On Sandbagging
Birds taking a few flaps from the nest.
Sandbagging, as a term applied in outdoor sports, is to knowingly get someone in over their head or out of their comfort zone, as in “Wow, Jim totally sandbagged me yesterday on that ski tour, I thought we were going for a quick powder run and then we ended up down climbing a chute and coming back late for school pickup!”
When wielded improperly, sandbaggery can be soul-crushing and downright dangerous. I’ve heard a ski guide once brag about how when he has new clients come to Alaska and say they want to ski the lines they see in ski movies, he says, “Oh I’ll show you something gnarly alright,” before taking them to the steepest, most exposed line possible and cackling while they crumple with fear. In climbing, sandbagging can be telling someone a route is easy, or downgrading it, just to watch someone else flounder or feel lesser. it’s akin to how male mountain goats will try to headbutt each other off cliffs to show their dominance. See also: bro culture.
However, the art of a sandbag when deployed positively is a thing of beauty and a highly useful skill. It can help someone achieve heights they never knew were possible and to feel competent and confident with new skills. With skiing, recognizing someone’s ability and gently nudging them down a double black diamond run can be rewarding for everyone— a real “I did it!” / “I knew you could do it!” moment.
I swear I thought the top was just right up here a little ways….
Over the years I’ve been the sandbagg-ee (baggie?) more often than the sandbagger. I’ve been left behind mountain biking, told repeatedly “we’re almost there!” on hikes growing up, and when I first started backcountry skiing, got unwittingly in over my head in steep chutes more times than I’d like to admit, only afterwards realizing the gravity (actual and theoretical) of the situation.
Now that I have kids, I’ve realized that sandbagging is absolutely necessary if I ever want them to learn or do anything. Sandbagging my own kids sounds a bit aggressive, (chill out bro!) until I think about a simple two hour car ride and how many times we will hear “when will we BEEE THERRRRE?” whined from the backseat. Quite simply, helping them learn to ski, hike, bike, swim, play soccer, learn Spanish, or anything else that I feel will benefit them long-term is going to require some heavy nudging. Reflecting back on my own experiences of sandbagging over the years, many with the King of the Sandbag, aka Jim Zellers (one of the first professional snowboarders, prolific climber and mountain biker), I’ve put together a few notes on what a good sandbag might look like.
Are we there yet?
Use the 75/25 rule. If you’re 75% sure that someone can do something, that’s a good place to start; if something is about 25% above their ability, it should be about right. If my kid has hiked 3 miles before (under duress and with many gummy bears), then I can reasonably aim for a 4 mile hike, and I can plan to bring 25% more gummy bears, or about 75 total. If you don’t want to do all this math, just think about it as somewhere in between the length/difficulty they would easily and readily do on their own and considerably less than what you would selfishly want for you.
Too much is just too much. An overzealous sandbag can really backfire. If I take a new mountain biker on an expert trail where they are walking their bike more than riding, there’s a real possibility they might never want to mountain bike again. If I’m bringing a newbie along on an activity I learned as a kid and thus don’t remember even learning (skiing, ahem), I am duty bound to adjust my expectations accordingly and keep perspective. A new climber doesn’t need to follow and clean gear on a 5.10. This is as much about safety as it is about pure enjoyment. I realize this goes against the code of every bro bachelor party that ever happened in a ski town where guys purposely try to get each other to crash as hard as they can, but I think we can all admit we are past that in the year 2024. Bros will crash and we can all laugh as long as they are okay, but we don’t need to try to help them crash purposefully. Same with my kids. I want them to like it. Tough love has its limitations.
Too little is too little. Sort of like Goldilocks—if the porridge is too cold, nobody is coming back to eat the porridge because the porridge was underwhelming, and it makes the intended sandbagg-ee feel just sort of like you pandered to them. Kids hate that. To them, there’s no greater insult than being told “You did so great! Look what you did!” and they are like, what are you talking about, a baby could do that! The goal is at the end of the activity, the sandbagg-ee feels the pride and glow of doing something they didn’t know they could do previously. There should be a little whining involved, possibly a few tears, maybe one or two blatant sit-downs “I’m not going any farther!”, and then with some more encouragement, they end up going farther and actually doing the whole thing. Their chest is puffed, they have the slight knowing smirk on their face of Someone Who Accomplishes Shit. This feeling they have afterwards is the hook—how we help make a skier (or climber or mountain biker) for life.
Know your audience and BS accordingly. A well-timed “Just a little farther!” even if it’s not true, can go a long way, especially with people you don’t know very well and therefore are more likely to overlook your repeated baldfaced lies. However, if it’s your kid or your partner and they know you really well and can call your BS, you don’t want to lose their trust. You can’t just fib your way to the top. Nor do you want to tell them the truth, “It’s only four more miles and 2000 vert uphill, honey!” because then they will mutiny. Somewhere in between is probably good, like Goldilocks again. “Let’s go for thirty more minutes and then we can get some water and a snack.” Break it into achievable chunks, one step at a time.
Don’t sandbag every time. Sometimes, you just need to let go of your own agenda and let them chalk up a big fat easy W. Bite your tongue, swallow your pride, and just accept the fact that today is when you have to fold ‘em, and go home and do a little workout in the basement while they watch Netflix. Again, back to the 75/25 rule—you can sandbag hard about 25% of the time and still expect them to want to actually go with you again. And then, if you’re lucky, after many sandbags, much whining, and umpteen gummy bears, you just might hear the magic words. “That was more fun than I thought it was going to be. Can we do it again?”
Walk the plank, kid! It’ll be good for you.
