Diary of a Routesetter Who Kind of Hates You, But Politely

In every climbing gym, there is a quiet figure asked to create movement, desire, progress, and meaning, while calmly absorbing the frustrations of the people who will consume that work. This is one routesetter’s imagined inner monologue.

Blocbuster Courbevoie © Vertige Media

It is 7:12 a.m., and if I’m being completely honest, I already hate you.

Not you personally. I haven’t met you yet. I hate the person you will become by 7 p.m. I hate your little comments in advance. Your mat-side expertise. Your firm opinions about what “works” and what “doesn’t.” Your very modern ability to turn a failed boulder problem — a short climbing sequence set low over pads — into a conceptual crisis. Your refusal to consider that, if you can’t do a move, it may not be proof that French routesetting has collapsed as an idea.

I get to the gym before you, obviously. That is one of the few perks of the job: a few minutes in a room that is still empty, before the great parade of self-appointed judges walks in. The volumes are still asleep. The holds still have that temporary neutrality they lose the second a human being starts projecting hip-position neuroses onto them.

My back already hurts a little. We strip. We sort. We clean. We screw things in. We unscrew them. We hesitate. We start over. Routesetting is a strange kind of cooking: part construction work, part choreography, part controlled sadism, part customer service you can already see coming. You have to think about the move, the read, the progression, different bodies, different levels, the gym’s identity, the need for fresh sets, the boredom of strong climbers, the fear of beginners.

In short, you have to govern.

A setter complaining about a problem he just set is basically research and development

A routesetter is the gym’s unofficial minister of internal affairs. Like it or not, the setter manages traffic, tension, complaints, and the borders of what people can tolerate. We draw mental lanes. We distribute hope by color. We organize frustration so it stays useful. We design small crises you can come out of stronger, or annoyed, but ideally not both for very long. Yes, we have to create difficulty. But mostly, we have to create meaning. And in gyms, meaning has become a fussy little commodity.

Around 10 a.m., the first coworker tests a dyno — a jump move between holds. He falls. He tries again. He complains. Excellent sign. A setter complaining about a problem he just set is basically research and development. We refine it. We swap a foothold. We make the start a little less intense. We keep the ugly move in the middle, because there are limits to kindness.

You arrive around noon.

I recognize you immediately.

First come the evaluators. The people who cannot climb a problem without immediately handing down a verdict. “That’s not a red.” Thank you, Brian. Truly. I was waiting for your opinion. I tried to convene an international committee, but you happened to be standing by the water fountain with questionable tape on your middle finger and floral shorts, so we’ll go with your expertise.

Climbers’ relationship to grades is its own comic novel. You demand them like you are demanding truth, then treat them like a personal insult. If the grade is too soft, it insults your level. If it is too hard, it insults your intelligence. If it happens to match what you usually climb, suddenly the grading is “pretty fair.” Imagine that. You said you wanted a measurement. What you really wanted was a mirror.

You turned 20 seconds of experience into IKEA assembly instructions

A little later, the beta sprayer appears.

The beta sprayer never climbs alone. She is always accompanied by her own voice, explaining — usually too fast and too loud — how to do the problem. Beta is climbing advice, the sequence or trick that helps unlock a move. She cannot imagine that a boulder problem might be a private search, an intimate little confrontation with one’s temporary uselessness. No. It must be narrated.

“No, so actually here you have to commit with your left hand, then heel hook, then go for the crimp.”

Thank you. You turned 20 seconds of experience into IKEA assembly instructions.

The worst part is that she genuinely thinks she is helping.

Then come the aesthetes, who almost always become restaurant critics.

They are more refined, but just as exhausting. They want problems that are “coordination-based but not parkour,” “powerful but subtle,” “morpho for everyone” — meaning fair to every body type, which is a noble idea and an impossible demand. When they fail, they never say, “I didn’t like it.” They say, “I understand the intention, but…”

That “but” is their kingdom.

After that, anything can happen.

“I feel like it lacks continuity.”

“The finish move isn’t very interesting.”

“There’s a break in the proposal.”

A break in the proposal. Incredible. You sound like a grant-funded video art curator explaining an installation in Brooklyn.

The problem is that a boulder, like any serious form, sometimes needs to be a little unfair to be memorable. Unfair in the sense that it does not apologize for existing. It forces you out of your lane. But many of you want to be pushed, as long as the push has already been approved by your habits. So you judge the set with the calm authority of people who risked nothing. You didn’t bolt anything on. You didn’t test anything. You didn’t stand behind anything. You didn’t hand it over to the public. You are just standing in front of a piece of resin, explaining that “the set is kind of uneven this week.”

Maybe the problem is not that I hate climbers. Maybe the problem is that I know them too well

I have not forgotten the missing brushers. Or rather, the people who should be brushing but have chosen another path. They climb a chalk-black problem, watch it turn back into a fossil bed of attempts, then walk away as if they have just passed through a public space maintained by no one. Not brushing is one of the cleanest little summaries of modern indoor climbing. You want a premium experience, but keeping that experience premium should always be someone else’s job. Preferably someone invisible.

That is when you understand that routesetting is not just creative work. It is service work. You create the conditions for other people’s fun, then watch those people treat that fun like something they are owed. The routesetter is part author, part mover, part safety technician, part convenient container for everyone’s frustration. When the session goes well, nobody remembers your name. When it goes badly, everyone knows exactly who to blame.

Obviously, I am exaggerating.

You also make it very easy.

Still, there are climbers who actually look. Climbers who can feel when a line is offering something. Climbers who understand the difference between a bad move and a demanding one. They exist. They are the only reason I have not retrained as a plumber or started raising goats.

Because despite everything, routesetting remains one of the strangest and most beautiful jobs in this little vertical theater. You write sentences that other people read with their fingers, hips, and fear. You get to watch sudden breakthroughs, clean little flashes of joy. A well-set gym is not just a gym with new problems. It is a place where hundreds of people can work through a set of questions designed for them, without being designed exactly around them.

By 7:30 p.m., the gym is full. I pretend to clean up. A teenage girl immediately finds the method that three muscular adults missed. A beginner sticks a move she had sworn was impossible and comes down wearing the kind of pure expression someone should patent.

And I think, as I always do, that maybe the problem is not that I hate climbers.

Maybe the problem is that I know them too well.

So no, I do not quite hate you. Let’s say I find you exhausting with great precision.

And that is exactly why I keep setting.