Cole's Climbing Glossary

My hub of climbing, boarding, and mountain terminology referenced in other posts.

The Montem Monumentum

Loosely translated: the mountain dictionary.

I decided to put together this little glossary of sorts, for any of you who want to immerse yourself in the climbing, mountaineering, and snowboarding cultures.

Some of these terms are downright silly. Hopefully you’ll get a laugh out of a few of these. Future posts will also link back here for clarification on terms.

Mountaineering — General

• Cairn: Rock pile structures used to mark the trail above the tree line

• CFI: Short for the Colorado Fourteeners Initiative. It’s the organization doing most of the building and maintenance of fourteeners

• DeCaLiBron: A trail loop joining Democrat, Cameron, Lincoln, and Bross; four popular fourteeners. Or three, depending on whose rules you follow, Cameron may not be one

• Fourteener: Any mountain higher than 14,000 feet from sea level. Some more stringent definitions require the peak to have at least 300 feet of prominence from nearby saddles and ridges

• Saddle: The low point between two adjacent mountains, where the land along the ridgeline slopes down into a saddle shape

Climbing — Holds

• Crimp: A hold that only offers enough space to accommodate the first pad of each finger

• Gaston: An inverted side-pull (see below.) These holds are gripped on the side that faces the direction gravity is tugging you. Pressure is generated between the push with your feet — or pull with your opposite hand — and an outward pull with your pectoral muscle. Imagine you are prying open an elevator door with your hands. This is the motion employed to engage a Gaston

• Jug: A hold that allows you to insert your hand. These are coveted resting points. Also called “buckets” by some

• Mono: A hold you can only engage with one finger

• Pinch: A hold you squeeze between your thumb and other fingers. There can be pinch versions of virtually any other kind of climbing hold

• Pocket: A hold requiring you to insert only some of your fingers. These come in the three, two, and one finger variety. These pose significant risk for tendon or pulley injury if attempted without sufficient conditioning, or using improper technique

• Volume: An extremely large feature added to change the contour of the wall. Since there’s typically very little to grip here, volume holds require you to generate tension and pressure to stay on the wall

• Rail: Thin, long hold

• Shelf: Also called a ledge or mantel. Requires full engagement of your upper body to push yourself on top of. All top-out routes effectively end in a shelf

• Side Pull: A hold in which you grab the side that faces away from the pull of gravity. Usually requires you to lean in one direction

• Sloper: A hold one grips with their open palm. Force of friction is the main factor keeping you on the wall

• Under-cling: Imagine a jug turned upside down. Tension is generated by pulling up with your hands, while pushing off with your feet

Climbing — Techniques

• Bouldering: Climbing with crash pads instead of rope. Problems typically feature fewer, but more difficult moves. Focus is on strength rather than endurance

• Base of Support: The imaginary polygon drawn between each point of contact you have with the wall. You will not fall, provided you can keep your center of gravity inside this area. Natural instinct also prohibits you from reaching for a hold in such a way that would cause your center of gravity to leave your base of support. We work around this problem with “Throws.” (See below.)

• Bat Hang: To hook both of your toes around a hold, dangling by your feet with both hands off the wall

• Bicycle: Simultaneously pushing and pulling a hold with your feet in order to generate tension. This is done by hooking one foot behind the hold, and pressing the other against the opposite side

• Campus: Climbing without the use of your feet

• Center of Gravity: The theoretical point where your body weight is concentrated at any given point

• Crimp: Clinging to a hold using only the first pad of each finger.

• Drop-knee: Altering body position to lower your knee, sometimes at or beneath the level of your foot hold. Imagine moving from a squat position to a lunge. This is done to lower your center of gravity without altering your overall body position on the wall

• Dyno: Short for dynamic movement. I.e., jumping or leaping for the next hold in a sequence. While throwing (see below) is still technically a dynamic movement, “dyno” in my writing will always refer to a move in which the climber has zero points of contact with the rock face

• Full Crimp: Moving your thumb atop your other fingers while crimping. This increases grip strength, but greatly increases the risk of finger injury

• Figure Four: Hooking your arm around your leg to reach for a hold. Typically done while climbing cave or roof problems to increase stability

• Heel hook: Loding your heel atop or around a hold, applying tension by pressing the leg down with hamstring, glute, and adductor muscles

• High Clip: while lead climbing, attempting to clip into a quick draw well above the generally safe “hips to lips” zone for clipping. High clipping is ideally done from a place of stability, before entering a sequence of questionable or unstable moves. The danger of high clipping is that it adds tremendous amounts of slack to the system, thus increasing your potential fall distance. For example, clipping under normal circumstances temporarily adds about 3-4 feet of slack into the system. A high clip could add double that. Keeping in mind that the typical fall is usually about 10 feet: a blown high clip can send you plummeting 20.

• Knee bar: Bracing between or against one or more holds with your knee, shin, and lower leg to increase passive support

• Lead: Climbing in which your protective rope trails behind you, and you clip into protective checkpoints as you go. These come in the form of carabiner clips known as “quick draws.” Lead climbing is significantly difficult than top roping; climbs last longer, as you need to frequently pause to clip your next piece of protection. This also requires you to temporarily give up one of your holds on the wall, greatly reducing stability

• Lead Fall: A misstep while lead climbing can be quite dramatic. Unlike top rope falls — where you will be caught immediately by your protection — here, you’ll usually fall about ten feet, at least. That distance can be much greater when high clipping (see above) or when you’re far from your last piece of protection. A good fall formula is: (distance from last protection x 2) + total system slack + rope stretch

• Static: Completing a problem through a series of stretches and reaches, rather than dynamic moves

• Throw: A kind of dynamic movement in which a climber projects their center of gravity outside their base of support

• Toe hook: Lodging your toe beneath a hold, and generating tension by pulling with your quadriceps

• Top-out: completing a problem by climbing on top of it, rather than reaching a final hold. Optional in some gym areas. Usually required to complete outdoor bouldering routes

• Top Rope: Climbing in which you are tied to a protective rope system above you. Slack is pulled in by your belayer as you ascend. If you fall, the rope typically catches you immediately

Climbing — Slang

• Barn Door: Usually occurs when your base of support is a vertical line. Imagine your hand and foot are hinges. Barn dooring occurs when your body swings off the wall

• Beta: Short for Beta Max, i.e., “the tape.” Beta is the correct sequence of movements allowing you to complete a problem

• Beta Sprayer: Someone who shares the beta to a problem, unsolicited, depriving you of the joy of figuring it out for yourself

• Blown (feet, clip, etc.): A potentially destabilizing mistake with the corresponding body part or action. I.e., blown foot placement could refer to reaching for a toe hold and slipping. A blown clip could refer to reaching for a quick draw, and accidentally batting it away

• Completion: Get to the top of a route. Resting on rope is permissible.

• Send: Complete a route or problem without falling or resting on rope. All completions while bouldering are, by necessity, sends

• Flash: To send a route or problem on your first attempt, using as much prior knowledge as you want. This can include watching someone else climb first, reading a guidebook, or having someone else actively coach you on placement

• Project: In noun form; the route or problem you’re working on. In verb form: to work on a particular route

• On-sight: To flash a route or problem with no prior knowledge, beta, instruction, or information

• Victory Whip: Jumping from the top of a route without clipping the final piece of protection. Normally results in a 15–20-foot free-fall. Used as a training exercise to overcome a fear of falling on lead

• Whipper: A dynamic, dramatic, or high-load fall while lead climbing. Not all bad falls are whippers, and not all whippers are bad. (See also, victory whip, above.)

Ski and Snowboard — General

• Jerry: A rider who skis or boards idiotically, well beyond their limits. It is not a lack of skill that makes someone a Jerry, rather, their lack of skill for the undertaking they are attempting, coupled with a general lack of good judgement. For this reason: most beginner riders actually aren’t Jerrys, and Jerrys can be found anywhere on the mountain

• Jerry-Jam: An issue, stoppage, or disaster caused on the mountain by the actions of one or more Jerrys

• Hollywood Lap: Any given ski area’s run beneath its main chairlift. Ideal for showing off your skills

• Park: Short for terrain park

• Park Rat: A rider who hangs around in the park almost exclusively

• Powder Hound: A rider who seeks the fluffiest snow conditions

• Ripper: the opposite of a Whoa-Dude (see below,) these riders are typically experts who are more focused on their own runs than they are bragging about them

• Whoa-Dude(s): Talk a big game, which typically goes well beyond their actual skill level. This is usually accompanied by other bad mountain manners

Ski and Snowboard — Conditions

• Chunder: Sub-optimal riding conditions caused by thick snow, which almost feels like half-set cement

• Crust: Snow with a tougher top layer, and fluffier powder beneath

• Death Cookies: Cookie-sized chunks of ice kicked up by grooming machines, which cause you to lose your edge when struck

• Dust-on-Crust: When an extremely thin layer of fresh snow falls on top of hard pack (see below.) The dusting is just enough to obscure the dangerous riding conditions, but not enough to provide any actual traction for your edges. I consider this to be the worst conditions possible

• Hard Pack: A solid layer of ice-like snow which usually develops when no new snow has fallen recently. Worsened by large temperature swings