“Breaking up” with sketchy climbing partners

Have you ever broken up with a climbing partner for being sketchy?  What did you say to them?

What was the concerning behavior?

Did you ever climb with them again?

Did they change or have they continued to be sketchy?

Did you warn others in your local community or let things work themselves out?

I had a very sketchy experience in The Enchantments this weekend and it got me thinking back to all the sketchy partners I’ve had in my 17 years of climbing.  I can’t help but feel that there’s this general through line of self absorption and lack of care for others that traverses all the way from bad mountaineering partners to bad bouldering buddies. Most people I talked to in my climbing community mentioned that they didn’t have the breakup convo until after they had been dropped, or abandoned in the alpine, etc..  Do we hold any responsibility for warning others or for telling our stories?

My first climbing breakup was in college (10 years ago? Ugh I’m old now) and it was just red flag after red flag that I ignored until it became too much.  Hands off belay and completely distracted, disregarding plans on the ground and leading into choss that rained on the whole crag with insufficient gear so he had to back clean for like 30m, and this same dude would free solo if he didn’t send for the day and frequently need to get rescued.  Last I heard this dude was begging for belays in Squamish and when he found my friends were from the same area, name dropped me for social credit to try and snag some partners. I had warned them long ago about this dude so they basically just called me laughing. This guy is still as sketchy as the day he started climbing.

I can almost guarantee that partner finder here is full of individuals like this who are sketchy enough that they can’t secure regular climbing partners (I’m not talking about all yall dirtbags on road trips).

Old heads can often smell this stuff from a mile away, but my concern is for those who are newer to climbing and don’t understand what normal safety, partnership, and mentorship look like.

My impression is that being sketchy should be a “one strike and you’re out” kind of situation, and that these individuals don’t often change their stripes, but I wanted to collect stories from more than just my little friend crew.

Spent a day climbing with a partner and a 3rd friend. That same day that 3rd person lost her credit card. As best she knew it was in her purse in my car parked at the trailhead. We saw no signs of forced entry. Turned out I was missing a card too! Wallet was there, cash in the wallet, but one card was gone! I was able to contact my bank even though it was late Saturday, and got the card shutdown. My friend, however, had to wait till she got home Sunday, and so called her credit card company Monday morning. Too late - someone had hit her account for +$3000. It remains a mystery to this day, what happened to those credit cards. 

Fast forward some months, maybe a year or two. I was with that same partner. We went into a gear store, I don't remember the reason why. Inside, we sort of separated as I was looking at one thing while he, another. Making my way back across the store I spotted him. He did this weird gesture, which I came to quickly understand he was looking around for observers, and I then watched him unbeknown, as he quickly stuffed a guidebook in his pants. I saw him do it. I was shocked, so shocked I couldn't bring myself to question or challenge him. I should have, my own failing. Later, not that day, he was openly using the stolen guidebook. He thought it was weird I never wanted to look at it.

It took me a while, I'm slow. But I started connecting dots.

I just stopped climbing with him. I always had a reason, an excuse. Eventually we stopped communicating.

There you go, sketchy partners.

In tree work I used to subcontract in Florida for the last three years and I fired a solid 10 or so companies from hiring me to come do their climbing for them. Reasons vary from things such as untying my life supporting rope from its ground anchor while I was 60ft up a tree. A secondary rope is the only reason I’m not dead or in a wheelchair. A different company grabbed the end of my lifeline with a skid steer and drove off with it with noticing the rope was in the claws(along with branches). He probably put 3000lbs of force or so onto my rope before someone stopped him. He didn’t notice. Someone else had to stop him. Another company owner didn’t understand the concept of hanging trees from nearby taller trees and he compromised my rig and caused a tree to fall on a power line that landed about 5-10ft away from me. A couple other companies were so obviously novice that I would drive 3 hours to a job just to tell them I’m not helping them and I gotta drive 3 hours back home now, unpaid. 

You would be amazed just how low IQ the majority of tree companies are. Bunch of 5.9 climbers going around thinking they can do things like free rider in el cap. When they realize they goofed; they call someone like me to fix their mess. follow(jumars) me up the route, let me do all the hard work, and then after the fact go around telling all their friends how they just climbed freerider in el cap. 

Imagine using climber finder on here. Driving 3 hours just to find out your “partner” has never once used a grigri or an atc, but has been climbing for 10 years. You have an obviously compulsive lying novice in front of you that you’re 100% about to train on how to rig technical trees down lol. That’s what what my life was for three years. They were also very likely to be a junky of some sort. 

Gah dang Erik that’s fricken brutal haha. Hopefully in a safer and higher IQ career now? A lot of misrepresenting experience and ability on MP and climbing in general :/

Ian Bloom wrote:

Gah dang Erik that’s fricken brutal haha. Hopefully in a safer and higher IQ career now? A lot of misrepresenting experience and ability on MP and climbing in general :/

I still climb trees but I live in Tennessee now and stick with the same crew that I have trained correctly. Subcontracting sucked haha.  All I did was sketchy trees no one else wanted to do and typically with an equally sketchy crew haha

I once had a sketchy partner and at the same time I too was the sketchy partner. We had communicated a bunch on line and decided to meet up to do a one day ascent of a major ice route in the Tetons. Everything went well on the climb for the most part. The most being that the belays were a wee bit loose/slack both while leading and following. When we finished the climb and were starting the descent one of us finally apologized to other for the poor belays and admitted falling asleep at the belays. The other then admitted doing the same. A good laugh ensued. In this case it did not lead to a break up but good friends as we later did some routes in the Alps fully confident of the other.

Allen Sanderson wrote:

I once had a sketchy partner and at the same time I too was the sketchy partner. We had communicated a bunch on line and decided to meet up to do a one day ascent of a major ice route in the Tetons. Everything went well on the climb for the most part. The most being that the belays were a wee bit loose/slack both while leading and following. When we finished the climb and were starting the descent one of us finally apologized to other for the poor belays and admitted falling asleep at the belays. The other then admitted doing the same. A good laugh ensued. In this case it did not lead to a break up but good friends as we later did some routes in the Alps fully confident of the other.

Excellent point allen! I too feel the most important thing in a partner is to be able to communicate and improve. 

Absolutely you need to be able to communicate and respond to feedback. Otherwise the feedback will come from the rock/mountain and it won’t be worded nearly as kindly.

The sketch partner of last weekend blocked tf out of me because he could tell I wasn’t impressed and was gonna say something haha so he will never hear my thoughts.

The sleeping belay story is so funny lmao. Important to acknowledge that we have all been the sketchy partner (my friend reminded me of a very shitty bouldering spot I gave haha) but it’s so crucial to learn and grow from these experiences and not shut out feedback that’s hard to hear.

I stopped climbing with one person based on another friends experience. She was new to trad and followed a pitch this person lead just to find out she was being belayed off of two fairly small detached blocks. By all accounts she unintentionally free soloed the route. I don't think anyone of the group that was there that day has climbed with that person since.

People talk. If you majorly fuck up and refuse to own up to it and learn from it, others will find out and you may be out a few extra climbing partners.

I had to awkwardly stop climbing with a family friend. I was already nervous being lowered (on a grigri!) by them as it was very start and stop - like I'd start getting lowered "too fast" and then stopped, and once was dropped ~8ish feet at the end and temporarily hurt something in the middle of my foot. I had about 35lbs on them though so I tolerated the difficulty they were having lowering me... if they were a stranger or we were using an ATC I would have stopped climbing with them but I didn't want to make things awkward at family gatherings.

One day we were gym climbing and I was hangdogging on a (top-rope) take. I went to start climbing again and heard my name and "STOP CLIMBING!!". I instantly assumed I had done something wrong, my knot was untied etc and grabbed a megajug, looking down to see what was happening but mentally ready to need to calmly down climb or clip my harness into a quick draw... my partner was putting on a sweater and fully not holding onto anything. 

I came down and explained that I would not climb with them anymore. They were apologetic and said it wouldn't happen again, but I was never going to be able to comfortably climb with them and trust they were prioritizing my safety.

Not the most exciting story but family gatherings continued, I still see them at the gym (and keep an eye on them but haven't seen them do anything sketchy since), and all was well if that's helpful to anyone trying to cut out a sketchy partner they know. 

Erik Strand wrote:

I still climb trees but I live in Tennessee now and stick with the same crew that I have trained correctly. Subcontracting sucked haha.  All I did was sketchy trees no one else wanted to do and typically with an equally sketchy crew haha

I once hired a tree crew (memphis) and the head guy didn’t want his crew to see me paying him because the crew would rob him!

I used to just tell them that their belaying or attentiveness or methods doing whatever suck.  I put it more tactfully than that, but that was the gist of my message.  I'm fairly well known for being candid, but I stopped doing that when these people would engage in pettiness including but not limited to:

Telling other people that indeed I was the shitty belayer and not them, or whatever the infraction was.

Starting other rumors about non climbing-related shit and other underhanded manipulative behavior.  

That happened to me twice within two years.  Peoples' egos are so fragile.  So now, instead of behaving with integrity and being forthright, I do what probably most other people do, and just slowly drift away and hope they don't mention anything.  

They don't.  

I've always been proud of my conscientiousness when it comes to all things safety-related in climbing.  I don't think I'm overboard with it and I'm not the safety gestapo to other groups.  I also pride myself on my belaying skill, rigging knowledge and general ability to get out of a bind and help other folks out of bad situations.  These days, I get as much or more satisfaction (especially with arthritis and bad knees) from someone being psyched to try hard on my belay because they trust me explicitly based on skills they've witnessed or knowing me for a long time.  I just don't understand people that don't take seriously what is more often than not a life or death situation, or at the very least a "get mangled or walk back to the car uninjured" scenario.  ANYONE that behaves in a casual or cavalier way when it comes to best practices whether that be belaying OR climbing, I have zero time for.  My willingness to be tactful and take a little bit of shit to help someone get "up to speed" is gone for good.  

I don't think anyone owes anyone else an explanation of why they don't want to climb with them.  If I'm asked, I'll tell the unabashed truth, but only if asked.  Otherwise, I now have a fairly trustworthy and tightly-knit group of experienced and conscientious people I climb with regularly, and almost all of them put my skills to shame (climbing-wise).  That's fine with me.  If I can't meet up with one of them, I boulder.  I refuse and have always refused to let anyone hold my rope that is inexperienced, or has done some weird, unexplainable, unjustifiable shit that put me at risk unnecessarily.  I can't fathom people that will go out and climb with randos, yet I see it happen all the time.  So, people have different risk aversions.  Mine errs on the side of me not getting mangled or unalived doing something I love.  YMMV.

Maybe 20 years ago in the lower gorge at Smith Rock (basalt cracks/columns) my friend was maybe 30 feet up Wildfire and in the vicinity of the 5.10 crux. I look at his belayer, who is using an ATC, and I watch her take both hands off the rope, use them to grab a yogurt she has rested on the wall in front of her, and scarf a bite or two. One hand to hold the yogurt, another to hold the spoon, none on the rope. She didn't see me see her, then she put the yogurt down and proceeded to again belay normally. 

I went right over and told her what I saw, and how appallingly messed up it was, whether the leader is on 5.10 or 5.1 moves. She more or less begged me not to tell the leader, that it was a one-off, she knew she shouldn't have, she was just hungry. Whatever. I stood where she could watch me watch her belay for the rest of the route and when the leader came down I told him what happened and let them sort it out. She knew enough to not partner with me again, though we had a big group of mutual friends. I probably did tell this story to others in our larger group of climbers so they could be aware of her behavior, but did I go out of my way to blackball her in the larger community? No, but then again, this was before MP and FB. Still, I would not have taken the larger step to publicly shame someone by name because who knows what kind of backlash from them or others you will create, or be accused yourself of lying or creating drama, etc. Best to tell the story to your crew and from there let the chips fall, hoping the person will change their ways.

I try to watch a prospective partner belaying other people before climbing with them so that I don't have to get hurt or have an awkward breakup later.

Mark B wrote:

I once hired a tree crew (memphis) and the head guy didn’t want his crew to see me paying him because the crew would rob him!

I'd bet big money he was robbing them , at least until "the check arrived in the mail". 

I've really only had a single proper breakup and it was a bit of an odd one. About 2 years ago I was in Yosemite and I ended up partnering up with someone from the partner finder forum. We decided to climb the kore bech on middle cathedral. I will note at this point that I had messed up and over sold my abilities unintentionally. I was still on the newer side to trad climbing and wasn't yet familiar with yosemite grades, so I thought I would be comfortable leading 5.9 because I had done so elsewhere, but at the time I was really more of a yosemite 5.6 leader even though I wasn't aware of that. So, as I'm sure you can imagine, the climb didn't end up going very well. I ended up following the first pitch, which was way harder than I anticipated and put me in a really bad headspace. When I started leading the 2nd pitch, I got about 20' up and it really sank in just how out of my depth I was, so I decided to bail on the lead. After that we decided to completely bail on the climb.

So that was the background to this breakup. The weird part came when I suggested we just spend the day cragging (which was previously discussed as a possible alternative to doing a multipitch climb) and they said they did not feel safe climbing with me, which hurt but I could ultimately accept because I know I am not perfect. The weird part came in when I asked them WHY they felt unsafe climbing with me. I wanted to know so I could try and improve, but they would not even hint at what I had done to make them feel unsafe. I made it clear that I wanted to know so I could improve going forward, but they still would not explain. That interaction admittedly also made me feel terrible for a pretty long time and it probably would've been hard for me to reconcile it if I hadn't had someone to help put it in context for me (that person funnily enough happened to be the person who my partner from this story went to climb with the same day after they climbed with me. This also reminded me that they actually lied to me and said their trip was ruined and they were driving back home after we split.)

So that is the medium version of the only real climbing breakup I had. I was mostly the problem in this particular one, but it was still kinda sketchy that the person who called me sketchy wouldn't explain how I was being sketchy. Having been on the other side of this, I'd like to ask y'all that if you are breaking up with a partner for a safety reason, please explain it to them instead of just leaving them to wonder/speculate.

i started ghosting a guy i used to climb with after we went on a day trip to tuolumne. it's a 5.5 hr drive each way (yes, a dumb day trip but it is what it is), we agreed to meet at 5am at his house, so i show up just before and his lights are off. i called and knocked and stayed for about 25 minutes until he woke up. he and his girlfriend were hung over from the night before, not at all ready to go. we left at 645. his girlfriend wasn't originally in the plans, i think it's not ideal to add a 3rd to a tight day like that but she helped with driving which i guess was okay. he also brought his dog. he let the dog shit at the trailhead and left the shit there because we already started hiking even though the car with the poop bags was less than 20 yards away. also dogs aren't allowed on the trails - i thought it was a) annoying to have his dog there and b) certainly a disregard of the rules, whatever you may think of them. his girlfriend who was browsing through the guidebook as we were leaving the car left it on her seat, later saying "i thought we had looked at it enough". anyway all this shit is just annoying and i had already decided early on that i would never go on a trip with him again. we climbed at murphy creek, a single pitch crag with a two mile approach, it was a really lovely place where you can walk and set top rope anchors. we both walked up and picked an anchor. the anchors were on the face, not above the ledge. i did a sling / masterpoint / two lockers to TR off of and then began walking back down. i was walking past him as he was finishing up his anchor, two QDs. okay, maybe not ideal for multiple TR laps but then this fucking dude puts himself on rappel (above his anchor) and fucking JUMPS DOWN while holding the brake of his atc. scared the shit out of me, but not only because that's fucking ridiculous, but also because - and this is for real - one of the QDs was snagged on the nose on the bolt side as it got tensioned by his FUCKING JUMP and the other QD had its rope similarly trapped between the nose and the gate. i felt like if there had been a slight gust of wind he would have splatted down on the rocks below.

we drove in his car and were two miles away so i didn't leave. i asked his girlfriend to belay me on my rope and then i belayed him on my rope and asked that he pull his rope. he got really pumped on his turn and we called it a day.

i would see him at the gym after that but always just came up with excuses for not climbing with him. i wish i would have just said that i am not interested in climbing with him anymore, this was several years ago and i would be fine just saying it now as a more mature person, but he's moved to a different state. nice enough guy but totally unacceptable decision making that no other turn of events would ever make me trust. sorry dude.

EDIT: i did tell some other people that he climbed with in the gym, which is why i feel shitty that i didn't tell him first. i feel like that would have been the right thing to do.

Met up with a guy to climb in on a trip after my original partners lost the stoke. 

Some orange flags while planning the climb but not enough to bail, I was desperate. 

We hike in, camp. Morning of the climb, I want to start early because of both a low risk tolerance and personal reasons (wanted to get back to town early to meet with partners for the next climb.) He wants to start late in order for the rock to be warmer. Minor disagreement that can be resolved like adults right? Worst case he could just physically refuse to get out of his sleeping bag. Wrong. He immediately resorted to the cruelest name-calling and hurtful tirade that I've ever been subject to in my life.  Refuses to listen to reason or defense. Just plain mean. It's hard to explain and over a keyboard I just sound like a snowflake.. But it was extreme. I was sobbing even though I rarely show emotion in front of anyone. He didn't seem very surprised at this, and expected to continue on with our plan to do a 2nd climb together - Does he think it's normal to make partners cry?

Anyway, thats's the first time that I explicitly refused to climb with someone again. I kicked him out of the team that I had organized for another climb.

Weeks later I get a WhatsApp message from someone who had figured out via MP forum stalking that I knew him (I have since removed all connections to him on MP to protect his identity, so don't go looking). She says he scammed her out of a $300 deposit for borrowing some gear worth $100. Eventually she managed to get her money back by cornering him on the street.

This person is a  guide, and although I doubt he treats his clients in exactly the same way, he obviously has some major personality/ethical problems that imo do affect his ability to guide people who trust him blindly. briefly considered making a complaint to the AMGA, but he didn't do anything other than say hurtful words to me, and the scam thing was second hand. - Should I?

Ellen S wrote:

Met up with a guy to climb in on a trip after my original partners lost the stoke. 

Some orange flags while planning the climb but not enough to bail, I was desperate. 

We hike in, camp. Morning of the climb, I want to start early because of both a low risk tolerance and personal reasons (wanted to get back to town early to meet with partners for the next climb.) He wants to start late in order for the rock to be warmer. Minor disagreement that can be resolved like adults right? Worst case he could just physically refuse to get out of his sleeping bag. Wrong. He immediately resorted to the cruelest name-calling and hurtful tirade that I've ever been subject to in my life.  Refuses to listen to reason or defense. Just plain mean. It's hard to explain and over a keyboard I just sound like a snowflake.. But it was extreme. I was sobbing even though I rarely show emotion in front of anyone. He didn't seem very surprised at this, and expected to continue on with our plan to do a 2nd climb together - Does he think it's normal to make partners cry?

Anyway, thats's the first time that I explicitly refused to climb with someone again. I kicked him out of the team that I had organized for another climb.

Weeks later I get a WhatsApp message from someone who had figured out via MP forum stalking that I knew him (I have since removed all connections to him on MP to protect his identity, so don't go looking). She says he scammed her out of a $300 deposit for borrowing some gear worth $100. Eventually she managed to get her money back by cornering him on the street.

This person is a  guide, and although I doubt he treats his clients in exactly the same way, he obviously has some major personality/ethical problems that imo do affect his ability to guide people who trust him blindly. briefly considered making a complaint to the AMGA, but he didn't do anything other than say hurtful words to me, and the scam thing was second hand. - Should I?

A friend and I ran into a situation like this with a Canadian guide a long time ago (i.e. in the mid-1960's). We were staying in Banff at the Canadian Alpine Club and for a rest day we opted for a short three-pitch climb somewhere very close to the town.  The second pitch of this climb had a very long traverse---maybe 5.4 or 5.5---overhung above and below, and then an ascent to a stance that was out of sight above.  As we arrived at the base, we noted a party on the route with the leader at the stance above the traverse and the second just beginning the traverse. We figured by the time we geared up and both arrived at the first belay stance, the party would be long gone.  Well, that was not the case.  As we were climbing, we began to hear some of the conversation between the leader and the second.  The second seemed terrified to start the traverse, and the leader was shouting nasty insults and said, "You could ride a bicycle across that traverse!"

When we arrived at the belay, we encountered a frightened young woman who told us the leader was a guide she had hired. (I have no idea whether he was a guide in some official capacity or was just scamming her.)  This was her first climb, and indeed I think one of her boots (mountain boots, not rock shoes) had a price tag still on it.  There was no protection in on the traverse, so if she fell off she would have taken a massive pendulum, ending up hanging in space on the overhanging terrain below the traverse.  Although she had no experience, her intuition correctly told her that she was in a dangerous situation.  But she didn't know how dangerous--these were the days before harnesses, and she didn't even have a swami belt, just a bowline around her waist in truly old-school style. Had she fallen off, she would have had maybe 15 minutes of hanging before the waist loop slid up enough to compress her breathing and strangle her, if she didn't suffocate from aspirated vomit first.  Sadly, there had been fatalities from situations like this in the past and more in the years after--a swami belt did not improve the situation.  (Experienced climbers knew a solution to the problem which, among other tricks, involved purposely inverting,)

We considered offering her a back-belay, but realized that there would still be a risk that she would end up hanging in space if she fell and we didn't know if we could haul her back to our stance if that happened.  The guide was up there shouting obscenities, and we decided, with some trepidation because of the encounter we might subsequently have with him, to lower her off to the ground.  We shouted up to the guide that we were doing this, made her a swiss seat from a sling so she wouldn't have to hang by her waist, and down she went, sobbing the whole way.  We could hear her sobbing still after she had untied and was making her way back to the trailhead and her car.  We tried to explain that the guide was a total asshole who should never chosen that route, but I think she was still blaming herself for some kind of failure in spite of our reassurances, and was dealing with all the weight of shattered expectations.

We were worried about a possible confrontation with the guide, but he pulled up the rope and when we reached the next stance he was gone. If we had any idea who he was, we would have investigated whether there was in those days and organization for guides and if so would have reported what happened and how he had endangered a client.  As it was, he remained free to carry on as before.

This situation was worse than yours, Ellen, because the guide's negligence put the client in mortal danger. Your relation was as a partner not as a paying client. So  I think those things would make it inappropriate to report him to the AMGA.  (Note--if there was physical abuse involved, or even  if you just  found him to be negligent in his climbing practices, the situation would be completely different.) As for the scamming story, that is second-hand coming from you; I think the person involved should be the one to bear witness in that case.  On the other hand, it is surely appropriate to spread the word to your friends and acquaintances that this is someone to be avoided, 

I have to confess to feeling a little conflicted about som these recommendations, because the climbing community has just had to face up to its communal failure to intervene with an individual who was physically abusive and extremely threatening, and I don't want to be part of a long line of people who overlooked mounting evidence of pathological behavior.  But I don't think what you've described rises to that level.

 It isn't clear from your description whether you carried on with the planned climb after his outbursts.  Personally, I would have called it a day then and there, although of course that would almost certainly have led to more conflict.  But someone who isn't treating you decently on the ground is not likely to improve once you're up on a route, especially if things go wrong for any reason.

There are, I think, three other lessons to consider, First, it isn't a great idea to go off on a back-country adventure with someone you don't know at all. A very low-key climb in an accessible locale might give you some insight into who you are dealing with. Second, if you are going to do this, discussions about starting times and other preferences are best conducted well before you've embarked on the enterprise. Third, desperation is not a good frame of mind to be in when planning an excursion with someone you don't know. I do get the frustration of having ruined plans, perhaps involving months or years of planning and significant costs. But things can get ugly climbing, and there is a pretty good argument for just embracing the lost opportunity (maybe go for a nice solo hike) with the understanding that a desperate solution might turn out to be worse than just bailing on the project.

I have had a few such situations.

One that I remember was when I was new at leading trad. I went up some easy short single pitch and was scared half the way questioning the gear. My partner who was belaying me was probably stressed by the situation and did not handle it well. First the person started looking for something and walking around causing the rope to pull on me. Then the partner started complaining that the gear was not extended enough causing wear on the rope and that it was not ok (the route went on-sight without the rope being loaded). I remember that I was quite frank afterwards about what I thought about that and we did not climb again. My view was that the partner did not handle stress well and that is something that is very difficult to fix. We did not climb again, but are still friends. Some of our mutual friends have heard about it, but it's not that I feel I need to warn others about this.

Then I had a partner that I found online when posting about wanting to do more easy multipitch as such stuff. I live in Sweden so you have to travel quite a bit to find something like that, so it becomes quite an investment in time and money. A partner connected and was very stoked on this sort of things claiming to be comfortable leading up to 5.10a on-sight on gear. To test this out we did one day of very easy sport climbing. The person was belaying quite badly and did some sketchy stuff trying to get the QDs down from a 5.8 bolted climb they bailed. Since this person was very stoked and up for doing stuff I gave it another chance and we went to place with good trad climbing. My partner took the rack and tried leading a 5.6. The partner bailed and came down and I led the route. I found my cams overcammed to such an extent that I lost a cam. The partner seconded the pitch and we went to rap down. Since this partner seemed a little out of their comfort zone, I asked if the partner knew how to rap and if this person wanted to stack brakes or anything like that. I rapped down and had to wait well over half an hour for the partner to come down. I realized that the person was not sure on how to do a rap and that was incredibly sketchy. I finished the day by picking a 5.3 that I would be comfortable to solo and the partner lead that pitch. When I got to the anchor as a second, I could see that the anchor was a not perfect micro cam and minimal rock horn like 10-15 cm high with a sling around it. I suggested that the person should take some basic trad course and practise more, but I do not think that this person really understood that. I still talk with this person regularly and I get invites to do stuff. I would however never go to a multi pitch with the person. I have told some friends this story, but also here, I don't think I need to try to warn people about this person. Back then, the lack of still was very obvious. It was kind of sad, since the person was so stoked and still very friendly, simply lacking skill and proper assessment of their own ability.

Then I have a few partners who I would not do anything more serious with since their risk acceptance is higher than mine and they regularly have accidents. They still have good skills and are quite open about this. I still climb with them less serious settings.