What Makes Aussie Pro Climbers Tick?

During climbing month we caught up with a heap of Aussie pro climbers. We asked Tom, Amy, Ben & Lee a bunch of questions to find out what keeps them running up ruthlessly bare walls on the daily (we’ve already worked out that there might be a 3-letter name thing…)

Meet The Climbers

Tom Farrell – @tfarrell2570

Hailing from Camden, Tom’s Australia’s 2016 Australian Boulder Champion and is regularly seen at the Boulder World Cup Semi-Finals. Despite his bouldering focus, he’s now sending some of Australia’s hardest roped outdoor routes. Tom’s sponsors are Nomad Bouldering Gym and Scarpa Australia.

Amy Dunlop  –@_amy_dunlop_

Amy is one of Australia’s best outdoor female boulderers and she still manages to work a full-time job! After moving from Canberra to Sydney she continued her climbing and is a member of the Nomad Bouldering Team along with Tom.

Ben Cossey  – @midnightmisoandthecuppachars

Growing up in the Blue Mountains is a sure-fire way to boost your climbing ability, so when Ben started climbing with his brother Lee their skills rapidly ramped up. Ben loves finding and setting new routes – the “Never Stop Exploring” motto of his sponsor The North Face suits him perfectly.

Lee Cossey  – @leecossey

Ben’s older brother Lee loves sport and traditional climbing and has completed many routes above grade 30, as well as big wall ascents in Yosemite National Park. He currently lives and works in the Blue Mountains so he’s always close to the action. Lee is also sponsored by The North Face.

Tom Farrell ascends a beasty boulder. Photo by @pat_klein

Why do you climb? What is it about climbing that’s so special?

Tom: It’s a great way to challenge yourself, it’s both a physical and a mental challenge and it takes you to special places all over the world.

Amy: Climbing is very versatile. There’s an aspect within climbing to suit any ability and motivation. It provides access to the outdoors and adventure as well as being fun and challenging indoors. You can climb for fitness, focus on climbing hard routes or competing or simply enjoy being outside.

Ben: Climbing is just great fun. Climbing physically hard routes, scary routes where falling would not leave you in too good-of-a condition, bouldering with pals or by yourself – it has so much to offer a person, it never gets boring

Lee: Climbing is the best! It’s constant play that you can enjoy at all imaginable intensities. A day out climbing is typically a very rich experience and is more often than not a combination of athleticism, aesthetics, problem-solving, nature, and socialising. Oh and it can be an adventure too!

What’s your favourite discipline of climbing?

Tom: Bouldering. It’s just a super fun way to climb, the movements can be a little more complicated and powerful because you’re not doing as many moves.

Amy: It’s hard to choose. Inside, I prefer bouldering: I like the social aspect. On the flipside, it can be handy to be able to climb alone and not have to organise a climbing partner. Outdoors, I enjoy both sport climbing and bouldering.

Lee: Ah no, the hardest question in climbing! Sport climbing, bouldering and indoor training all have a really positive impact on the level at which I climb. Without these as my core types of climbing days then I would struggle to perform at the level I want to when doing adventure routes.

Read More: The Many Faces Of Rock Climbing

Lee on the first ascent of ‘Luminous Blue’ in Bungonia Gorge, a route he pioneered with Andrea Hah | Photo by @kamil_sustiak

Do you have any superstitions or rituals before a big challenge?

Tom: I blow chalk off my hands three times before I pull on the wall.

Ben: Nah, not really. As long as my left foot’s in the right shoe and the right foot’s in the left and I spin around 102 times prior to climbing, I’m all good.

Lee: I try to crush those tendencies when they creep in.

How do you deal with fear?

Amy: I definitely get scared and will make every effort to increase safety, including top-roping high boulders to learn the moves. When I’m going for the send on a climb that I find scary, I do have an ability to push through my fear. I slow down, focus on placing my feet and trust I am strong enough to complete the moves.

Ben: By trying to be as brave as possible. If I haven’t done much exposed climbing for a while it can be a bit trouser filling, you just need to keep on trucking really.

Lee: A lot of people seem to want a trick to somehow get rid of the fear of falling or of heights but I’m not sure that’s realistic. I don’t want to be limited by fear, however I don’t ever expect to not get scared. I see it as another sense from which you base decisions, but it doesn’t have to have the final say in the decision-making process.

I use fear to help weigh up the likelihood of something going wrong. I try to judge the available information as an outside observer the way I would if I was giving someone advice on their situation. Once I’ve weighed up the situation and if I’ve deemed it safe to continue I go for it regardless of how much my heart may be trembling away. I love that feeling of pressing on fearfully, it’s something that makes you feel small and human; it gives you a very raw and natural experience that’s rare in modern life.

The funny thing about fear is that I have found myself looking down faces at crazy exposure on mountains, 1000+ metres straight down and I’m absolutely fine, and sometimes I have had a rush of fear on a simple sport route where I’m only 50 meters off the ground.

When I find myself in those situations I try to focus on the small things like breathing and slowing my heart rate down, pretty much the worst thing that you can do is start acting without thinking and making poor decisions.

What’s been your greatest achievement to date? What’s your dream route?

Tom: Airstar (V13) in Rocklands because it was a boulder I had wanted to do for years. It ticked all the boxes I look for in a line: tall, committing and dynamic climbing. It was the last climbing day of the trip and I had three bleeding tips but I got lucky! My dream route at the moment would be Groove Train on Taipan Wall in the Grampians, such a pretty line!

Amy: ‘In The Cloud’ V12 is my hardest ascent. On my recent Easter Grampians trip I was really pleased to also climb ‘Great Expectations’ V10 at Mount Fox. This would have to be a dream route of mine. I remember looking at that boulder a couple of years ago and thinking how amazing it looked and put it on my ‘one day when I’m stronger and braver’ list. It was nice to know that day eventually arrived.  

Amy sending In The Cloud (V12) in the Grampians – Her hardest ascent to date.| Photo by @pat_klein

Lee: The relentlessly hard and scary, multi-pitch routes of El Capitan in Yosemite, California and Mt Buffalo, Victoria. It’s so easy to see all the reasons why you may not succeed and why it’s probably ok to not keep putting yourself through such discomfort. Yet the achievement has been in remaining open to success despite the pain, fear, and uncertainty and keeping each limb operating with perfect precision.

What advice would you have for people who think they’ve plateaued? Did you ever have problems progressing?

Amy: Plateaus are hard and I’ve definitely had them. I suppose it’s about trying something different and persistence. The versatility of climbing I mentioned above has got me through a few plateaus. At the moment, having outdoor projects to work towards provides the incentive to keep training and working my weaknesses.

Having outdoor goals gives Amy the drive to train hard indoors. Photo by Tara Davidson | @cuppa_t

Ben: Try something new in your training. As long as you’re psyched and happy enough to try different training methods and climbing types you’ll always progress.

Lee: Be objective, write it down and then ask your friends if it’s really the case. We’re amazingly adaptive organisms but in order to adapt we need to be challenged by that which we hope to adapt to. Physical or psychological. The first step is to work on your perception of yourself as an athlete, start to behave like the athlete you are aiming to become. This is often the step that’s missing.

So many people start with the physical training and hope they will simply become the athlete in that next performance level — it’s rarely that simple. Our performance is more defined by our perception than our physiology! That doesn’t mean it can be ignored. The next step is to immerse yourself in the specific physical situations that you want to adapt to, frequently.

Lee reckons working on your mind is as important as working on your body. | Photo by @kamil_sustiak

Two simple questions to ask yourself if you’re unsure whether your approach is likely to lead to progress are:

1. How many times a week am I made to feel psychologically uncomfortable by the aspects of climbing that I struggle with the most?
   
2. How many times a week am I physically challenged by the aspects of climbing that I struggle with the most?
   

Aim to be able to answer these questions with the word, many!

Where’s the best place to climb in Aus or NZ?

Tom: The Grampians has some of the best climbing on the planet.

Amy: I can’t go past the Grampians National Park in Victoria for the abundance of boulders and classics at every grade!

Tom and Amy froth on the Grampians. | Photo by @pat_klein

Ben I think the Blue Mountains is the best place to climb in Australia. It has everything: sport, trad, bouldering and an awesome community of climbers and other folk that make it super nice. Great weather too. You can climb all year.

Lee: To live and climb lots of routes year-round – the Blue Mountains.
To climb on the best rock in the world – the Grampians.
To boulder on wild features among grassy fields – Castle Hill, NZ.
To watch vast quantities of rain fall most days and climb the best granite sport routes – The Darrens, NZ

What’s in your crag bag?

Tom: Food and hopefully climbing gear.

Amy: Unfortunately water has been missing on a number of key occasions. I always have various pairs of shoes in multiple brands (when my climbing isn’t going well it’s always the shoes). A packet of Shapes and tuna.

Ben: Normally some doggy snacks – they’re cheaper than human snacks, way lighter, yummy and an excellent source of marrowbone – which is hard to come by in a normal diet.

Lee: Too few draws, too much water, not enough chalk, not enough lunch, way more climbing shoes than I need, the wrong clothes for the weather and rarely a headtorch.

What’s the most dirtbaggy thing you’ve ever done to keep up the climbing lifestyle?

Tom: Baby wipe showers.

Ben: I once snuck into a large guiding company’s camp in the middle of the night. They had a big pot of lukewarm Frankfurters in a billy next to the fire, the skins had split from once-hot water and they had inverted on themselves so were curled around on themselves. There were dying bugs floating on top. I ate all 10 of them because I had run out of food and couldn’t get a ride to town despite trying to hitch the whole day.

Lee: Foregoing study until I was 28, thinking that it would be detrimental to my climbing and impede my lifestyle. I’ve since climbed harder and still had just as much fun!

Favourite climbing word?

Tom: Nails. As in it’s nails instead of it’s hard.

Amy: Spooge/spoogey. The word sounds exactly like the meaning: slimy rock, often a result of humidity, chalk and sweaty fingers. Gross.

Ben: Einfingerkupenaufleger. [sic] It’s pigeon for ‘one finger pocket’.

Lee: Crush. I’m sure its use as an expression of encouragement has its origins in climbing.

Read more: Word Beta // Rock Climbing Slang And How To Use It