Climbing Vernacular

“High Grav”

MM

May 19, 2020

Informant Data:

MM is a 20-year-old student in her junior year at Dartmouth College. She was born in St. Louis, Missouri, United States on August 22, 1999. M has three siblings: an older brother who is 23, a younger brother who is 18, and a younger sister who is 16. Her father is a radiologist and her mother is a ski instructor for young kids. She sometimes works as a substitute teacher and is currently in the process of starting her own business. Her mother’s side of the family is Chinese and her father’s side of the family is Indian and Italian. Her family is not religious. M is Chinese-Indian-Italian and upper middle class. She started climbing during her freshman year of highschool. All of her siblings climb and her mom does occasionally too. She and all three of her siblings are high-level competitive climbers. She continues to climb competitively as one of the captains of Dartmouth’s Climbing Team. She competes indoors and climbs recreationally outdoors. 

Contextual Data:

Cultural Context: Climbing is a unique sport because it relies on an ability to resist gravity. This is done by using your grip strength mostly to keep your body off the ground. Since you have to stay off the ground for long amounts of time you can start to feel the effect of gravity more or be more aware of it.

Social Context:  The vernacular “high grav” is used during conversations between climbers to describe the state of their climbing that day. It is often used when a climber or group of climbers feels heavy or are climbing poorly during a climbing session. It can be seen as a widely accepted excuse for not climbing as well as you normally do.  An example of the way “high grav” can be used is: “I’m not topping this climb, it’s been a high grav day.” Climbing vernacular folklore is used to create a sense of community among climbers. Knowing vernacular means that climbers are instantly accepted in different climbing locations, regardless of if they are locals. This is particularly important because climbers travel a lot to find the best climbing. The unique vernacular defines a group that is “in the know” and therefore respected more as climbers. Vernacular also promotes verbal efficiency and defines ideas that are important to the climbing community, but do not exist outside of climbing.

Text:  

I have recorded “high grav” as closely as I could to the way MM told it. The following description is from the notes I took during the interview, and are paraphrases of what she shared during it. 

The term “high grav” is used by climbers to describe days where they are having an off climbing day or are not climbing as well as they normally would because they feel heavier. This term is used both in indoor and outdoor climbing. It is usually used when a group has been training very hard or climbing for many days in a row and are particularly tired. It happens most often at the end of the climbing day. The term “high grav” is used by more experienced climbers who spend long hours climbing and care more about how their climbing is perceived by other climbers. The term comes from the feeling of being weighed down, which prevents climbers from climbing as well as they want to. This feeling is then attributed to the same feeling as there being extra gravity making a climber feel heavier. Therefore when climbers are climbing poorly they experience a feeling of higher gravity making it a “high grav” day.

Roxanne Holden, 21

Dartmouth College

Russ 13

Spring 2020