You are (probably) wrong about ticking

If you are like most boulderers in Scandinavia, you use digital guides regularly but you seldom or never tick problems. You feel that ticking is just a way for climbers to brag about what they have managed to send. And even if you do sometimes tick, it’s only when you manage to climb something on the edge of your abilities. You secretly feel it’s embarrassing to tick an easy problem.

Feedback

Ticking is so much more than bragging. A tick informs the person with the FA that someone has repeated their boulder. This inspires them to continue creating new problems. Most climbers really like it when someone repeats a problem they have the FA of.

A tick also serves to either confirm or challenge the grade. Many people shy away from this since they don’t trust their ability to grade. What they do not realise is that they can be better placed to set a correct grade than the FA. If the boulder is far below the abilities of the FA, setting a precise grade can be difficult. Sometimes holds will break and the difficulty of the problem will change. Other times a problem will become easier after enough repetitions.

A tick is also the best way to add a comment about a problem. The description of a problem is sometimes confusing, ambiguous or even incorrect. Adding a comment such as: «I did it without the edge on the left since I believe that is not meant to be part of the problem» can be really helpful if that was omitted from the description by mistake.

Inspiration

When a boulder gets ticked it is very common that someone else climbs it within days. The second climber might not know it, but the choice of boulder was probably influenced by the tick. Conversely, a boulder that does not have any ticks makes you wonder if it is any good or if it is a sandbag.

In winter or after heavy rains it can be hard to know if there are any dry problems. One way to check if there is anything climbable is to see what has been ticked recently. The simple logic being that if someone else has climbed a problem it must be in reasonably good condition.

So the next time you are out bouldering forget about your fear of bragging and start ticking everything you climb regardless of grade.

Niklas