13 Signs You’ve Become a Dirtbag Climber
At some point, most climbers draw a line in the sand.
On one side sits normal life: stable housing, regular meals, clean clothes and weekends spent doing socially acceptable activities. On the other side is the dirtbag path—where your priorities slowly rearrange themselves around weather windows, skin condition and whether there’s a belayer nearby.
No one plans to become a dirtbag climber. It’s not like you wake up one morning and think, You know what would really improve my life? Living in a car and eating tinned beans while my fingertips slowly disintegrate.
It sort of… happens. One day you’re a casual weekend warrior. The next, you’re living out of a van and haven’t had a “real” shower in weeks.
If any of the following sound familiar, the transformation may already be complete.
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1. Your Car Is Now Your House
You used to refer to it as “the car.” Now it’s “bed.”
There’s a a mattress made from questionable foam, a carefully engineered gear system, and a milk crate containing your entire kitchen.
Technically you still have an address somewhere, but you haven’t seen it in a while.
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2. You Own More Climbing Gear Than Normal Clothes
Your rack is beautifully organised. Colour coded. Meticulously maintained.
Your wardrobe, however, consists of two pairs of climbing pants, three T-shirts and a jacket that smells vaguely like wet sandstone and campfire smoke.
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3. Showers Become a Strategic Operation
You know exactly which campgrounds, swimming holes and public facilities offer the best chance of washing off several days of chalk and sunscreen.
A full hot shower feels like winning the lottery.
You have also become very comfortable with the phrase: “Yeah… I’ll just rinse off in the river.”
A baby wipe shower feels totally acceptable and showering out of a bucket still counts as a real shower.
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What dirtbag life can look like.
4. Weather Forecasts Control Your Life
Your phone has multiple weather apps, two wind models and a radar tab permanently open.
You no longer make plans based on the calendar. Everything depends on whether the rock will be dry and you feel uncomfortable making social plans too far in advance incase the weather is perfect for a climb.
A “good week” isn’t defined by work or social events—it’s defined by five consecutive days of optimal climbing weather.
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5. Your Diet Has Become Questionable
Dirtbag cuisine is less about nutrition and more about efficiency.
Typical meals include:
• Anything from a can
• Mystery pasta cooked on a tiny stove
• Stale bread you pulled from a bakery bin last week.
When someone shows up at the crag with fresh food, it feels like a Christmas.
Climbers celebrating their bin dive hauls!
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6. You Measure Wealth in Cams
Bank account: alarming.
Rack of gear: excellent.
You may not be able to afford groceries, but you do own an impressive collection of shiny metal things designed to stop you falling off cliffs.
Financial priorities have clearly been established.
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7. Baby wipes are used for everything
- Cleaning a wound
- Showering
- Washing your last remaining fork
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8. Your Social Circle Has Shrunk to People Who Also Smell Like Chalk
Your friends now fall into two categories:
1. Belayers
2. Potential belayers
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9. Your Definition of “Comfortable” Has Changed
A good night’s sleep is now defined as:
• the car being mostly level
• no condensation dripping on your face
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Left: An old wood heater found dumped in the bush becomes a pizza oven. Right: A dirtbags definition of “clean” is a little different.
10. You Measure Time in Climbing Attempts
Instead of days and weeks, your life now runs on a different calendar:
“First go yesterday.”
“Two sessions ago.”
“I’ve been trying this thing for three trips.”
Projects become chapters of your life.
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11. You’ve Mastered the Art of Doing Nothing
Climbing involves a surprising amount of waiting.
- Waiting for shade.
- Waiting for your turn on the route.
- Waiting for skin to heal.
- Waiting for conditions.
- Dirtbags become extremely skilled at lying in the dirt staring at the sky while discussing beta that may or may not work.
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12. You’ve Had the “How Long Are You Doing This For?” Conversation
Friends and family are concerned about you and eventually ask the question.
“How long are you planning to live like this?”
The answer is usually something vague like:
“Just for this season.”
“Until the weather changes.”
“Until I send this project.”
Somehow the timeline keeps extending.
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13. Despite Everything… You Wouldn’t Change It
Living like a dirtbag isn’t always comfortable.
You’re often tired, broke and slightly sunburnt. Your life can look chaotic from the outside.
But you wake up in beautiful places. Your days revolve around movement, rock and friends who share the same strange obsession. The rhythm of climbing—trying, falling, learning, trying again—starts to shape everything.
And somewhere between the campfires, the early starts and the endless attempts, you realise something important: This messy, dusty, uncertain life is exactly where you want to be.
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Other articles that may interest you:
Finding balance: Connection, Hope, Identity, Meaning and Empowerment on rock
Climbers Reflect on Life, Community, and the Future of Arapiles.
How to make camp food: Ultralight Pad Thai
