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The first draft of this article was titled “In Praise of the Shorties.” I’m not necessarily proud of that—but it was the softest entrance I could think of to carefully broach one of climbing’s most passionate campfire debates: Is it really that much easier to climb if you’re tall?
The answer, like a dirtbag returning from a six-month roadtrip, is slow to unpack. For example: A shorter climber can nestle into a boulder’s sit start much more comfortably than a lanky lad. And when a shorty pulls a steep, angular roof, they will exert less core strength relative to their asparagus adversary. However, on techy vertical faces—especially techy vertical faces with big moves between good holds—it’s hard to argue that being tall is anything but a gigantic helping hand.
Tina Breslin, a 5’2” climber with an equidistant wingspan, was recently climbing a beautiful slab called Acme Wall (V3) in England. The 23-foot boulder is classic U.K. gritstone: a rippled panel with horizontal breaks that rewards deft footwork and composure.
It also rewards being really fucking tall.
Watch Breslin and her 6’4”, +4 ape index partner climb Acme Wall with more or less the same beta. (Except for the 12 extra hand and foot moves Breslin does.)
If you find yourself at the boulders this summer, arguing about the usefulness of height, pull out that video. It will become the best mic drop you’ll ever use.
Breslin didn’t share this edit to put down her tall friends, but rather to illustrate just how different two people’s experiences on the same piece of stone can be. “Sometimes, when I’m exhausted and trying the thirtieth combination of body positions—on a move most people don’t even think about—my fingertips bleeding from pulling on a pebble that’s never been touched before…I wonder why I bother.” she wrote on Instagram. After all, gritstone, like monolithic granite, rarely favors the short.
As a 5’10” climber myself, I haven’t really been in Breslin’s shoes before. But there is something undeniably beautiful about watching her take a problem that was not necessarily made for her, and figuring out how to solve it anyway.
So what if she couldn’t reach that distant opening left crimp? A high left foot, jacked up, plus a wicked cross-through and match will do the trick. (Followed by all sorts of creative back flagging, high stepping, death crimping, core squeezing and other forms of rock-art freestyling.) I challenge you to watch Breslin’s beta and tell me it doesn’t look more interesting than mindlessly plodding through positive crimps.
As a result, of course, Breslin’s beta is going to be way harder than her partner’s. Acme Wall is officially graded 6A/V3, but Breslin takes 6C+/V5 for all her extra shenanigans. I think that’s more than fair. The vast majority of route developers are much taller than 5’2” and grade their routes according to their own body sizes—not someone who is a foot taller than them, nor a foot shorter.
But wait! you cry. What about consensus? A 2023 study found that the average height for the world’s best comp climbers was 5’8”-5’9” for men and 5’4”-5’5” for women. So if you are climbing a reachy slab like Acme Wall, and you’re significantly above or below these averages, you can pretty accurately assume that the stated grade is different from your actual experience. (And don’t even get me started on ape indexes…)
All this grade debate aside, I imagine it’s a bit demoralizing to siege a problem that your buddy hikes as a warmup. I applaud Breslin for sharing the video, and not shying away from this conversation—which, depending on what types of climbers you surround yourself with, can range from friendly banter to a sparkling display of one’s inferiority complex.
If you’re still unconvinced, check out this piece by Katie Lambert (5’0’’, bone crusher) where she explores some legit data unearthed by the folks at Lattice Training. Their findings? Among other things, a long body allows you to have far weaker fingers than your height-challenged counterparts.
In this video, on that sunny English day, both Breslin and her partner are clearly enjoying a primo piece of gritstone real estate—but I think Breslin’s beta looks way more fun.