The Touchstone Rope Series comps are in full force. On Friday, August 10th from 5 until 10 pm, TRS is coming to Diablo Rock Gym. In anticipation of the comps, the Touchstone blog talked with Trevor Pettigrew, the 28 year old owner operator of Pettigrew Electric. Pettigrew has climbed at all the comps to […]
Eying his opponent from across the nine foot long table, Scott crouched and spun his paddle. The small white ball volleyed towards him. Scott blasted sideways. His paddle smashed the ball. The hit gave the ball topspin and accelerated it towards his opponent in a finalizing blow. Frye’s Coach Xin, 9 year old national champion […]
Setting up as the belayer is one of the most important aspects of the climbing partnership. Belaying well involves more than just holding the rope for your partner. Using an ATC or GriGri requires a significant amount of attention to the activity of the climber. It’s important to pull in and feed out rope at […]
Ahab, The Steck Salathe, The Harding Slot, Generator Crack, there are hundreds of wide pitches in Yosemite. From the single difficult pitch Twilight Zone to the sustained 5 inch cracks of long route Mental Block, climbing in the Valley requires a specific set of skills involving off widths. Learning these techniques is far from easy. Arm bars, t-stacks, […]
