In and out before most members come into the gym, the routesetters and their creative process are understandably a mystery to many. I get asked all the time if there is a special routesetting app or if we draw each new boulder on paper before we set it. While the answer to both those questions is no, the process can take a number of different forms.
Before we get to the actual process of setting, let’s break down how we even decide what needs to be set. For each of our gyms, we have an ideal number of problems we want up at any given time and a specific spread of grades within those problems. Most often, that spread of grades looks like a bell curve. There are a handful of climbs set at the easiest grades, the bulk of the available climbing is somewhere in the middle of the grade spectrum, and then it tapers off once you hit the harder grades. At the start of each setting day, a section of the gym is stripped and as a result, our bell curve is skewed. What needs to be set that day is dictated by what we need to reach our ideal spread. We also try to make sure that we are rotating grades and styles throughout the available terrain in the gym.
Having a diversity of styles and grades across the entire gym and within each set is crucial to having a well-balanced gym. Each section of wall should have a little something for everyone. Once we know what we need, individual setters are assigned problems from that list. From there, it starts to get messy. Ask five setters about their process and you’ll get five different answers.
The first step of setting a boulder is knowing what grade, or difficulty, you want it to be. Knowing this, you can observe the wall angle and start brainstorming what types of movements and hold types will work for that grade in that kind of terrain. On a very basic level, you have two options to achieve a grade, straightforward movement on more difficult holds or more complex movement on better holds. For example, an easy to read crimp climb might be the same grade as a climb with much more positive holds if the sequence on the second climb is non-intuitive or heavily reliant on weird body positions.
Again, it all comes back to having balance within a set. As the team is setting, setters need to be mindful of what everyone else is setting so we can achieve a stylistically diverse set. Some straightforward pulling and some funky mind-benders to keep you thinking. In a future blog post, we’ll dive deeper into how we actually create sequences. I hope this series pulls back the curtain and reveals how your favorite problems get set.