It’s an ugly sight. We all know that. That may be your first reaction when you see the veritable tidal wave of climbing shoes and beer bottles cascading from the ceiling as you enter the door. You’ll wonder where  the smell of feet is coming from and also why there is a thin layer of white dust on top of nearly everything. It looks as if the only clothes this person owns are jeans, t-shirts and mojo shorts which of course are haphazardly strewn about on the floor while the climbing gear sits organzied in the corner ready to be used at a moments notice. Sometimes it’s harder to spot though. Sometimes the climber tries to keep the chalk contained and shoes are kept  in bins inside their closet (though that is SERIOUSLY rare). I’ve found a few tell tale signs to share with you.

1. THE COFFEE ISSUE

As you can see in the photo coffee is a must around the house. The pot broke so in it’s place is a terrible excuse for a coffee holder, but since the people residing under this roof are climbers they are too lazy to get a new one but need coffee too much to top drinking it. They (we) call it being resourceful. Most people call it retarded. As a climber though, coffee is important. On that, I think we can all agree. (note the sticker (see #4)

2. THE SADDEST REFRIGERATORS ON EARTH

Now this isn’t true, I don’t imagine, for a lot of climbers. Especially the ones that live alone, but when you get 3-4 climbing fellas in a house their cold storage is bound to end up like this time and time again. Lets note a few things about this fridge. A) There’s no real food. Eggs, milk, OJ (which I know was just purchased for the sole purpose of making screwdrivers with the handle of vodka in the freezer. B) There is nothing healthy. That is a giant tub of margarine. There are no vegetables, fruits, greens there’s not even deli meat in there. Just American cheese singles.

3. BOTTLE OPENERS

Climbers like bottle openers. On their keychains, on their caribiners (shown), in their cars, in their tents, on their belt buckles, on their nut tools, on their shoes, in and on everything. It’s pathetic actually. I have them everywhere. It’s just silly. The best part is I usually open bottles with a lighter because I forget I have bottle openers. I think we like them because it’s the quickest way to show other climbers you’re one of the drinking tribe, which I personally think is dumb because I mean there’s like only 4% of the total climbing population that don’t like a good drink.

4. FUCKING STICKERS EVERYWHERE

Look at this microwave. This is just dumb. No one wants their house to look like this. Climbers do this because deep down they know stickers are the most worthless thing on earth. Most people don’t want to be committing to brands by putting them on our cars and such since most normal people don’t REALLY know the difference between a North Face and a Patagonia rain jacket. So what happens is we put all the stickers we get onto everything we own to show…how many stickers we’ve acquired? I actually have no  idea why things are like this. I took a quick look around Mt. Crushmore (the p and c house/hostel/office) we have stickers on the following: microwave (shown) mailbox inside the house, fridge, bathroom mirror, various doors, coffee pot, various walls, stove, trash can, dvd, player, random items sitting around the house that someone thought a stcker belonged on, coffee cups, water bottles, filing cabinet, dresser, guitar case, computer. And that’s just what I remember or can see from my seat right now.

5. CLIMBING SOLUTIONS TO MODERN PROBLEMS

This is in Bronco’s closet. Hangers were not good enough for Bronco. Jeans were not meant to be folded or hung. so what do we do? We tie a busted rope to either end of the closet attach biners with alpine butterflies and then hang jeans on them. Just look at that handy work. If you walk into someone’s house and you see something like this, it’s okay to to laugh. It’s also okay to steal these ideas and do them yourself because you’re jealous you don’t have an easy way to access your jeans and think about climbing all at once. There are other examples too. Notice the thing holding the bottle openers up above. Climbing gear rulz. like. totez.

6. A NEGLECTED CLIMBING HELMET

This one I’m pretty sure you’ll find in a lot of climbers homes. A helmet with scratches that only exist because it was taken to the crag early in the climbers career and thrown on the ground NEAR him. It’s doubtful that much  rock actually fell on the helmet.  Anyway. These things stay tucked away just in case the climber decides to climb something like the Diamond, which to me is hysterical since I feel like you’re more likely to get hit with a rock in Rifle than on Long’s… what do I know though, my helmet is in the garage.

7. CLIMBING GEAR PRETTY MUCH EVERYWHERE

I mean this is the obvious one. Climbers have climbing gear everywhere. duh. You’ll find it in the bathroom, in the kitchen, on the tv, behind the tv, under the couch, in the couch, behind the couch, every surface upon which gear can be set will have gear on it. Also notice the Dale’s Pale Ale can in the stack. Typical. Awesome.

8. READING MATERIAL

You would be hard-pressed to find a climbers toilet that doesn’t include a stack of climbing porn next to the tank. Climbers spend so much time outside and occasionally shitting in the woods we like to completely be at ease when we actually do get to sit on the great white contoured seat, so we set aside a library of reading material which usually includes entire histories of mags. We still have the issue of Rock and Ice that Time Child was featured on for sending that honeymoon route on the Diamond. Weird. Sorry Tommy, I just told the world I look at you in a magazine while I’m sitting on the toilet. I hope that’s not too awkward for you.

9. OBVIOUS LACK OF INTEREST IN HYGIENE

I wrestled with showing this to you all, but I’m still of the opinion that this is plenty. This is all that exists in our shower and I don’t think we are alone with showers like this.  We aren’t girls. We are men with short hair and mostly hairless bodies, but I admit, this isn’t a lot. At any given time there are 3-5 people staying at Mt. Crushmore and we have a bottle of shampoo that’s nearly empty, a couple bars of soap, a razor with no actual razor and one tooth brush. This is the simple approach. We are simple people with simple needs. This I contest is typical of many climbers, but I suppose that’s to be expected with a bunch of people who are used to not showering for days and days on end. Who really likes showering anyway.

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Tags: climbers, home, house