The Only Cult I’d Join Is Crack Camp. Here’s Why You Should Try This Indian Creek Institution.

Mary Catherine Eden wants to make a t-shirt that says, “I went to Crack Camp and all I learned was fisting and fingering.”

But a t-shirt such as this would severely shortchange the institution that Crack Camp has become. Yes, there is fisting and fingering, thigh locking and chicken winging—but that’s just the beginning.

This spring and fall tradition that goes down at Indian Creek opens up the sometimes wide and often deep world of crack climbing. It jams the collective decades of knowledge of Eden—aka “Trad Princess”— and a coterie of crack guides into three long days.

All that I learned at Crack Camp would not reasonably fit on a t-shirt. Yes, I refined my hand jam positioning, gained some finger crack basics, and discovered at least a dozen creative ways to work my way up an offwidth.

But I also came away with some deeper lessons. This is because Crack Camp is not only a venue for learning. It is an endurance event centered upon discomfort. It is a spectacle of puns, gutter humor, and memes. It is carnage and it is beautiful. And it might be a cult.

Where crack class is in session

I’d always wanted to take one of the many crack climbing clinics that go down in Indian Creek, Utah, arguably the best place in the world to crack climb. There are many purveyors of crack technique in these parts. Steph Davis has been teaching a crack clinic for over a decade, often guest starring Chris Kalous of Enormocast fame. Jim Donini could be found teaching Splitter Camps as of a few years ago. And Gisely Ferraz, aka “Brazilian Climber Girl,” recently launched crack clinics, too.

But the one I’ve long had my eye on is taught by Eden, roof crack queen and humble protégé of the Wide Boyz. It might be because I’ve been following Eden’s trad climbing adventures for years. Or because it seemed like the most fun. Or because of the name. Or the memes.

Aside from any fangirling or entertainment-focused objectives, the main reason I wanted to go to Crack Camp is that I knew my crack technique left much to be desired. My primary strategy to date has been to shove in whatever part of myself will fit and inefficiently muscle my way up. In other words, my technique was self-taught trash.

When I first tried to climb a crack some 15 years ago in Naturita, Colorado, I found it deeply confusing. Climbing had initially come pretty naturally to me, but I struggled to grasp the concept of sticking parts of my body into a gap and pulling up.

“Put my hand in there and what?” I shouted down to my belayer. I flailed and cursed and kicked the wall. We pivoted to a lesson in jugging the rope and stepping up with an etrier, which seemed like a breeze by comparison.

Later, at a point I honestly can no longer recall, I somehow figured out how to hand jam and fell in love with the flow. But put me on a finger crack or an offwidth, and the flailing recommenced.

The other reason I wanted to go to Crack Camp was to drag one of my best friends and climbing partners with me. Vicki hates cracks, but I suspected that a weekend under Eden’s auspices might change that.

Spreading the crack gospel with the Princess of Trad

Since Eden started teaching her Crack Camps in the spring of 2018, they have surged in popularity. Her alumni Crack Camp Facebook Group stands 200 members strong. She frequently sees returning customers. And she’s turned Crack Campers into Crack Camp guides, climbing partners, and even roommates.

Post-camp, Eden’s devoted acolytes pay homage to the experience through memes that caricature her draconian teaching style and memorialize the struggle of cracks narrow and wide. Recently, a Crack Camp alum even created a votive candle with a label depicting Eden as a patron saint. When I saw the picture, I was hardly surprised.

Run through Moab-based outfitter Red River Adventures, Eden’s Crack Camps invite anyone with a 5.9 fitness level to join. This results in a motley crew of campers. My group included a guy who’d only climbed outdoors a handful of times and had never touched a crack, an experienced 5.11 trad climber looking to brush up on her skills, and a 17-year-old with a V12 finger crack project. Eden’s youngest stoked client was just 14. The oldest? A 76-year-old who opted for the most painful flavor of Crack Camp: Offwidth Edition, typically offered once in spring and once in fall.

Eden leads the camps alongside her partner Sam Foreman and an evolving cast of other so-called “heathens of the desert,” including Brittany Goris, Evan Wisheropp, Ashley Cracroft, Danny Parker, Climbing’s own Sam MacIlwaine, and Ben Rueck. Wisheropp and Rueck were on tap for the weekend I spent at camp.

The benefit of multiple guides at camp stretches beyond setting a higher number of routes and offering more one-on-one instruction. It also means you walk away with more techniques and beta that works across different body types. At my camp, Wisheropp—a photographer and videographer with many first ascents to his name—primarily hosed us down on offwidths while Foreman and Rueck offered more guidance for finger cracks. And for me, Eden’s beta often proved most helpful since we are both petite.

Sandstone transformation

What makes Eden’s Crack Camp far more than just an informative long weekend clinic isn’t only the diverse crew of “counselors.” It’s also the immersive schedule and style. A day at camp is no nine-to-five affair, with breaks for snacking and shit-talking. Each day, we rallied before 7 a.m. On the last day, there was talk of a 4 a.m. wake-up call to beat weather, which (thankfully) only one Crack Camper voted for.

At the crag, there is zero chilling. Between routes, you are under strict orders to birthday belay, which means keeping it tight as your harness digs into your pelvis. If you attempt to take any downtime between climbing and belaying, Eden will hunt you down and direct you toward an open rope.

By the way, did I mention Eden is as strong-willed as you’d expect from the footage of her gritting her way through Necronomicon (5.14a), Black Mamba (5.14b), or the roof crack trainer in her garage? So if you tell Eden that you’re “good” for the moment on climbing another crack, she will not accept “no” as an answer. (Unless, of course, you are actually destroyed, medically or psychologically!). If you try to prematurely call “last pitch,” she will put you on another … and another … and another.

Both nights, we returned to camp after dark, still chipping away at the tedious removal of what remained of our tape gloves. On night two, Vicki and I were so wrecked that our dinner plans quickly deteriorated from burritos to Fritos and cucumbers.

In the thick of it, we were deliriously exhausted. But it took no more than a few hours on the road back home for Crack Camp nostalgia to begin creeping in. I longed for a return to the nonstop, no-breaks energy of a day at camp. I wished I were again at the mercy of a taskmaster (i.e., Eden), who pushed me further than I would ever naturally push myself.

So, what did I learn at Crack Camp?

As I stated earlier, what I learned at Crack Camp would not fit on a t-shirt, nor would it fit in this story. The lessons I took away from that long weekend in Indian Creek are not transferable. They must be absorbed firsthand from the crackologist herself.

One thing you will learn at Crack Camp is which crack style suits you best. I enjoyed struggling up an offwidth, while Vicki discovered a newfound passion for finger cracks. A few of my favorite techniques that I learned at Crack Camp include:

• A superior glove tape technique: It’s so good, my gloves wouldn’t come off without a sharp pair of scissors.
• The art of rand smearing: Edging the outer rand of my shoe into a finger crack too narrow to fit my toe. I have far from mastered this skill, but I at least understand the concept.
• Froggy legs in finger cracks: Keeping your legs bent outward up a thin crack to optimize your rand smearing. Also a work-in-progress technique for me.
• Rosie the Riveter, crack edition: A very fun offwidth jamming technique wherein you extend your elbow into the crack then flex your bicep like Rosie to lock it in.
• The finer points of thigh locking: Most people’s beta for Monster Truck (5.11+) was a calf lock, but for me, it was a thigh lock. I got into a rhythm and shimmied my right thigh up the offwidth to the anchors.
• The beauty of so-called “magic meat”: Jamming your calf, thumb, or foot “meat” is the answer to your crack woes. And when it comes to offwidths, it’s all about that “magic meat,” as Wisheropp terms it, between your big toe and arch.

While my crack toolkit now brims with new-to-me techniques like these, what I really learned at Crack Camp is that I’ve got more in the tank than I thought. As a 5.10 sport climber who considers a few pitches a “decent day” at the crag, I realized that I should be trying more 5.11s or even 5.12s. And it turns out I have the stamina for dawn-to-dusk days (if I can escape my kids for that long).

A couple weeks later, at the San Rafael Swell, I tried a trad route that I never would have hopped on pre-Crack Camp. I made a lot of mistakes, and sorely wished our Crack Camp trad lead day hadn’t gotten rained out. What I thought would be a 5.10 hand crack in a corner turned out to be a 5.10 offwidth for me. My only good hand jam at the start gave way to baggy fists and desperate arm bars. And my rack consisting of mostly .5s and .75s quickly became useless. I’d only brought one of our group’s two 4s up with me, so my only choice was to bump it up the route. Normally, I would have bailed long before the bumping commenced. But I heard the voices of those Crack Camp desert heathens hackling from the ground: Shimmy up an inch at a time. Keep moving! So I kept struggling upward—until my 4 became hopelessly stuck five feet from the anchors and I could bump no more.

Hard skills (or lack thereof) aside, I made one more unexpected discovery at Crack Camp. I am not usually one to “drink the Kool-Aid,” spiritual, corporate, or proverbial. I prefer facts to beliefs. And I tend to question rules rather than blindly follow them (just ask the guides of Crack Camp how many times I foolishly challenged their hard-won beta). But if this cult in question were a cult of crack with Eden as its charismatic mega-leader, I’m in.

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