Routesetting Lesson 2: Stripping Routes

It’s been about 2 1/2 weeks since my first routesetting lesson. Things got busy for both me and Dustin, and today was the first day we found to continue. Today started off as a review of the rigging, as I set up my anchors. Then I jugged my way to the top of the wall, and stripped two routes to make room for new ones. When I got to the top of the wall I hauled up my bucket with the power impact wrench and bits, attached it to the top anchor carabiners, and started taking holds off the wall. The holds used 2 different kinds of bolts, so occasionally I had to swap bits. The holds and bolts went in the bucket as I worked, and I peeled off the old tape as well. Every few feet I had to move the bucket down to the next draw on the wall, and lower myself using the Grigri.

I made a few mistakes in the course of this. None were dangerous, but they all made me do extra work. Partway down I realized I had left my ascender at the top of the wall, so I had to climb my way back up to retrieve it. Near the bottom Dustin pointed out that I had missed one hold and one strip of tape, so again I had to go back up to get those. Apparently these are common errors, but the extra climbing made me want to look more closely as I work next time! By the time I got to the bottom my legs were a bit sore from hanging in the harness throughout the process.

Overall today was pretty straightforward, and actually kind of fun. I need to keep practicing what I’ve learned, and stripping routes is the best way to do that, while also contributing some useful work to the gym. So I’ll try to do some of that once or twice a week until everything feels a little more automatic.