Found a 15 year old notebook with all my old climbing beta in it

Was cleaning out my garage in Denver last weekend and found a spiral notebook from 2009. It had all these routes from Rifle Mountain Park written down in it. Crazy thing is I remembered maybe 10% of what was in there. There was a page on a 5.12b called The Great Escape where I literally drew arrows showing which holds to use and where to clip. I tried that beta 2 days ago and it still worked better than what I've been doing the last few years. Made me wonder how much other useful stuff I've forgotten that I used to know. Anyone else ever rediscover old notes and realize you were actually sharper back then?

3 comments

3 Comments

nathan1009d ago

Read something the other day about how memory works with physical skills we had to think hard about in the past. The guy was saying your brain stores that info differently when you learn it through trial and error versus just repeating what works. That Great Escape beta you drew out with arrows probably got filed away because you really had to figure it out yourself. I bet there's more in that notebook that would still hold up today, maybe even stuff you thought was obvious back then. Funny how we think we're getting better but sometimes we were just more methodical.

aaron_perry9d ago

Man, that hits hard. @nathan100 you're probably right about the trial and error thing, because I found a page where I had literally sketched out a weird knee-bar sequence on a route called "The Swarm" that I haven't done in maybe 12 years. I stared at those little stick figure legs and foothold X's and it all came flooding back, like muscle memory I didn't know I still had. Makes me wonder what else I've got buried in there. Maybe I should dig that notebook out again before my next trip to Rifle.

gray8759d ago

Funny you say that. Id push back a little though. That knee bar beta from 12 years ago is probably outdated now. Routes get rebolted, holds break, chalk gets caked on and changes the friction. What worked then might not even work today. Plus your body is different now. Strength, flexibility, all changed. Trusting old beta over current feel could waste a burn. Sometimes we romanticize past solutions when the real progress is adapting to what's in front of you right now.