Little fingers Big fingers

[epb]

I was climbing at Smith a while make with a midget buddy of mine..dude wears like a size 4 shoe and has hands like half the size of mine. Since Smith is mostly face climbing and many 5.12's are barely overhanging if at all, therefire grip strength (and hand size???) play the major role on the climb. As far as reach goes, it has its pros and cons. However hand size seems to mean a lot when it comes to climbing. Like a finger tip crimper for me is a bucket for my mate, and a one finger pocket is a two for him. Is seems liek it would be a lot easer for a person with tiny hands to rock up that 5.12 face climb than a person with gorilla paws? (however, I know this is not always the case). I was wondering about this when I heard about some 10 year old kid climbing 5.12's. Shit, a 5.12 at smith would be all buckets for a 10 year old, as it was for my mate. What's up with this any how? Should there be likw two ratings or something, one for gorilla people another for the little people?

(BTW I couldn't really care less about the whole rating thing, I'm just wondering what's up with the whole hand size thing)

[nolanr]

That's part of the fun of it. Most of my climbing buddies are around 6', and I'm, well, under 6' by a ways. So a given route is different for me than it is for them. Sometimes I have to come up w/ an intermediate hold or move where they could just reach up and grab something I couldn't. I think there's definitely advantages and disadvantages, whatever your size. I used to climb w/ a girl who was 5' nuthin' (cute, too, but then she went and broke my heart, blah blah blah), she couldn't reach any holds hardly, but she was a pretty good climber.

[epb]

I know the disadvantages in regards to the height of a climber. I was wondering about hand and finger size specifically. As far as height goes though, I think that it kind of equals itself out...some routes may be alittle hard for a small guy some a little harder for a short guy. Some routes even have two ratings when the difference in height makes a major difference. However small hands and fingers would seem to be nothing but advantages (on face climbs at least).

[Marcus_Engley]

epb,

What about routes with lots of open handed, sloping crap to hold onto? Larger hand = more friction to hold on with. Of course, if you've got the larger hands you've probably also got more weight to hang off them, but...

That's the only face climbing situation I can think of where it'd be better to have big meat hooks...

[slaphappy]

I don't know anything about Smith but send your small handed friend up Classic Crack and see if they think it's 5.8! My lady has small hands and swears it's 5.10.

[Cpt.Caveman]

I definitely think hand size can sometimes play a role when crack climbing. I got a gut jam this summer in a chimney

[slothrop]

height definitely has an effect... i often find myself unable to pull a move off the ground or in a corner/under a roof while bouldering since i am too scrunched up to get any leverage upwards. on the other hand, being able to stretch for a hold instead of jump has its advantages. i'm only 6', though.

[epb]

>>I got a gut jam this summer in a chimney<<

I guess a beer belly does have its uses

[Cobra]

Funny

[ 12-07-2001: Message edited by: Cobra ]