Oftentimes, when things start to go sideways on a climbing adventure the crew’s gaze will turn to the more experienced party members. These are the tjoms that have been benighted multiple times, made art out of sketchy manoeuvres – the ones who’ve been around the bloc. Usually, these tjoms are the raggamuffin dudes of the crew. For the first We Move Up event hosted in Boven we wanted to shift that paradigm a bit.
Most women climbers who have found themselves in a tricky situation will relate to the above scenario. Let’s be real here, it’s normally the guys in our climbing crews who have pushed themselves into sketchy territory in the name of a send. While many of us choose not to live that life, it does tend to impart some useful knowledge. Knowledge of ropes, systems, safety and efficiency. I think we all thank the Sending Carrots that Be for these okes.
In my own life I’ve been saved from what would have been some serious misadventures due to the knowledge, skills and psych of the people in my crew. They turned what would have been a very embarrassing call to MSAR into a somewhat sketchy yet fun adventure, fondly remembered around campfires.
No greater example comes to mind than getting our butts collectively whooped in 2023 by the Wolkberg. I won’t go into details of that mission here – it deserves its own post. Suffice it to say, if it wasn’t for the rigging knowledge of Tim Slab, Wes Antonities, Martin Swart and others I would’ve spent a very lame, cold, wet and hungry week on top of a mountain.
I mention the Wolkberg epic because it planted a seed in my mind. I knew that if it weren’t for the experienced members in my crew I was up the creek without a paddle – literally. I started to wonder why there was such a huge skills gap in our community and how to remedy it.
The way I decided to go about this was through We Move Up. It’s a special event which attracts certain types of climbers you don’t see at other events. That’s not to say this is a simple case of boys vs. girls. It’s more nuanced than that. The vibe at We Move Up has always been a gentler, more understanding space than the typical “psyched-to-send” arena of climbing you find yourself in. This attracts a diverse crew of climbers who come to experience climbing in a different flow than normal. It always makes for a relaxed time where you leave feeling more at peace with yourself and understood by your community. We Move Up gives us all the space to be our authentic selves in a pressure-free environment, no matter your gender.
I saw We Move Up as an opportunity to provide skills to climbers who want to improve their knowledge of systems, safety, access and maybe even those keen to lay siege to a big wall. We’ve got to start somewhere though, ideally at the basics. With that in mind we settled on three skills to teach over the weekend – abseiling, escaping the system and passing the knot.
If you weren’t there over the chilly June weekend, here’s what you missed. Friday night saw most of the crew arrive. We had a relatively chilled night, stoking the fire and getting to know each other a bit better. Eventually, we all called it a night and went to bed. Mainly because we were all about to turn into icicles.
Saturday morning greeted us with the horror of ice. Ice on the tents. Ice on the floor. Ice everywhere! It was proper cold – at least I felt all my shivering over the night had been justified. The morning started out with some serious faffing around the campsite. Eventually, we managed to pull ourselves towards ourselves and head down to the crag. The plan had been to learn our safety skills on Saturday and then climb on Sunday. Unsurprisingly, the sight of that tasty Boven rock had us too stoked to do anything but climb. That’s fine, a Saturday well spent. After some serious burns and battles with the rock we headed back to camp – determined that tomorrow we would definitely start learning all that safety stuff.
Saturday night was a real goodie. The whole crew was assembled and we spoke well into the night. Topics ranged from mental and physical health, to the transient nature of relationships, all the way to the correct pronunciation of Harry Potter spells.
Sunday greeted us with a lovely morning yoga session led by Karine. Watching the Boven sun chase away the cold of the night, energising everyone for the day to come. Today was the day – we were going to learn that safety stuff!
Grizzly Behr was the chosen climb to huddle around, the ledge above-made setup easy peasy. Three stations were constructed – Abseil, Escape the System and Pass the Knot. I was on abseil duty, instructing everyone on how to use an ATC and prusik for a lekker-safe descent. Tim was on Escape the System, after instructing Anj we lost him to the call of Mayhem – an understandable side quest. Stefan was on the Knot Passing station. While we didn’t technically get to that part, we did learn how to safely ascend a rope. A valuable skill which can easily be translated into passing the knot.
Overall the psych was high. Everyone was grinning and grooving with the flow of things. Eventually, we went our separate ways and headed home, tired and ready for a good shower. I know I’m sleeping easier knowing that more climbers out there are equipped for some fancy ropework.
