WCG’s First Moab Crack Clinic: a Recap
And just like that, WCG’s first Moab crack clinic is a wrap. Many hands were jammed, fingers slotted, toes wedged, and only minor gobies were sustained, so all-in-all, I’d say it was a resounding success. From WCG’s founding, Nik, Stephen, and I have known that crack climbing is something that defines our mutual love for climbing, so while the idea of a multi-day clinic teaching splitter technique in the desert is far from an original one, early on we knew it was something we wanted to offer and could do well. Originally we had hoped to get as many participants as we could for this program, but this being our first clinic and with Nik, Stephen and I only barely being able to pronounce the word “marketing”, we ended up with just a single climber for our first go. That said, I was very psyched to run this program anyway, and our lone climber Levi definitely got a full value trip. Levi is also an awesome guy and solid climber, and we had a great time together.
Anyway, here’s what we’ve been up to the last few days:
Day 1: Crack climbing fundamentals
Our first day began along Kane Creek where a lot of Moab’s friendliest introductory cracks live. We spent the morning covering the basics of taping, gear considerations, and hand and foot jamming on a few shorter climbs that would lay the groundwork for the afternoon. In the afternoon, we went across the river to Wall Street to put our skills to the test on some steeper pitches like the handcrack/layback corner of “Another Roadside Distraction”, and the balancy thin fingers corner of “Eat the Rich”. We did a few laps on each trying to improve efficiency with each iteration but also trying to save energy so that there would be something left in the tank for the following two days.
Levi on Flakes of Wrath at Wall Street
Day 2: Intermediate techniques and longer pitches
On our second day the goal was to take the skills from day one and apply them to some longer pitches with the idea that we would push our endurance limits and have to be as efficient as possible to make it to make it to the top. We also covered some new sizes and practiced some new sizes like thin hands, splitter fingers, and even a few ringlocks on routes like “Working Class Hero” and “Christine’s Way Buff Saab”.
It’s hard to make a butt shot look cool, but that sure is a nice crack. Levi on “Working Class Hero”.
Day 3: Even longer cracks, and all the sizes we missed!
To finish things off, we spent our last day in Long Canyon, where the views are possibly even better than the climbing. Long Canyon features Indian Creek-style corners and splitters and the routes we did ran the gamut from ringlocks to offwidth. At this point, we could feel the cumulative pump from climbing three days on long routes, so every foot of progress felt hard earned and required maximum efficiency and good footwork. We climbed until overcome by aching shoulders, creaky fingers, and sore toes.
Alright, this one I took a few days before the clinic, but still—Long Canyon is awesome! Joe after sending Manta Ray.
One of the things I love about instructional programs like these is that everyone always learns something, myself included. Some of the takeaways that I had from teaching this program are that:
-Crack climbing is physical! Nearly everybody can stand to improve their efficiency a bit. Even our guides spend the beginning of every desert season getting tuned up to climb the hard sizes and get re-acquainted to the particularities of climbing on Wingate (at least I do, I can’t speak for Nik and Stephen…).
-Three days seems like the perfect length for future clinics. No matter what level you’re at currently, if you’re pushing your personal limits on long and sustained desert cracks, I think it’s hard to do more days than that without a rest day. I think we’ll stick with the three day length for now.
-Being flexible is key! We had about the smallest clinic possible (one climber!) this go around, which made it really easy to adjust our plans each day and change venues or even visit multiple zones in a day based off of the sizes and grades we wanted to climb and how tired we felt. I’d like to do the same with future clinics even as they (hopefully!) grow in size.
We’re excited to run this clinic again the future and hopefully it just keeps growing. We may even look into another venue for a more advanced clinic somewhere further south… Stay tuned!