, how's the work/life balance, etc.  OK, whatever, some people are just more inquisitive than others, but I work in finance, it's not that interesting.  However after 2-3 routes, literally as he's tied in to lead a route, he comes back with "What if I told you you could replace your current income and work from home with all the free time you wanted?"  This MFer was trying to sell me Amway or some shit!  Buddy, at least wait until the third date, I have standards.  Was a pretty solid climber tho. 

Met a brajala off of the message board at my gym to go sport climbing at the local chosspile Red Wing.

I can smell the weed on him, he brought three dogs and his girlfriend who doesn't know how to belay. The dogs were nice, but I don't care for crag dogs.

I lead two 5.9's and he and his GF struggle on both, get lowered.

Lead a 5.10 and get to a midway small ledge and take a breather, look down and he is trying to transfer the belay to her so she can learn???  I wasn't very politic in my conversation at this point...Bromeister took the ATC back and I finished the route, cleaned it and left.