Do a Class III route.

If you climb long enough, you'll lose one of your best friends to climbing.

At some point, you'll have to choose a relationship or choose climbing. Climbing usually wins.

Go to an area that's well protected, leave the guidebook at home and just get on routes that look fun. Look up the ratings later. You might be surprised.

Ok.... I'll throw a few thoughts I have rattling around in my brain in the pot.

Solo something.

:mrgreen:

All due respect my friend. I thought this was kinda funny.

http://rockclimbing.com/photos.php?Photographer=ropeburn

There has been quite a bit of bickering around here as of late over newbies and their sometimes questionable questions and comments. Seems to me that most of what they're asking for is advice.

What follows are (off the top of my head and in no particular order) some thoughts, ideas, questions and principles based on what I've experienced and learned over my past ten years of climbing. Advice, if you will, for the new climbers who ask so many questions. Some of what's here I've been told, some I've just adapted as my own style and some I've had to learn the hard way. I'd appreciate if some of you, experienced or green, would add a few of your own.

Here goes...

How much are you willing to risk?

Remember those who've died climbing. Learn from their accidents.

Choose your partner like you'd choose a lover, but be careful about choosing your lover as your partner.

Become a well-rounded climber. Try trad, boulder and sport. Bag a peak or two. Climb some ice. There's more out there than what you know and it just may change your life.

Don't mention the rating of a route you've done unless somebody asks.

Don't spray beta. Ever. Wait to be asked. Most climbers enjoy the challenge of figuring it out for themselves.

If you happen to fail on a route or problem that you've previously done. There's no need to clarify that you've done it before. Nobody cares.

Take the strength you've gained at the gym outside. Leave everything else at the gym.

Own a helmet and wear it.

Learn how to escape a belay.

Don't be the guy at the gym or the crag who walks up and flashes a route or problem that somebody newer has been struggling on.

Do be the guy who says "nice job" when the newer climber finally sends.

Use ratings as a guide to which routes to climb - not as a way to pump your ego.

Go to an area that's well protected, leave the guidebook at home and just get on routes that look fun. Look up the ratings later. You might be surprised.

Do a Class III route.

Do a FA. If you don't know what that means, go figure it out. Don't ask on an internet message board. Then, when you're ready, go do a FA.

Don't ever bolt a crack.

Don't ever bolt a crack.

Treat your next trip like an expedition. Take a lot of pictures and have a slideshow for your friends and family. It's important that they understand your passion.

You don't know hard and you don't know suffering. Read a Joe Simpson book or one of the many classic mountaineering novels then you might have an idea.

If you climb long enough, you'll lose one of your best friends to climbing.

At some point, you'll have to choose a relationship or choose climbing. Climbing usually wins.

Know your partners strengths, weaknesses and personality traits and quirks. It could save both of your lives.

Know when to hand over - or take over - the lead, and don't be too proud to bail.

Know your limits and know when to push them.

Share your epics.

There's no glory on plastic.

Eric

...Bag a peak or two...

How much are you willing to risk?

Do a Class III route

To the original poster (hello_heino)...
If read in the correct tone, your post rivals the, "choose life, choose a big screen f*cking TV..." speech/monologue in Trainspotting. Atleast equally as moving, but without the heroin overtones...

Almost lost a friend to climbing.
Climbing won over a relatoinship, and no I don't regret it.

Use ratings as a guide to which routes to climb - not as a way to pump your ego.

To the original poster (hello_heino)...
If read in the correct tone, your post rivals the, "choose life, choose a big screen f*cking TV..." speech/monologue in Trainspotting. Atleast equally as moving, but without the heroin overtones...