Climbing Vernacular

“Beta” (includes “beta sprayer”)

DW

May 28, 2020

Informant Data:

DW is a 21-year-old junior at Dartmouth College, where he is an English major. He grew up in Philadelphia and started climbing when he was young with his dad. He is a leader in the Dartmouth Mountaineering Club, and has been chair of the club in the past. He has also gone on climbing trips with the club.

Contextual Data:

Cultural and social context are in part from my own personal knowledge of the climbing community and in part from context given by the informant during their interview.

Cultural Context: Climbing can be challenging for many reasons. The most obvious reason is physical: difficult climbs require a lot of strength and endurance. Climbing can also be mentally challenging, in that the sequence of moves required to complete a climb is not always obvious. This is most applicable in outdoor climbing, but can sometimes be the case in an indoor climbing gym as well. In outdoor climbing, the holds and the route are not marked, and you are looking at a section of wall to climb where the holds may not be immediately evident. Additionally, sometimes being on a climbing wall prevents you from seeing a hold that someone on the ground can more easily see. So, climbers often ask other climbers, who are more experienced, who have completed the climb, or who are looking at the climb from a different vantage point, for help. However, some climbers, typically those that are very experienced, do not want help when they climb, because they only see a climb as truly completed if they did it entirely themselves.

Social Context: The term “beta” is used to describe a move or sequence of moves used to complete a section of a climb. It is very widespread and frequently used in the climbing community. A beginner may ask for help or advice without knowing the term, and they might learn it when a more experienced climber says “the beta is…” The informant described the social context as such:

“It is democratic in that you can ask anybody for beta. You would probably only ask beta of people who are better than you or at your level. It’s a way of passing down to lesser climbers, but it’s not meant as gate-keeping. It’s very open and encouraging. Above all it’s a pretty democratizing kind of thing, it’s not baring people from information. In rock climbing competitions, even climbers from different schools will give each other beta, because that’s just how the community works. If you were to ask someone for beta, they wouldn’t say no. It shows the climbing community at its best.”

This term, like much of climbing vernacular, was learned by the informant in a group setting and picked up from conversation between more experienced climbers. An example of this term in use is, a climber on the wall makes a few attempts but keeps falling. Then, they would ask a friend, “Hey, what’s the beta for this?” and the friend would try to provide helpful advice, “Can you move your left foot any higher?” or “There is a large hold right above your head” or sometimes, “it’s a very hard move, you just have to try and go for it.”

Text:

This text is an almost exact quote from the informant during an interview over Zoom, with some small edits made for clarity.

“Beta essentially means advice. It is the strategy with which someone accomplishes a climb. Let’s say I climbed a rock by going up the right side of it, then if you were to try to climb it later, you’d ask me what the beta was or what my strategy was: I’d say, “Just climb up the right side.” There is different beta for different climbs, and each climb will have multiple betas. Beta is a key part of the climbing cultural community where there is bonding in being able to show to a gym and ask anybody what the beta is for a climb, and everyone’s always happy to show you what they did. It’s very communal. But there’s an important side of beta called “beta spray.” Some people want to figure out climbs on their own, because it’s part of the big challenge, and a really rookie mistake is to walk up to someone in the middle of a climb and give them beta unsolicited. That is a “beta spray” and it’s considered to be a little impolite. When it comes to beta you always want to share it when it’s asked for, but not when it’s unsolicited.”

Katherine Adelman, 21

Dartmouth College

Russ 13

Spring 2020