Problem News:
Sooo there’s this problem…you SIT-START on two tiny RAZOR CRIMPS…PASTE your left foot…POP to a CREDIT CARD EDGE…it’s got a SICK DYNO to the TOP RAIL…our problems just aren’t the same as Other People’s Problems.
We’ve got more than 60 problems that are less than 2 weeks old in SLC, and the Vert and Scoop bouldering walls in Ogden are being reset as these letters pop up on the screen.
Rainy weekend comin’, right on cue…see you in the gyms! 🙂
Setting: The Enigma
Speaking of problems, do you ever wonder how they get there? If you’ve ever set a problem before or even watched someone else set one, you’ve probably noticed that there’s a method to it. Not every setter uses the same method, but you can bet they have one. Some will pick out holds and lay the problem out on the ground before anything gets bolted to the wall. Others will choose their holds as they go and let the problem “reveal itself” to them. Still others will pick a random hold (usually it’s quite giant) and throw it up in the middle of the wall so the rest of the problem grows upward and downward from a central point. And others yet will claim that they channel John Gill (a legendary boulderer, one of the first in the U.S.).
Regardless of which method is used, the holds are then adjusted (“tweaked”) to make a move easier or harder, footholds are added or removed to do the same, and the problem is opened up to input from other setters or climbers to see if the moves “go”, if it’s fun, and if it can realistically be called the grade the setter was targeting. Needless to say, setting is a very subjective art. Cool, creative movement that flows on modular holds in the gym isn’t something that happens automatically. It seems that every setter has their own style, and with experience many even learn to transcend that and put up problems that aren’t shaped by their own strengths.
Setting isn’t easy; it can be as strenuous or more so than working a hard route or problem. Moves are repeated countless times in an effort to make sure a problem is the best it can be. Hours are spent balancing on ladders or hanging in a harness. Fingertips split from handling bolts, wrists sore from turns of the wrench, egos bruised from watching someone bypass the crux move by crimping a foot chip…this is the life of a routesetter.
Next time you come across a problem you really like in the gym, take a look at the setter’s initials on the tape at the start of the problem and yell, “THANK YOU __ (INITIALS)! That was the BEST PROBLEM EVAHHH!”
Leave a comment