Here in America it’s time to celebrate that great picnic between the Natives and the Settlers.

This usually involves gathering with family to re-create the historic feast by shoving belly-busting quantities of food into our faces.

Thanksgiving also is a time to count the many blessings in our lives. Since our life revolves around routesetting, Routesetter.com would like to give props where props are due. What better way to do that than by a top 10 list of things we as route setters are most thankful for (in no particular order).

Polyurethane – Probably no other contribution to the setting world has had more of an impact than when E-Grips “discovered” they could use urethane to make holds lighter and stronger than ever before. But E-Grips and the rest of the grip makers out there should raise a glass to Dr. Otto Bayer who invented polyurethane in 1937. It only took seventy years for the climbing industry to pick up on it, so here’s to you Otto!

Impact drills – Perhaps not on everybody’s thanksgiving list, but the Impact still represents actual real world technology that is revolutionizing the profession. Impacts are the most wanted tool at any comp yet there never seems to be enough of them around.

Duel tex – Who loves the shiny? We do, We do! We’d like to give a special thanks to the makers of one of the first and best duel texture holds out there: the “Talus”. This classic hold sold by Voodoo Holds is still first on many pro-setters list of favorite holds ever.

Giant holds – Before the advent of super-sized holds setters had to rely solely on their creativity for cool sequences. Now all we have to do is throw a mega sloper up and call it good. A second thanks should also go to “Volumes”, the hottest feature to hit comp walls since the Slovenian Women’s team.

Ratchet Wrenches – This is right up there with the impact drill, but since some gyms don’t allow impacts more setters will be thankful for the wrist saving easiness of the ratchet. Plus you can spin them around on your finger like a gun slinger.

The elimination of the Mono – It has taken almost twenty years for grip makers to phase out the dreaded, injury inducing, and finger eliminating one digit hold. But setters have finally gotten their point across that NOBODY LIKES MONOS! Some of you may have noticed recently a stopper-move mono at the top of the women’s final in Valence, France. Whatever, the French don’t celebrate Thanksgiving anyway.

Flat walls – So simple yet so elusive to wall manufactures. Flat walls are to a setter what a clean canvas is to a painter. We’d like to recognize The Front bouldering gym in Salt Lake City, Utah whom at the turn of the Millennium designed and built the smoothest indoor climbing wall that American boulderers had ever seen.

Top-out indoor boulders – Brought to us first by The Spot bouldering gym in Boulder, CO. They set the standard for all top-out boulders to come. Any respectable bouldering area built today will (or should) have a nice slabby, whale-humping top out. I’m not sure why we should be thankful for this but it is definitely an important development in the indoor climbing world.

“Indoor climbing as an end unto itself” – We’re thankful for this idea because it is responsible for creating the demand in quality, professional setting that allows all of us to envision a time when we wont be laughed at by “real” climbers.

Being a Pro-setter – Last on the list is the relatively new career choice of professional setter. No other time in history has it been possible for an eager and talented setter to make a living of turning wrenches. Now we have a choice of becoming either a corporate executive or route setters. Of course you’re not going to be buying that McMansion up on the hill but it’s one hell of a good lifestyle.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!