By Charlie Townsend, part two
1. Keep climbing
Climb at every opportunity. You should be bouldering on your lunch hour, top-roping after work or after class, cragging on the weekends, and road-tripping on your vacations. Do the math, and realize how cheap a ten-day trip to Joshua Tree could be. Or if time is the problem, remind yourself that two days is plenty at New River Gorge, since your arms will be toast anyway.
2. Optimize your down time
Do doorjamb pull-ups while you're waiting for the copier. Look for chalk marks on those old railroad bridge abutments. See if you can make it all the way down the hall without touching the floor. Then convince your partner that you'll help him turn his garage into a bouldering cave, since your landlord won't let you do it at your place.
3. Skip the serious training
The best training for climbing is climbing. Any time that you spend trying to improve your strength would probably be better spent trying to get more efficient and more creative. The best climbers aren't overpowering the crux moves, they're outsmarting them. Well, OK, maybe one of those hand-held squeezy-things would be a good idea in the car, but that's it.
4. Prepare for the unanticipated
Climbing gets more interesting when it becomes less predictable (if it stayed the same all the time, they'd call it car racing). Sometimes this means building a carabiner brake because you dropped your rappel device, or rigging a quick-haul system to help your partner through the crux. But sometimes it's a real emergency. Practice that stuff and become self-reliant.
5. Learn from everything and everyone
Watch other climbers. Watch other guides. Analyze what you see: Is it good? Bad? Pick up some history and learn from Royal Robbins and Miriam Underhill and Gaston Rebuffat. Look up the Compressor Route, the Titan, Midnight Lightning, and the Eigerwand. Read catalogs. Talk to rangers. Read the summit register. Get beta from locals. Read the notices on the campground bulletin board. Ask your mom.
Charlie Townsend is the manager of the EMS Climbing School in North Conway, NH, and has been guiding climbers there for 21 years. He has climbed all over the U.S. (especially Alaska), Canada, Scotland, and Nepal, but feels most at home on the crags of New Hampshire.
