Routes and boulder problems are a climbing gyms' main product. I know, I’m stating the obvious, but to me it is interesting to consider the thing that is sold to us climbers, the consumers. And if climbing is just the product, then what is the routesetter? Merely a worker who throws holds up on the wall? Or is there more to this job than meets the eye?
A boulder problem or route becomes more than just a product when the climber interacts with it, figures it out, their own body making a way through movement set by another body. The routesetter is probably the single-most important job in a gym because of the relationship this creates.
The Steel Town Throw Down is a few days away, which is why routesetting is on my mind. As someone who has been an amateur, volunteer setter in a few different environments, namely The Climbing Wall (TCW) since back in the 1990s, and occasionally for another big, annual bouldering competition at a friend’s gym in Virginia, I’m glad I’m not a route setter for this comp! No, no, that’s not true. My body might be relieved, but my younger self would love to be part of the huge undertaking of resetting every wall at ASCEND South Side.[1]
Because I have dabbled in setting myself, I’ve always been a little intrigued by the route setting team at ASCEND. Especially in the past year, I’ve enjoyed watching them work together at Point Breeze and gel as a team. As a woman myself, I’m really happy that there are usually women setting at the ASCEND gyms. It makes me wonder, what is it like to be a full-time setter? Could I hack it myself?[2] Now that I write for ASCEND’s blog, I had the chance to sit down and talk with the fem setters at Point Breeze, Chelsea and Olivia, about what it’s like to be women on the team during ordinary times, but especially for the Steel Town Throw Down.
So let’s jump in right there.
When asked about what setting for the Steel Town Throw Down is like, they used the words “special” and “brutal.” “Every year the hope is that it won’t be [so brutal]. We’re bringing in [other setters] so it will be the least brutal possible,” said Olivia. “[The Steel Town Throw Down] is also very much a performance for us as routesetters, which is something climbers don’t often think about when they are competing.” The setters work about 60-70 hours each, some of them in the wee hours of night, the five to six days leading up to the comp: stripping all the holds, washing them, and then setting brand-spanking-new routes on every wall in the place.
Chelsea, newer to the ASCEND team, who began her setting career in 2020 at ELEV8 Climbing and Fitness at Traverse City, Michigan, chimed in: “It’s an exhibition of the excellence of the routesetting team and the management skills of the Head Routesetters, [Brian Pascuzzi, Jake Sustritch, Ryan Flint, and Connor O’Kane]. By the end of the week, all of us are so exhausted. They get us through the week and more. To be in the role of head routesetter and lead with respect, compassion, and benefit-of-the-doubt; to be able to say, ‘It’s okay, you rest. I’ll climb this, and you tell me what you see’; to listen to our feedback and to take it for what it is; and at the end of the day, to keep a good attitude and to keep all of us in high spirits, is so special. It’s really magical.”
The first thing climbers should know about routesetting in general, is that the job is hard. “It is pure work that is hard on your body,” Olivia said. Chelsea elaborated: “Physically, you’re up and down on a ladder all day, using a drill. Then you climb, you forerun, and you do moves over and over again. And you fall, and you fall, and you fall. And then you clean up and move ladders, and you’re walking [back and forth] across foam. It's exhausting.”
Olivia: “Body of a route setter, body of a climber— very different.”
Chelsea: “Can I sit in a full-body harness for four hours at a time, and do rope access type work all day? Sure, yeah! But can I ride my bike a half mile? No, I absolutely cannot.”
Someone might be quick to think, They do so much climbing! They have to be getting stronger. But there’s a big difference between being rested and fresh when a climber arrives at the gym for a training sesh. By the time the setters actually get to the climbing part of their day— forerunning the routes— they’ve already been working for hours. Olivia put it this way, “I’m really strong for picking things up and carrying them up ladders, but not for climbing.” She also finds herself rehabbing a lot of tweaks and injuries that regularly pop up.
And then there is the creative, mental exhaustion. “You’re not only creating something in your own head and then trying to execute it on the wall, but then you are also getting critical feedback about your work from the team which is hard. It’s difficult conceptually to describe something abstract and have that information be received [by the team] and then receive [back critical] information [from them] and act on it. It’s like trying to make a piece of art with four different people.”
So if it’s so hard, why make routesetting your full time job?
Chelsea was drawn to routesetting “because it had this mystery about it.” The people she respected as strong climbers were also routesetters. She learned how to set at the gym in Michigan, trained in part by ASCEND Point Breeze’s Head Routesetter, Jake, and when she moved back to Pittsburgh last year and needed a job, he told her they could use the help. She lucked into it— she knew the right people and asked about it at the right time.
Olivia’s story is very similar in some ways. When she was a climber at TCW, she stopped climbing what was already set and started making up her own problems. Pretty soon, Alan[3] and the head routesetter at the time, Paul, invited her to tape[4] the problems she made up. And so she began volunteering in her free time. She called this “lucky” as well. She just happened to be at the right place and the right time. When TCW re-opened after the pandemic, Olivia was working full-time as a nurse, but routesetting was what she did to find joy. Eventually she decided to switch to working full-time at the gym and was hired. When TCW closed and ASCEND Point Breeze opened, she was given a routesetting job as part of that deal.
Chelsea and Olivia like that the job is physically demanding, but the main reason both want to keep at it is because of ASCEND’s team. “The Head Routesetters lead with athletic empathy, they lead with a listening ear and benefit-of-the-doubt, they respect team members, and that feels very fortunate,” Chelsea said. “They ride or die for their team.” Chelsea and Olivia’s membership is considered equal and, of course, important.
On a typical day at the gym, each setter names their intention for the problem or route that they plan to set, and the team “always [makes] sure [that in critiquing and forerunning] the intention [remains intact and] is executed. We trust that each other’s ideas and execution of them will be cool and fun. If [the route] doesn’t work this way [at first], how can we get it to work? Even when changes are made, we try to keep it in the setter’s intended style,” Olivia said.
This trust in the team is especially important for Olivia and Chelsea as fem setters. Both expressed that when they first started, they wanted to avoid being considered “stereotypical fem setters.” They both fought to change their natural style. Olivia began using mostly jugs and setting power moves. “But after a year or so I became more comfortable, and didn’t feel like I had to set in a particular way to make people happy. If you put up a climb and people get to use their hands and feet to get to the top of the wall, then they are psyched.”
Chelsea said, “It’s common for women and people with less body mass to like crimps because you can just yard on them. But I think I heard enough comments that ‘Chelsea set another crimpy thing. I guess that’s just what girls do,’ that for a while I didn’t set with crimps at all… I was so resentful for being put in this box. I actually didn’t use crimps anymore than the men, but every time I [did], somebody made a comment about it.
At ASCEND, the setting team is invested in setting climbs for everyone’s body. “I can set climbs that are harder than what I would generally climb because we’re working on all of them as a team, we forerun as a team. To understand climbing movement and fairness in the movement and to set with intention is different than sending.”[5] Some people might not understand this difference, and they “sometimes hone in too much on the individual setter’s climbing ability or max grade.” You do not have to climb hard to understand climbing movement or to set good, difficult routes and boulder problems. Likewise, even the strongest setters need to be able to set for the beginner climber.
Also, “it’s common in the [climbing] industry for women to set things that are reachy and to sandbag their own climbs,” Chelsea continued. “If I’m instructed to set a V6 and actually do set a V6, I’m more likely to undermine myself, and say, ‘Actually, I think it’s more like a V4.’ When I think about the specific way that being a non-man setter impacts [my] work, it’s that I’m more likely to overcorrect for my perceived weaknesses. And it’s very unconscious. Mentally I’m 5’10”, but I’m really not.” So being part of a team that knows well and upholds each setter’s style and strength is super important.
Both fem setters consider their work creative as much as it is physical. This is what makes the routes in the gym more than just a product. There is an art to setting, a creative energy that drives it. It’s the setter’s expression of movement that the climbers get to experience with their own bodies. If their climbs were in an art museum, Chelsea’s would be a huge canvas with a bunch of fine lines and teeny dots made with black pen and ink, and Olivia’s would be beautifully abstract and colorful. Chelsea uses lots of volumes with small screw-ons and hidden holds that are lower impact while Olivia uses big holds that cover more space, and she does a good job of weaving them through one another.
Another thing people should know about the setters, besides that they work really hard, is how much they care. They aren’t doing it for the money— it’s actually very hard to earn a living wage in the climbing industry for a single person who lives on their own, without a partner or roommates. Olivia said, “It is lucky that we even get to do this job all the time. As an industry thing, the ability to have a full-time job is rare on its own.”
Chelsea and Olivia truly love their work and try their best to set cool and fun problems for all climbers, no matter their body types and abilities— even on days when they might be super tired and can barely open their hands. And honestly, the way they talked about their jobs at ASCEND made me want to be on the team too.
So if you go to the Steel Town Throw Down on Saturday, December 7, or any time you climb at ASCEND gyms, really, and you find yourself frustrated on any given climb, consider the time, energy, blood, sweat, skin, and maybe even tears that have been shed in creating them. And when your body clicks with a problem that is incredibly fun and cool and makes you feel amazing and strong, consider the people who created it for you. And if you are a spectator for finals on Saturday night, when the setting team is introduced, cheer a lot, clap and yell, and maybe whistle for them, because they have certainly worked more than hard enough to deserve the praise and appreciation.
FOOTNOTES
It is a little known fact that I was part of the team who set the first boulder problems when that premiere ASCEND gym was about to open, and I think I set two whole problems. Haha. As an occasional setter only, I’m very slow and kind of wimpy.
The answer is, maybe 20 years ago.
IYKYK
Yes, tape! The routes at TCW were taped!
I totally jived with what Chelsea said. When I want my partner Brian, who climbs much harder than me, to listen to my beta for something he is working on, I often point out to him that in my mind I climb as hard as he does. I can visualize how to send hard climbs, imagine the moves, I just can’t actually send them.
