How to climb an arete: balance, palming and trusting the edge

What an arete actually is

An arete is the outside corner of the rock, the edge where two faces meet and point out at you rather than folding away. Gritstone is full of them, from the classic prows on the moors to the boulder edges you walk past in the gym. They look striking and they climb like nothing else, because most of the time there is nothing obvious to hold. The line is the feature.

That is the whole puzzle. On a normal wall you pull in towards the rock. On an arete the holds often face opposite directions on either side of the edge, so pulling in does not work. You have to squeeze the corner instead, and let your feet and body position do most of the job.

Squeeze, do not pull

The core idea on an arete is compression. Instead of pulling down on holds, you press in on both sides of the edge at once, so your two hands and two feet work against each other and pinch the rock between them. A flat side pull for the left hand, a sloping edge for the right, and the tension between them is what keeps you on.

It feels strange the first few times. You are not hanging off a positive hold, you are holding a shape. The rock stays put because you are gripping it from opposite sides, the way you would carry a heavy box with no handles. Trust that squeeze and a lot of blank-looking edges suddenly go.

Palm the blank sides

Half the holds on an arete are not holds at all. They are flat panels of rock that you press a palm against for balance and a little friction. A hand pushing flat on the side of the edge gives you something to stack against without needing anything positive to grip.

Use palms to steer and to hold the compression. Often one hand is on a real edge and the other is just pressed flat on the face, and the two together keep you square to the rock. If you catch yourself hunting for a crimp where there plainly is not one, drop the hand flat instead and push.

Feet win it

Aretes are footwork problems wearing a scary costume. Because there is little to pull on, your feet carry more of your weight than usual, and where you put them decides everything.

• Smear the sides. Just like your hands, your feet often press flat on the blank faces either side of the edge rather than standing on holds. Drop the heel, get rubber on rock and trust the friction.
• One foot each side. Bridging your feet onto opposite faces lets you push out against the corner and take the swing out of your body. It is the footwork version of the same squeeze your hands are doing.
• High feet, hips in. Getting a foot high and pressing your hips close to the edge keeps your weight over the rock instead of hanging off your arms. The higher you can step, the less your hands have to hold.
• Outside edge. Standing on the outside edge of the shoe, little-toe side, lets you turn a hip into the rock and reach past the corner without spinning off.

Stop the barn door

The classic way to fall off an arete is the barn door. Your body swings out sideways like a door on a hinge, because your weight is off to one side of the edge with nothing to counter it, and once it starts you cannot pull it back.

The fix is counter-pressure and body position. A flag, one leg swung out to the side as a counterweight, kills the swing before it starts. So does dropping a heel or a knee to hook the corner, or twisting so your hips face the rock rather than sitting square. If you feel the door beginning to open, the answer is almost never to grip harder with your hands. It is to move a foot or a hip to rebalance.

Commit to the edge

Aretes ask for commitment more than most climbing. Because the holds are indirect and the position feels precarious, it is tempting to climb them tentatively, half in and half out. That usually makes the barn door worse. Once you have the compression set and your feet placed, move with intent to the next position rather than fluttering between them.

Watch someone good on an arete and it looks calm and continuous. They are constantly resetting the squeeze, one side then the other, feet following hands, never letting the tension drop long enough to swing.

Build it in

Most walls have an arete somewhere, even if it is just the corner of a bouldering panel. Seek them out and treat them as their own skill. Climb an easy one focusing only on pressing the two sides together. Try one with your feet smeared rather than on holds. Practise flagging the moment you feel a swing.

Log the sessions where the compression clicked and the problems where you kept barn-dooring, and you will see fast whether the fix is your feet, your hips or your nerve. Aretes stop feeling like a trick the day you accept the rock is not going to give you a handle, and start climbing the shape instead.