Have You Tried Crack Climbing?

courtesy of Markus_76

Crack climbing requires subtle and strenuous technique where only the hope of mastering lies in experience. All crack climbing invloves either jamming or torquing the limbs or body inside the crack. Just as in face climbing, the idea is to keep your center of gravity over the feet as much as possible.

Body position is important in crack climbing, but perhaps the greater challenge for the aspiring crack climber is figuring out how to create “holds” from vertical cracks.

There are two types of jamming. With the classic “hand jam”, the hand is placed in an appropriately-sized crack and the muscles expand the hand inside the crack. The various counter-pressures result in a locked or jammed hand, which can be very secure when properly placed. The second method involves torquing and camming the appendage in a bottleneck or constriction in the crack. In wide cracks, the limbs are often twisted or stacked and in very wide cracks you’ll find that wedging and cross-pressures are the only way up.

Littlepo writes about her first introduction with crack climbing

Experienced climbers told me “crack climbing is all about techniques”; instructional books said that learning how to climb cracks is like learning to ride a bicycle, once you get it, you have it. I love technique-oriented climbing, because I am never the one able to “power through” a climb. Besides, I know how to ride a bike; there is no reason I can’t crack climb.