What I Learned After Making 200 Weekend Whippers

Nearly 200 weeks ago, in July 2021, I wrote my first Weekend Whipper column. It was my first week as the Digital Editor of Climbing and, as someone who enjoyed nerding out about fall factors and belay technique, the job of “getting climbers stoked for the weekend” was automatically delegated to me.

I didn’t mind. I was familiar with the Whipper’s tone and goals and I figured it would be an easy and mindless Friday afternoon task. Some climber would take a giant and heroic fall, learn a lesson or two, and then—for some perplexing reason—decide their mistake should be immortalized on the internet and proudly email their video to me.

Some weeks, writing the Weekend Whipper did indeed feel like a mindless Friday afternoon task—and I’d lament about how predictable writing about climbing falls had become. However, more often than not, I was typically shocked, nauseated, or straight up scared at the content of the videos. I’m not talking about blood-smeared climbing falls here. (Climbing does not publish nor solicit whippers with gore.) I’m talking about the ugly, violent falls where I’d think: Huh. I didn’t expect that to happen.

Those types of falls were the freakiest to me because they didn’t always have an obvious armchair solution to provide. These falls underlined the randomness in climbing: the cam that holds two falls but rips on the third, the pro climber who becomes wrapped around the rope mid air, the bolt that pulls straight out of rock.

The more I edited the Weekend Whipper, the more my approach to climbing changed. As a result, I am probably a more scared climber than I was 200 weeks ago, but I am also a safer, more tactical, and ultimately better climber, too. Here are the three major things I’ve learned.

Wear a helmet. Seriously.

This one will be obvious for the helmet disciples and annoying for the haters. I myself was a hater 200 weeks ago, and would frequently ditch it when climbing hard sport projects. (To save weight? To leave open the possibility of an impromptu rose move? I have no idea.)

But after watching videos of seemingly solid cracks explode, huge flakes rip off of well-traveled sport routes, and even pro climbers—with their impeccable footwork—get wrapped up in the rope and careen headfirst into stone, I now almost never leave the ground without wearing a helmet. I even think there’s a strong argument to be made for belaying with one.

If you think you can’t bear the extra weight of carrying a helmet up your limit project, consider this: I am without a doubt more anal about weight than you. I have worn unpadded ski harnesses on redpoint attempts. I have trimmed the excess shoelace off my climbing shoes to shave grams. I frequently ask my girlfriend to cut my hair before a big alpine route. I have specific “send-day” undies that are 40 grams lighter than my daily-driver “projecting” undies.

Seriously. If I can justify the weight of a helmet, so can you.

(For anyone who cares, I have worn the Petzl Sirocco [170g/6oz] helmet every day I’ve gone climbing since the end of 2021.)

Place lots of gear

One year before starting this job, I gave a determined onsight attempt of the cult-classic trad route Scared Peaches (5.12a) in Lake Louise, Alberta. I gave myself a pep talk at the base which basically amounted to: Don’t get pumped placing too much gear. Then I resolved to run out the gently overhanging pitch as much as I could.

Twenty meters up the 30-meter pitch, I placed a small cam in a slick finger crack, climbed a few more meters, blindly clipped a fixed nut, then squared off below what I assumed to be the crux roof. Without placing another piece, I thrutched wildly through the roof, grabbed the wrong crimps, and fell off.

I ripped the fixed nut and small cam and flew 15 meters through the air, jolting onto the rope above a sharp boulder which lined the cliff’s base. Fuck.

As you can imagine, upon starting the Weekend Whipper column, I was already a bit more inclined to place extra “just in case” gear on hard pitches. But then the cam-ripping whipper submissions started flowing hot and heavy. Now, I’m often placing two or three pieces before a substantial crux. Two whippers that support my habit are this video of a cam holding numerous falls before randomly failing, and this one of a climber decking—not because he was runout, but because the climb was too short not to stitch it up.

Be ready for the weird and the random

One of the things I love most about climbing is its cerebral nature. There is beta to remember and tactics to resting, plus endless ways to clip rope, pull on holds, manage hazards, take clean falls, and a million other things. But this complexity also provides an unknowable level of randomness. Shit goes wrong. Like, all the time.

As a result, I now try to expect the unexpected as best as I can, whether I’m laying out pads below a boulder or climbing a scary mixed pitch in Patagonia. Here are some of the most memorably weird whippers I can think of:

• A seemingly bomber bolt pull out of rock
• A bolt’s hanger slips off the bolt
• A tufa on a classic sport route snaps off
• A quickdraw unclips itself while the climber leads
• A carabiner unclips from a cam’s sling in a fall
• A climber takes a giant fall with a bolt at his waist (this one is a little easier to prevent)

But I’m not quitting…

I have no intention of leaving Climbing this Friday, though I am relieved to not be writing the Weekend Whipper anymore. Last month we hired Sam MacIlwaine as our associate editor who will be taking the Whipper over from me. Sam is an incredibly experienced big waller, trad climber, and roof crack aficionado, who also carries some legit journalistic heft. I’m psyched to see how she evolves the series and keeps the stoke alive for weekends to come.

And now: the craziest whipper from my nearly four year tenure.

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