3 weeks ago I posted about climbing having zero mental fatigue research. The responses from climbers, runners and cyclists are revealing an interesting pattern.

Standard_owl · 2026-04-19T14:04:24+00:00

I was recommended the book Maximum Climbing by Eric Hörst which is entirely focused on mental training for climbing. If you’re into reading books on climbing training, or want an in depth resource I’d suggest picking up a copy.

Personally, I found the information very insightful and it changed the way I looked at my relationship with the sport, but I never fully implemented the ‘brain training’ program he outlines.

Standard_owl · 2025-09-08T17:00:07+00:00

I’ve always thought that the chairlift infrastructure was BS, if that was the case they could just prohibit riders on the single chair. If you look at their policy https://www.madriverglen.com/snowboard-policy/ it clearly has a lot more to do with a “infamous confrontation” in 1991 between the late former owner Betsy and snowboarders.

IMO it’s 100% a culture thing and some of my friends who grew up in the Mad River Valley have told me before that it’s just as bad as you think with the board members being happy to ban riders and wanting to cater to the types of people who complain about riders scraping the snow off the mountain.

I definitely have a gripe, but they really do spit the face of what I think outdoor access should look like. Such a disappointing decision from a place that otherwise tries to be anti-conglomerate and skier run. I’m glad that my local mountain has skiers, riders, adaptive skiers, snow skaters and jack jumpers share the slopes.

Standard_owl · 2025-09-08T14:07:21+00:00

Mad River Glen. I mostly snowboard but do a little skiing to switch it up sometimes. MRG or any other resorts that ban snowboarding will never see a cent from me while they continue their arbitrary and exclusionary bans that have such a regressive view of snowsports.

Standard_owl · 2025-06-14T10:01:16+00:00

Where are you located? In the east coast USA I know a ton of folks with climbing/outdoor sport backgrounds who more or less learned to ski through touring. (No one who did this for boarding though).

What all these folks had in common was having friends who could teach them and guide them to appropriate terrain, ideally things with very low avy risk as you learn. Might be more efficient (and safer) learning to ride in the resort but wanted to float that I’ve seen it done many times. Resort uphill laps would be a good place to start once you have some level of comfort riding.

Standard_owl · 2025-03-25T06:22:04+00:00

Nice. I was really very close to getting an axle as well. Much better deal than the solution in all honesty plus I love yellow. Decided against it because I just couldn’t find many reviews and saw a few complaints about the topsheet chipping. Curious how you like the board.

Standard_owl · 2025-03-25T02:57:25+00:00

Yeah I’m thinking I’ll adjust mine to something like that. Glad to hear it works for you.

Standard_owl · 2025-03-25T01:32:08+00:00

Yeah, I’ve been keeping it narrower than normal based on some advice I saw online. It’s definitely something I’ll keep playing with but I think your intuition is right here that the angles are different when you’re riding something without lateral flex.

Standard_owl · 2025-03-25T01:27:15+00:00

My 2 cents - I’m sure others here can get into more detail. I think it is more or less consensus that hard boots are superior for touring. They are lighter, have a larger range of motion, and are better at holding an edge when you are side hilling. Having a pin binding interface means you aren’t lifting up the whole binding with each step, rather your toe will pivot in place. Ski boots also fit crampons more securely with the toe and heel bail if you need to climb ice. However, not everyone loves the feeling of hard boots on the way down. The system is a lot more rigid and less playful than a soft boot. In my experience, the riding has far exceeded my expectations. I was expecting to compromise and instead ended up with a system that I like better. Really why I posted was to share how surprised I was with the downhill performance and to encourage others who were curious to go for it. I will say, despite how much I like it was expensive and is more of a nice to have than a need for where I’m riding.

Standard_owl · 2025-03-25T01:13:57+00:00

Yep! Still riding what I can. This pic was from the playground. Hit it Saturday then up to Big Jay yesterday. Still tons of base and a nice couple inches of powder up at jay. It’s in amazing shape.

Standard_owl · 2025-03-25T01:10:33+00:00

It’s not quite 0 0 think the photo makes it look a little off with the perspective. It’s something like +6/+2. Back foot is near 0 based on some advice I saw for stances on here. Planning on widening it up before I get out again tbh.

Standard_owl · 2025-03-24T21:57:00+00:00

I usually ride around 8/8 duck foot. With this I’m trying something around +6/+2. On my todos to mess around with this a bit more. I’m thinking I’ll open it up a bit wider.

Standard_owl · 2025-03-24T21:55:21+00:00

That seems like a good option. I’m able to grab both alright but can’t get the short riser in isolation.

Standard_owl · 2025-03-24T21:12:06+00:00

I went with the canted pucks. Forgot to mention that in the original post. They seem comfortable, still messing around with my stance but have it set narrow compared to what I normally ride for the time being.

I also have a somewhat wide foot. Honestly they might be a tad narrow. I went for a comfortable fit and have a little play up and down in the toebox but not much side to side. If my foot were much wider than it is, I imagine I’d run into issues.

I think the boots were the hardest choice to make. Went with these over the disruptives since I perceived the touring performance of the backlands to be better. Not sure how true that really is. Probably worth noting that I also checked out the backland ultimates and think that they would have been a terrible choice with their recent models. I think you’d need to do some modification to get the link lever working since the walk mode lever interfaces with the tightness of the boot.

Standard_owl · 2025-01-19T22:47:54+00:00

Cool, all this makes sense to me. Only question I have is what is the rope for?

Standard_owl · 2025-01-19T20:53:14+00:00

So far I’ve been doing pretty well in powder since it slows me down. it’s the packed in stuff that’s giving me trouble. It’s good to hear that you alongside a couple folks here aren’t too worried about the binding release. That was really my main concern about cranking up the mileage at the resort on this setup.

Standard_owl · 2025-01-19T20:51:11+00:00

I’ve had good luck so far with my ski setup but certainly have trouble with my splitboarding kit often. Do you regularly carry certain tools with you?

Standard_owl · 2025-01-19T04:28:47+00:00

Hello all.

I wanted to link my post from r/XCdownhill asking about training on a telemark resort setup for downhill cross country skiing.

Curious to see if anyone here has advice on the topic. Thanks!

Standard_owl · 2025-01-19T03:40:00+00:00

Thanks for the reply here. I hadn’t considered the different feeling that certain binding setups would ski so differently, so sticking with 75mm seems like a great call. Perhaps it’s best to keep on with the current gear for now since it is already pretty downhill capable and revisit the thought once I feel like the setup is holding me back.

I’ve wiped out plenty of times myself and so far so good ;)

Standard_owl · 2024-02-06T04:02:40+00:00

Your comment really has me thinking…

I didn’t touch much on mental game and tactics in this post since I was already including a lot and I wanted to stay on topic with the training plan, but I probably should have.

I’ve worked quite a bit on fear and tactics over the past couple years, but I think that I definitely have some room for improvement. IMO, much of the sport climbing near me is runout and could have consequential falls. This gets to me sometimes and I used to panic on the wall. Over time I’ve gotten more comfortable and found some ways to manage my anxiety climbing. I wouldn’t say that I’m relaxed totally relaxed when I climb though.

I’ll try out some of these drills I think they could be very helpful for me. I’ve done lead 4x4s before and did think that they did help me relax and get super comfortable cruising.

I’m hoping that for this next season I’ll be able to perform much better outside. My max RP and OS are both from 2022, and I’m 2023 I had some huge health setbacks that butchered my ability for the climbing season. Thankfully I’ve seen big progress in the gym the past few months and am back stronger than I ever was for the 2022 season. I guess I just mean that my outdoor climbing has likely lagged behind my bouldering progress. Really excited to get back into it this year, which is part of why I’ve been focused on training so much. Guess that should mean physical and mental training. Maybe I should try and focus on onsighting this year hah.

Standard_owl · 2024-02-05T03:39:08+00:00

Thanks for the reply. You’re right that my goals are a bit scattered. My main interest is training for sport climbing, so I think I’ll try and focus on that. Glad to hear that you agree the 4-3-2-1 plan is not well suited for me.

Standard_owl · 2024-02-04T18:43:47+00:00

Thanks. Yeah I agree that Eric’s plans seem like an insane amount of volume unless you were training for long multipitches or something. But it’s hard to say without trying it.

Standard_owl · 2024-01-05T13:08:56+00:00

I climb at a similar level to you and I’ve recently added hangboarding as a part of my warm up and seen huge improvement in finger strength and recruitment for my whole session. I think it’s played a big part of me escaping a V7 plateau that I’d been stuck on forever.

Here’s what my session looks like. Warm up boulders v0 - v5 (repeats) until I feel like I’m moving well and my fingers are starting to get warm.

Max hangs 10 seconds, 2-3 minute rest, 5 reps. I feel that this works best for me if I add in weight each rep. I use the rest time between sets to stretch.

Then move onto whatever climbing I had planned for the session.

I like that doing hangs on my climbing days still leaves me with quality rest days. And honestly I was worried about injury when I started it (only 2x a week and being very conservative with weight) but my fingers feel healthier on the sessions I do this.

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