Climbing Status Symbol
“Jug Rash and Callus Mapping”

Emma Rafkin
Hanover, New Hampshire
May 19, 2019

Informant Data:

Emma Rafkin is a 20-year-old student in her second year at Dartmouth College. She was born in Chicago, Illinois, USA on September 13, 1998. Emma’s mother is a doctor and her father is a lawyer. Emma has two older siblings: a brother and a sister. Her family origins are Eastern European Jewish. She describes her family background as “nomadic”. Emma is white and upper-middle class. Emma has been climbing since she was 9 years old. Her parents do not climb, but her older siblings both climb: her sister started climbing before her, and her brother started climbing only recently. Emma has been involved with the climbing community in Chicago since it started; she was a member of the first climbing gym in the city and her coach founded the first chain of climbing gyms in Chicago. From elementary school until she graduated from high school, Emma was a competitive climber. She no longer climbs competitively but enjoys hanging out with climbers at Dartmouth and climbing occasionally for fun.

Contextual Data:

Cultural Context:

Calluses are layers of skin that build up in areas of the body that are frequently used in chafing or high-load bearing activities. Calluses on the hands are an incredibly important part of being a climber. Climbing requires bearing most of a person’s body weight on just the fingers and toes; this causes calluses to build up on a climber’s hands. These calluses serve two practical purposes: they blunt the pain of placing a large amount of weight on a small area of skin, and they (sometimes) increase a climber’s grip on a surface. Calluses are so important that climbers will avoid any activities that remove them or soften the skin on their hands. High-level climbers especially will not swim in chlorinated water or use lotion of any kind.

Because of their importance, calluses are a point of pride for many climbers. In fact, professional climbers with large social media followings will post pictures of their callused hands on platforms such as Facebook or Instagram. These photos are most often posted when the climber in question has bleeding hands, signifying that despite having many thick and impressive calluses, they still did such difficult climbs and pushed themselves so hard that it ripped their calluses open. These photos and the culture around calluses thus act as a status symbol within the climbing community, both in who has the most impressive calluses and who climbs the hardest.

Social Context:

This folklore was collected during a conversation between Olivia and Emma. Olivia is a newer climber, and Emma has often helped explain parts of climbing culture that are new and unfamiliar to Olivia. The collection of this folklore came about when Emma began to compliment Olivia about the status of the calluses on Olivia’s hand, noting that the number of calluses and thickness of calluses on her hand was growing.

Emma noted that calluses are a common topic of conversation within the climbing community. After a particularly hard climb or a session in the climbing gym, a climber might proudly show their calluses to another climber. If a person hasn’t climbed in a while and their calluses have gone away, they might complain to a friend of theirs that they’re getting rusty because “they don’t even have a jug rash anymore”. If not directly stated, Emma noted that climbers sometimes assess other climber’s calluses during a handshake. It’s very rare that a climber would mention someone else’s calluses unprompted, but it is common for a climber to start a conversation about themselves and their calluses

Text:    

[I have recorded the use of calluses as a status symbol not exactly as Emma told it but as close as possible with the notes that I took. This is meant to be an accurate representation of her words, but is ultimately in my own phrasing]

The location and intensity of calluses on a climber’s hand is used to assess a climber’s abilities. A climber who only has calluses on their palm, for example, is a lower-level climber because they are using hand holds on the wall that allow them to get their entire hand on the hold. These holds are the easiest ones in the gym. The calluses on the palm are called a “Jug Rash”. These are the first calluses you’d get as a beginner climber.

As a climber gets better and begins to use smaller and more difficult holds, their calluses will move up their fingers. Eventually, the best of the best climbers will have calluses on the very tips of their fingers because they are using the most difficult holds available. The localization of calluses is thus considered to be a proxy for one’s talent as a climber, and is a status symbol within the community.

   Olivia Hunter
22 N Park St., Apartment 201, Hanover NH
Dartmouth College
Russian 13
Spring 2019