How did I end up becoming an off-width climber?
I used to absolutely hate off-widths—mostly because I didn’t like the way it felt thrashing blindly inside of them. It hurt. It felt unpleasant. And I never had enough wide gear. The whole endeavor felt like a waste of time.
My first visit to the off-width hotspot of Vedauwoo, Wyoming, was a short, three-day jaunt that I went on mostly because my friends were going and I thought, Why not?
After the first day of climbing moderate 5.9–5.10 off-widths, I wanted to leave.
Words by Mary Eden. Excerpt from the new issue of The Climbing Zine, Volume 25, now available. Photo of the author climbing The Price of Evil by Spencer McKay.
Conspiring with my partner in the tent after day one, I asked, “Why don’t we just leave early and hit up Devil’s Tower?”
My tent shook suddenly from the outside. Our friends had heard my plans to bail. “Absolutely not!” they yelled.
I had fun on that short trip, not because of the climbing but because of my friends. After Vedauwoo, I decided the only difference between climbing heaven and climbing hell was that climbing hell had off-widths.
A few years later, I was reaching for a set of quickdraws at Gearheads in Moab but couldn’t quite get them.
“Need help?”
A tall, athletic girl with a ridiculously cool vibe walked up and plucked them off the wall for me with a small smirk. Terrified of a cool chick chatting me up, I mumbled yes, paid for the draws, and ran away as fast as my social anxiety would let me.
From there I mustered up the courage to ask the girl, whose name was Mercadi, to go climbing with me. I was experiencing a plateau in climbing, and she shared my desire to improve. That meant leaning into my anti-styles—the things I definitely did not enjoy.
First up on the plate? Off-width.
The reason I chose off-width to start was because my favorite type of climbing, adventure climbing, always seemed to have a wide pitch. I was tired of those pitches always feeling like the crux.
Mercadi and I didn’t have much wide gear, so we decided to start small and seek out off-width boulders. This turned out to be the most fun I’ve ever had bouldering. On rainy days, we would hike around Moab and search for new off-width boulders; then, on a good day, we’d come back with pads and friends. We found we could practice movement a lot easier after seeing what was working for a friend and practicing it close to the ground. We started problem-solving off-widths in groups, almost as a hive mind, and ended up establishing a super-fun invert off-width bouldering circuit in Moab, Utah, called the Kane Creek Bouldering Circuit.
I was discovering that off-width climbing is its own craft—the antithesis of typical climbing movement. The climbing is 3D: full body and big-muscle groups. The question at the top end of hard off-width climbing isn’t about beta as much as it’s about how much you want it. How much are you willing to push past discomfort and pain for one more inch? Grit your teeth. Don’t let go. Shove a body part in deeper. Every time I finish one, I look like I got out of a dirty wind tunnel: exhausted and frazzled. But my groveling had started to turn into genuine excitement—and enthusiasm to learn more.
Eventually, during a trip to Joshua Tree, Mercadi and I were working our first V6 off-width: The Inquisition. I tried the boulder a million times on the first day and just couldn’t get it.
Right before sunset, Mercadi topped out with ease. One minute, we both couldn’t get off the ground, and the next, she was standing on top of the boulder looking at me like, Well, are you going to come up here or not?
I was flabbergasted. I crawled back under the boulder and sort of thrashed around with success. I finally let the movement we had been practicing back home take over and help me top out. Somehow I sent it. I learned that I can’t overthink and logic my way through off-width cruxes—I had to turn my brain off and just move instinctively. This experience was my first time understanding that I have my own creative way of moving through hard problems, moves that look different than what everyone else does…….
This piece is an excerpt from Volume 25. Subscribe / order a copy to read the full story, “The Wide Tour” : https://shop.climbingzine.com/
Mary Eden is a climber and artist based in the American West. She has sent some of the most challenging crack climbs in the US, including Necronomicon (5.14a) and Black Mamba (5.14b). In addition to her climbing achievements, Mary is an avid photographer, painter, and occasional writer with a marketing degree. She also balances her passions with a desk job. You can follow her adventures on Instagram @tradprincess.
