 Welcome to the sports playbook where we discuss solutions to issues that impact sports. I'm your host, Angela Hazelett. Today's guest is Guy DeBron, a guide for Blue Ridge Mountain Guides. Today we are going to discuss rock climbing safety, conquering the heights. Guy, thank you for joining us today on the sports playbook. Thanks, Angela, happy to be here. I want to hear all about your rock climbing experience. So start us back when you first got involved with the sport and what led you to where you are today. Yeah, so my father worked at Eastern Mennonite University in Harrisonburg, Virginia, and they offered a rock climbing class through their physical education department. And I was home for a summer and I took the class as a summer couple credit course as an introduction. And so I was introduced starting with some indoor climbing and learning the ins and outs of how to tie the knots and et cetera. And then we went out on several different outdoor climbs as part of that course culminating in an opportunity to climb at Seneca Rocks in West Virginia. So my introduction was a credit course through a summer class. And then I got really interested from there and started traveling to climb throughout the Northeast. And how old were you when you first started? So I must have been around 20, I guess this was before the summer before my senior year of college. And and so I haven't looked back from that lots of recreational climbing throughout the Northeast and various other countries, but also an opportunity to do some training with the American Mountain Guides Association. So some formal training in addition to sort of the more traditional informal mentorship with with another more experienced climber. Tell me a little bit about the training that you've gone through to become credentialed to lead and guide others in rock climbing. Yeah, so the guiding industry in the United States is interesting. It's not as regulated or as sort of ingrained in the culture as it is in Europe. France, for example, but we it is emerging in the United States. And so I started with taking a course in Joshua Tree National Park a couple hours from Los Angeles over a spring break called at the time called the top rope site manager course. So that was designed for institutional type guiding like what I was doing in my career at the time. I did 18 years of managing campus recreation outdoor programs. And so that included overseeing climbing walls as well as training students to lead their peers on rock climbing trips. And so when we talk about top roping, we're talking about a situation where the, the belayer is on the ground and the anchor has been set up at the top of the cliff and the run rope runs back down to the ground. And so everybody's at the same place as far as starting on the ground climbing up and then lowering. So that course was designed to teach all the inside, all the ins and outs of building anchors. And when I say anchors, that's securing the rope to the rock and all the techniques around around top rope climbing that course is now known as the single pitch instructor course because now it includes starting from the ground and leading up. And building an anchor at the top and bringing someone up to you, perhaps. And then I went on and did the rock instructor course, which was. I want to say that was at least the 8 or 12 day course and that was designed for more, what we call multi pitch terrain. So in other words. Now we're climbing higher than 1 rope length above the ground and so it's a lot more technical. So those are the 2 courses that I took. Would you say that the top rope or the single pitch is kind of the typical pathway that a lot of people kind of start with rock climbing? Or is there another entry way that's more common? You know, now climbing gyms have become, you know, sort of the way to get introduced to the sport and it's good and bad. People get strong. And, you know, and they can learn some good things, but it's also such a different. So it's a very different experience from climbing outdoors and some of the hazards and. And things we think about from a risk management perspective when we're climbing outdoors are just not there indoors. For example, you know, loose rock, right? It's extremely rare for a climbing hold to break or come off. And so. There has, I think there has been challenges associated with so many people coming into the sport in a very controlled indoor environment. And making it more difficult for them to transition outdoors where, you know. I'm going to guess now it must be. 40 years ago that, you know, before the climbing gyms really got going, everyone went through a mentorship with a more experienced partner in the outdoors. And so there's just a little bit of a difficulty in transition. And then the second thing I would say to your question is most people probably get into, yeah, top rope climbing, but even more common is what is known as sport climbing. And that's where you see bolts either on the indoor climbing wall or out on the rock that are drilled into the rock. And so as you progress, you clip what's known as a quick draw, which is 2 carabiners to that bolt and then clip your rope through that. Until you progress to the top, it's usually single pitch. So, in other words, you come up to the top, clip anchors, and then you're able to lower down with a rope. Most ropes are around 60 meters, which is 200 feet, right? So we're talking about 100 foot max climbs. And that's the sort of gateway is climbing in gyms or climbing. And that's where people start generally. But that is really interesting. And I believe sport climbing is sport climbing is actually now an Olympic sport. So it's going to expose even more people or make more people, give more people a pathway to participate in that particular sport. And so the sport climbing, someone would have to go through and kind of make those bolts, they'd have to install those bolts in advance for someone to participate. Is that correct? That's correct. The 1st ascensionist, and it's a lot of work, establishes the route by drilling holes to insert the bolts. And so, yeah, and it emerged out of Europe in the 80s. It was very controversial in the United States. Because of a damaging the environment, is that what you're concerned? It does, but the thing is that sport climbs are established in rock that cannot be climbed in any other way. So in other words, there's not enough cracks to take natural climbing equipment, which we call traditional climbing or trad climbing, which is a cleaner form of climbing. But the type of rock that sport climbs are established on cannot be protected naturally. And so there was a lot of controversy that the ethic in the United States out of Yosemite was the traditional climbing ethic where you started at the ground and you protected by putting different equipment into cracks and went on. So it was very controversial for a while, but that controversy was pretty short lived. Now sport climbing is widely accepted across the country. And so, yeah, those are, we talked earlier about the disciplines, right? So traditional climbing and sport climbing are two sub disciplines of rock climbing. And as you mentioned, the Olympics has bouldering, lead climbing, which is sport climbing, clipping bolts as you go, and then speed climbing. And it was somewhat controversial in that for the Olympic format, you climb all three of those. But in the World Cup circuit, people specialize in one of those three. Yeah, that makes sense. I would imagine you'd have to have, you know, strengthen or power or speed or, you know, you don't necessarily have all those capabilities and it probably takes it a very different skill set. So that's interesting. Tell us more about the differences. There's a wide variety of different climbing components or disciplines. So you mentioned a few of those, but there's also a few others like mountaineering ice climbing. Can you tell us a little bit more about the differences between those disciplines? Yeah. So let's start with bouldering, right? So bouldering is unroped climbing at generally low heights. Now, boulders have really pushed that. And there's a fine line between what we call free soloing and bouldering, right? And so free soloing was obviously made very popular by the movie Free Solo, Alex Honnold's movie. So bouldering is unroped climbing using pads and generally it's in the 12 to 15 foot range, but people do push that higher. So that's bouldering. Then we go into top rope climbing. And again, that's where there's an anchor at the top where the rope runs up through the anchor back down to the climber, but everybody's on the ground. Then you move to sport climbing where you're clipping the bolts as you progress up, which is as risk because you will fall further than you would on a top rope, right? And then we go to traditional climbing, which is protecting the rock with various metal devices and camming devices that you can put into cracks. Again, upping the risk a little bit because now you have to have the knowledge to place that equipment properly that it's going to hold if you fall. Then we'll add, let's see, ice climbing, right? Ice climbing can be done via top rope or you could lead. And then when you put all of those disciplines together to ascend big mountains, we get into what we call mountaineering. And so mountaineering is moving over snow, rock or ice or combinations of those things to get into the big mountains. And so rock climbing initially was sort of actually just kind of considered a training for mountaineering. But it evolved into its own discipline. I guess the only other thing I would mention is alpine rock climbing, which is when you're far away from a trailhead and you have to hike in many miles to do a multi-pitch climb in a remote environment. That's kind of an overview of the sub-disciplines. Definitely a lot of variety and opportunity. I'm sure the terrain, the geographic terrain obviously will dictate what's required for which discipline is going to be appropriate. I want to go back to something you said earlier. You were talking about a lot of people are getting their start now in rock climbing gyms. Tell me a little bit about, dive into that a little bit deeper about the distinction between being in a gym. You said it's kind of this controlled environment versus being outdoors in a natural environment. What are the distinctions that you see that maybe people aren't acquiring those skills in an indoor gym that they might need for an outdoor location? Well, some climbing gyms, a couple of examples, the type of device that they use for what we call belaying, which is essentially holding the rope and stopping off the wall, they'll use an auto-blocking device like what's called a gregory. And so climbers from gyms are only familiar with a device that is called, it's actually an assisted braking device. So in other words, if you were to let go of it, it's going to, it's most likely going to stop the climber. And so climbing gyms tend to favor assisted braking devices for obvious reasons. It reduces the risk, but they're not always practical in an outdoor setting. So now a climber may not have experience with having to completely arrest the fall with their own hands using something like a slot belay device, for example, like an ATC. So there's one example. Another example is sometimes climbing gyms will have you clip in with carabiners instead of tying your own knot. So people don't get that repetitive experience in how to tie in properly. And then you just remove lots of hazards, right? You remove loose rock, you remove heat and cold, you remove, you know, snakes, bees, wasps, et cetera. So all of these hazards that are very common in outdoor environment have been removed from the indoor environment. And so it can make it a little more challenging for people to conduct themselves in a safe manner when they enter that less controlled environment. I imagine like being outdoors, for example, if it's cold out, your fingers might kind of cramp up and making it harder to grip and move. Some of those challenges. In addition to kind of weather and these other natural type of creatures you might encounter or rocks breaking, what are some of the other challenges that you may face in climbing outdoors versus climbing indoors? Well, so another example would be the length of the route. Okay, so you know 100% that in a climbing gym, the rope length is appropriate to the length of the route, right? But let's say you go outside and you don't think through that and you have, let's say, a 50 meter rope, right? But the climb, you know, which is, you know, it's fine on the way up. But then when you start lowering, you need to make sure that if that climb exceeds 50 meters. And so a common accident in sport climbing is people go outside, they climb to the top. And then as they lower, they don't realize that the climb is actually longer than the rope. And so if you haven't tied a knot in the end of your rope, it can go flying right through the blade of ice and somebody could get dropped, right? So, you know, that variation in route length is something that you don't see in the gym as much because you know exactly how tall that climbing wall is. And so that's one example. That's really interesting. And when you lead groups outdoors, how many people do you take at a time? Is there kind of a limit to control and make the environment safer? Yeah, there's definitely standards within the field and industry, you know, in the collegiate recreation field, which I've worked in for 18 years, we worked with bigger groups and usually like a 5 to 1 ratio. So we might have 2 staff and 10 participants out at, say, a top rope crag. In my role with Blue Ridge Mountain Guides, I've worked with much smaller groups generally. Guiding tends to be 1 to 1, 2 to 1, maybe 3 to 1, especially in multi-pitch terrain. I rarely would have more than 2 clients, say at Seneca Rocks, where I'm taking people up multiple rope lengths. So that's kind of how that works. Okay. Yeah. And I imagine it's more personalized experience. You can kind of keep a better eye on that. Make sure it's a safer experience for everyone. Talk to me. As you up the risk, you have to, the ratio, the client to guide ratio has to decrease. Yeah, I imagine distractions probably play into that too. The more people there are there, the more distractions there are. Do you have like a no cell phone policy when people are on trips like that? Well, we actually will take snap photos with cell phones, but certainly not while actively climbing or or playing. But no, we don't have a specific policy on that. We kind of have other ways of mitigating those risks. The hands are occupied, right? So they're going to be busy with that. What about people with disabilities? How do you make accommodations for people that either aren't able to use all their limbs or have missing limbs or other kind of physical disabilities? And then maybe you can touch a little bit on intellectual disabilities and is there ways to accommodate them as well in the sport? Yeah. So there's 2 well known climbers. 1 is Mark Wellman. Mark Wellman, I believe is a quadriplegic, didn't have the use of his legs. And he's devised some techniques where essentially it's using somebody would lead up and then fix the rope so that he could climb with some devices, essentially doing a bunch of pull ups, which is quite impressive on the rope itself. And there's a variety of adaptive technologies that have been employed in climbing gems to allow people to climb up the rope and get that same experience as somebody who can who can climb in a more traditional manner. And different programs have specialized in adaptive climbing. And then Eric Wayne, Wayne Amar is a visually impaired climber. He's climbed Everest. And so again, sort of it's sort of the equipment isn't as adapted for somebody with visual impairments, but certainly the the ratio of the guiding and communication that takes place is different. So there is a there is adaptive climbing. It's definitely a thing and a lot of university programs have incorporated it into their programs. You mentioned communication and that's really key between the guide and the person who's climbing or the participant that you're escorting. Talk to me about that because some of these participants are probably learning new vocabulary related to the sport. They may become fearful or they may not understand commands that are given to them. How do you manage the communication piece these challenges? Yeah, thankfully, there's a fairly standard protocol with maybe some slight variations that that's taught to every climber. And so making sure people understand that is is really critical. Another really kind of common mistake is miscommunication, especially within the sport climbing realm, people will get to the top of the climb and then it's unclear what they're going to go on to the anchor and then repel down or what they're going to get lowered, right? So one of the one really important pieces before you leave the ground with your partner, whether it's a guide or just a recreational environment, be clear on what you're doing. Like, okay, I'm going to go to the top. I'm going to thread the rope the anchor and you're going to lower me and don't ever take me off the lay, right? Or you can take me off the lay. I'll pull the rope up and I'm going to repel just that kind of simple agreement about what's going to happen when you're 100 feet up in the air is really important. And then, you know, we use a very standard procedure where it's on the lay, right? That means, okay, I've got you now climbing, climb on. And that basically is a contract then like that you're going to keep your hand on that rope until I say off the lay. And so, yeah, making sure everybody understands the commands we're using and before we leave the ground. And then in a multi-pitch environment, I'll explain and because what's happened sometimes is you get around a corner and the wind picks up and you can't hear and it's really frustrating. Some people use like communication devices like walkie-talkies, but what I do is rope signals and I make it very clear to my partner or client if you feel me tugging three times in a row extremely hard on the rope, that means that you are you can take me off the lay. And so those are some of the techniques that we use. That's great to have a kind of a nonverbal cues if the the environment doesn't allow you to communicate verbally. And there's been an increase of people in the sport since COVID has happened and more people pursuing outdoor activity and many who don't have the experience or safety training in mind. Have you encountered any of people who don't seem prepared to be in that environment or maybe over their heads? And if you have what what have you done if anything in that situation? Yeah, that that's a delicate situation because you see stuff sometimes that maybe is just like not good technique or sort of misapplication of a technique but not necessarily immediately dangerous. And so you know you don't want there's you don't want to create some environment where people don't feel welcome and included in the sport, but at the same time there are times when if you don't speak up it could it could result in a really bad accident, right? I'll give you an example. I was at the New River Gorge guiding a couple weeks ago and that's um very popular and I was surprised at how many people were out with their little kid little very little kids like babies, which is great but that they don't make helmets for kids that small and let's like Rockfall is not uncommon or or something being dropped and I I shudder to think about like a little baby getting hit in the head with something you know without a helmet and so there's like that area where you don't want to like be like well, you know get out of here like want people to be out enjoying the sport with their families, but there's also maybe a lack of awareness of some of the potential issues. Yeah, and so just to be clear the babies are not Scaling the rock face, but they are just on the ground with their parent one of their parents hanging out with the kid and the the hardest part too is sometimes you see like The partners belaying each other and then so no one can actively be with the with the little baby and so um Yeah, just but it's it's something that in nine out of ten times is probably going to be fine, but it has um There's that possibility right and here. I know you're familiar with the idea of like Frequency versus severity right like how frequently do it does an accident occur and how severe when it does occur You know the frequency is probably pretty low there, but the severity is potentially high Right, right. Yeah, so that It may not happen that often, but the type of injury could be really devastating So that's a really um interesting interesting point. So lots of climbers out there Do you think there's areas that are getting overcrowded overused that's maybe either compromising the experience or safety? Oh, sure. That's an ongoing debate within the climbing community. Um as as the gyms have greatly increased the number of climbers um There is that that that that debate for sure and you know often the rub is the parking areas Right lots of climbing areas are in mountainous areas where there's not a lot of real estate to work with And so the parking areas get overrun and that Causes tension with other users and within climbers Um also climbing is not a very dispersed activity, right? So in other words, there's you know, maybe There's 30 routes at one particular crag and we all want to be on those 30 routes, right? And so you can't disperse all that well versus say something like mountain biking, right? There could be You know 100 people on on the mountain, but in various different trails and different parts of the trails and so it's not quite as um It's a little more dispersed than climbing. Um, and so yeah, that's that's an issue 100 percent And I imagine only one crew can be on a route at a time Um for safety reasons But do some of the routes kind of cross over each other and that kind of eliminates the use of Such certain routes. Yeah. So for top roping we tend to try to You know, yeah, only one person only one group can be on the route. Yes. Um In the big climbs like in Yosemite Multiple parties can be on a route because they're much taller, but they do intersect and so Sometimes you'll see people like professionals that are moving extremely quickly. They'll actually pass parties Um, but yeah crowding crowding is an issue and there's no simple answer because you you want to be inclusive You want people spending time outside and Enjoying natural resources and hopefully speaking up for those natural resources because they value them um, but at the same time, um, we 100 know that There's an impact and so the access fund Uh is a climbing conservation Um organization that I would recommend everybody check out and they provide a lot of guidance on how to minimize impacts in the climbing environment Okay, I'm really curious. Have you Either witnessed seen or been involved in an incident and can you describe what that was like in in a rock climbing situation? um, yeah, I did uh I was present when somebody um took a fall So they were lead climbing so starting on the starting on the ground protecting the climb naturally as they climbed up And they fell and I think one of their pieces of gear Popped out and they hit the ground and broke their ankle very severely And um, so I was part of evacuating that person Uh, they were actually quite lucky in that the national guard was at the crag that day doing some kind of training So there was a whole bunch of national guard folks that were able to assist in carrying that person out Um, so that that was one particular incident that I did witness. Yeah National guard got some uh on the ground Relive training there. So, um, that was fortunate for for that individual Um, you know, we're kind of getting to the end of our time. So guy, I'm curious Are there any kind of final thoughts that you would share with someone wanting to get into the sport or maybe Improve their skills and in this sport. Yeah, so It's worth investing in some guiding or instruction It's just far too dangerous a sport to kind of um mess around with like I think making that investment is is very, um, very important and then also You don't need to emulate Alex honnold, um in free solo like Free soloing is a very fringe aspect of the sport and it's practiced by people who have done it for many many years And frankly most of those folks die at some point. So I would just encourage people that are getting into the sport You don't need to rush into free soloing There's plenty of safer ways to enjoy the sport Absolutely and and blue ridge, uh mountain guides is one avenue in which people can Kind of get that leadership from from experts in the area Well, guy, thank you so much for for your time today and joining us on the sports playbook and for teaching us about rock climbing safety and conquering the heights Thank you. It was uh, I really enjoyed talking with you I appreciate your time and expertise. We learned a lot today. Thank you for our viewers for joining us We'll see you next time on the sports playbook Thank you so much for watching think tech hawaii If you like what we do, please click the like and subscribe button on youtube You can also follow us on facebook instagram and linkedin Check out our website think tech hawaii.com Mahalo