Chris from San Diego, California, asks about climbers’ chossy, meaning rock so crumbly or unsafe that it may break loose under a handhold, foothold, or piece of protective gear. A bad formation may be called a choss pile, and choss up means to wreck...
The highly specialized vocabulary of people who work outdoors, communicating with sled dogs, a word from the sport of rock-climbing, church key, browse line, smeuse, nitnoy, mommick, zawn, zwer, boom dog, and I think my pig is whistling. This...
A rock climber in Omaha, Nebraska, wonders about the term beta, which her fellow climbers use to refer to information about a particular route. It comes from the old practice of using Betamax video to record information about a climb. A good...
The Climbing Dictionary by Matt Samet includes a fantastic term that can be used by non-climbers as well: high gravity day, a day when all routes, even easy ones, seem impossible due to a seeming increase in gravity. This is part of a complete...
rap v.—Gloss: short for “rappel.” «He kept falling, flailing and failing to make the moves, eventually just hanging on the rope and begging me to lower him down to the last ledge. He was out of steam; we rapped back to the...
bear n.— «My favorite cycling food is small, salted and boiled red potatoes, which this year were served at the rest area just before the three bears, three climbs that form a classic patch of cycling territory in the rolling hills east...
