At one point or another we’ve all had a climber come up to us while we’re setting and complain that we just took down the project they were sure to send that very day. “Well you should’ve sent it yesterday”, I usually say, or “It’s just plastic, I’ll have some mega classics up in a moment.” But really, is this fair?

No. We owe it to our climbers to give them the courtesy and opportunity to send their projects. As setters it is our responsibility to make climbers as happy as we can when it comes to the routes they climb, and that means giving them sufficient notice about turnover.

Is this still good?

It’s standard practice for setters to put the date they set the route or boulder problem on each starting tag. But this ’set date’ only tells setters and the climbers the birth date of the route, not when the route will be coming down.

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