Climbing is a sport where it’s pretty easy to take and never have to give. Few areas have fees of any sort so beyond the expense of gear and gas, climbing is free. Recently, I’ve been relegated to climbing close to home as my wife and I await the birth of our second child.
When heading out the other day for a quick morning of climbing I hesitated when packing. I knew that the area we were visiting had some anchors that people in the local community had been talking about replacing and updating. My time for climbing was short but I also knew it would only take an extra 5-10 minutes of time to do some work and give back to the climbing community. I threw the drill in and made the uphill hike to the crag with the extra weight in my pack. The next day I did the same thing and in the end it felt good to know that I had made some minor improvements and my climbing time was well spent.
The issue got my friends and I to talking and thinking about things anyone can do to help our local crags. It might be as simple as doing a little trail maintenance while at the crag or cleaning up after other climbers. I’m a big fan of carrying some old biners around, sometimes on my harness, to use at sport areas to replace lowering biners that are worn through. Even better is to pony up some coin and buy some steel carabiners for those popular climbs because the steel stuff will last way longer than a traditional aluminum carabiner.
So, you don’t have to know how to drill and replace bolts to give back. Check out SplitterChoss’s recent post about the issue and check out Fixe Hardware’s sale of steel anchors, perfect for replacing that old stuff.
Kong steel carabiners and quick-links