THE SCIENCE OF FRIC FRICTION TION HOW TO MAXIMIZE GRIP (AND CLIMB HARDER!)
LEAD PRO PR O LIKE A
173 WAYS WAYS TO BUI BUILD LD STRENGTH, FOCUS & CONFIDENCE
HOW TO SLAY SCARY PITCHES TECH TIPS VISUALIZE TO SEND
ROCK SHOE BUYER’S GUIDE CORE WORKOUTS FOR MUL MULTIPI TIPITCH TCH POWER
TRANSITION FASTER CLIMB 5. 5.15 15 (SERIOUSLY)
APPAREL, PACKS, TENTS, SLEEPING BAGS AND ADVENTURES SINCE 1960
www.fallraven.us | www.fallravencanada.com @fallravenusa
s n o i t c u d o r p e n i l e m i t
. c n I , t n e m p i u q E e g A e n o t S f o k r a m e d a r t a s i H T L A E T S . p u o r G s a d i d a e h t f o
s k r a m e d a r t d e r e t s i g e r e r a k r a m s e p i r t S 3 e h t d n a o g o l s r a B 3 e h t , s a d i d a . G A s a d i d a 4 1 0 2 ©
unbeatable grip terrex scope gtx Unlock any terrain with the new Terrex Scope GTX® featuring STEALTH rubber. The new lightweight Terrex Scope GTX® boot is designed to keep your feet comfortable with the best grip in both wet and dry conditions. Featuring GORE-TEX® product technology that combines breathable comfort and durable waterproof protection.
email
[email protected] for more information
CONTENTS
ISSUE 329
8
FLASH THE APPROACH
17
Editor’s Note
18
Letters Archives
19
20
Re-Gram Reader-submitted #climberproblems. Off The Wall The fine art of climbing.
TH E CLIMB
GUIDE
R E I E M T T I H E I L S E L ; I T N U R F F A T T E R B ; D R A L L A B T T A M ; R E M E S E R T K C I M ; R R U B W E R D N A : T F E L P O T M O R F E S I W K C O L C
34 Training Get your core strong for steeps with these 10 exercises. 36 Nutrition A tasty oatmeal recipe for all-day energy with topping tips from oatloving pros.
GEAR 39 Primer Dissected: See what parts make up a climbing shoe—in detail. 40 Big Review Rock shoe buyer’s guide! Find the pair that’s right for you. 44 Tested The latest gear obsessions from our testers.
26
Advice Jonathan Siegrist sent his first 5.15 this year. Here’s what he learned.
28
Epicenter Chattanooga, Tennessee is the capital of Southern climbing.
47 Begin Here Learn to use the shelf on your multi-pitch anchor.
32
Instant Expert Send chimneys like Santa Claus with tips and techniques from Rob Pizem.
48 Ripped From the Headlines Minimize the risk when you find yourself stuck in a lightning storm.
CLINICS
50 Shop Tech Use the science of friction to your advantage.
VOICES 53 Ask Answer Man What’s the final word on booty? 54 The Wright Stuff Cedar Wright talks naked climber chicks— yep, you read that right. 56 Semi-Rad The accidental art of punting. 58 Yosemite Profiles Meet Yosemite reporter and historian Tom Evans.
88 TH E FLOW
Cover photo by Andrew Burr: Jasmin Caton gets high on Orange Plasma (5.11a), Tuolumne Meadows, California.
CLIMBING.COM
|3
CONTENTS
R R U B W E R D N A
4 | OCTOBER 2014
ISSUE 329
Jonathan Hemlock enjoys the stunning light o golden hour on Everlasting (5.11b) at the supreme all destination o Devils Tower, Wyoming.
60
Everyday Heroes Unless you’re part o a search and rescue team, you don’t head out or a day o climbing expecting to be thrust into a lie-or-death situation. Dougald MacDonald combed through dozens o stories o regular climbers helping other climbers to find five amazing examples o ordinary people who saved another’s lie.
72
The Mind Game There’s no way around it—climbing is scary! We all eel the ear at one point or another, and afer a particularly harrowing experience, Matt Lloyd decided to do some research on how pros like Alex Honnold and Steph Davis quash their anxiety and doubt. His findings could take your climbing to the next level— saely.
81
Bargaining With God When our young climbers with bigmountain dreams went to the St. Elias range to take on Canada’s tallest peak, they had no idea how close they would come to never returning home. In first-person accounts, each tells a dramatic story o pain, hunger, acing death, and how it changed them all.
Issue 327. Climbing ( USPS No. 0919-220, ISSN No. 0045-7159) is published ten times a year (February, March, April, May, July, August, September, October, November, December/January) by SkramMedia LLC. The known office of publication is at 2520 55th St., Suite 210, Boulder, CO 80301. Periodicals postage paid at Boulder, CO, and at additional m ailing offices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to: Climbing, PO Box 420235, Palm Coast FL 32142-0235. Canada Post publications agreement No. 40008153. Subscription rates are $29.97 for one year of postal delivery in the United States. Add $20 per year for Canada and $40 per year for surface postage to other foreign countries. Canadian undeliverable mail to Pitney Bowes IMEX PO Box 54, Station A, Windsor ON N9A 6J5. Postmaster: Please send all UAA to CFS. Retailers: Please send correspondence to Climbing c/o Retail Vision 815 Ogden Avenue, Lisle, IL 60532-1337. List Rental: Contact Kerry Fischette at American List Counsel, 609-580-2875 kerry.fi
[email protected] Climbing magazine is a division of SkramMedia LLC.
WHEN SELECTING A TENT…
CHOOSE WISELY
LEADING SINCE 1970
EDITORIAL
Editor SHANNON DAVIS
Senior Editor JULIE EL LIS ON
Art Director CLAIRE ECKS TROM
Digital Media Specialist KEVIN CORRIGAN
Editor at Large DOUGALD MACDONAL D
Senior Contributing Photographer ANDREW BURR
Senior Contributing Editor JEFF ACHEY
Contributing Editors BRENDAN LEONARD, DAVE S HEL DON, ANDREW TOWER, CEDAR WRIGHT
Contributing Illustrators SKIP ST ERLING, S UPERCORN
Staff Photographer BEN FULLERT ON
Tablet Media Specialist CRYSTAL S AGAN
Design Intern GIOVANNI CORRADO L EO NE
BUSI NESS
Group Publisher J E F F TK A C H JTKACH@AIMMEDIA. COM
Advertising Director S HARON HOUGHTON S
[email protected]
Midwest Account Manager CHARLOTT E S IBBING CS
[email protected] OM
Eastern Account Director JOANN MARTIN
[email protected] OM
Eastern Account Manager MATT HIGGINS M H I G G I N S@ A I M M E DI A . C O M
Western Account Managers NICK FREEDMAN NICK@MEDIAHOUNDS INC.COM JOHANNA WOLF JOHANNA@MEDIAHOUNDS INC.COM
Detroit Account Manager KEITH CUNNINGHAM KEITH-CUNNINGHAM@S BCGLOBAL.NET
Account Manager S EAN BONS ER S BONS ER@AIMMEDIA. COM
Edit Interns
����� Light, strong, easy to pitch and easy to carry all-season tent in our ��� ����� line. Available in 2, � & � person versions.
LESL IE HITTMEIER, CAROL INE MELEEDY
Group Marketing Director LIZ VERHOEV EN Director of Integrated Marketing CLIMBING MAGAZINE 5720 Flatiron Parkway Boulder, CO 80301 Phone: (303) 253-6301 Subscriber Services: Within U.S.: (800) 829-5895 Canada and Foreign: (386) 447-6318 Subscriber Service Email:
[email protected] Contributors: Visit climbing.com/contribute Retailers: To carry CLIMBING magazine and CLIMBING magazine publications in your shop, contact Bonnie Mason: 1-800-381-1288 x95175.
Claes Grundsten/www.fotograf-grundsten.se
F
or over 40 years, Hilleberg has been making the highest quality tents available. Conceived and developed
in northern Sweden, Hilleberg tents offer the ideal balance of low weight, strength, and comfort. Order our catalog for more information!
MOST OF THE ACTIVITIES DEPICTED HEREIN CARRY A SIGNIFICANT RISK OF PERSONAL INJURY OR DEATH. Rock climbing, ice climbing, mountaineering, backcountry skiing, and all other outdoor activities are inherently dangerous. The owners, staff, and management of CLIMBING do not recommend that anyone participate in these activities unless they are experts, seek qualified professional instruction and/or guidance, are knowledgeable about the risks involved, and are willing to personally assume all responsibility associated with those risks. ©2014. The contents of this magazine may not be reproduced in whole or in part without consent of the copyright owner. The views herein are those of the writers and do not necessarily reflect the views of CLIMBING’s ownership, staff, or management.
COURTNEY MAT THEWS
Digital Marketing Director PHOEBE LEGG AdvertisingCoordinator KELS EY MCC ARTHY Prepress Manager JOY KELLEY Prepress Specialist IDANIA MENTANA Circulation Director JENNY DES JEAN Circulation Assistant LARA GRANT-WA GGLE Director of Retail Sales S US A N A. ROS E Group Circulation Manager DARYL MARCO Group New Business Manager KATHLEEN DONAHUE
Web & Partnership Director DEBBIE KANE
Copyright 2014 © Cruz Bay Publishing, Inc.
Chairman & CEO EFREM ZIMBAL IS T III President & COO ANDREW W. C LURMAN Executive Vice President & CFO BRIAN S ELL S TROM
Executive Vice President, Operations PATRICIA B. FOX
Vice President, Controller JOS EPH COHEN Vice President, Research KRIS TY KAUS
MANAGED BY: ACTIVE INTEREST MEDIA’S OUTDOOR GROUP SVP, CONTENT & PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT | JONATHAN DORN GROUP CREATIVE DIRECTOR | MATTHEW BATES GROUP PRODUCTION DIRECTOR | B A R B A R A V A N S I C K L E
Order a FREE catalog online at
HILLEBERG.COM or call toll free 1-866-848-8368 follow us on f acebook.com/HillebergTheTentmaker
™
Put it on
leave it on
LEAR N THE DIVINE SECRETS OF TH E YEE-HAW SISTERHO OD: SEVEN DAYS IN BISHOP WITH BRITTANY GRI FFITH AND KATE RUTH ERFO RD.
PATAGONIA.COM/NANOAIR
…’til laundry do you part. The new Patagonia® Nano-Air™ Hoody puts an end to layering spats once and for all. It’s warm, incredibly breathable, and stretchy— an all-in, committed partner for every moment of high-output, stop-and-go missions.
#LeaveItOn
. c n I , a i n o g a t a P 4 1 0 2
©
FLASH
8 | OCTOBER 2014
Alex Megos Biographie (5.15a), aka Realization Céüse, France Every once in a while, one route emerges as a collectively agreed-upon benchmark or the world’s strongest climbers. These routes can be about more than just hard climbing with a high grade— they’re about history. First bolted and named in 1989 by Jean-Cristophe Laaille, Biographie went unclimbed until Arnaud Petit added an anchor at the halway point and sent the first portion in 1996. Five years later, Chris Sharma climbed the ull route. In classic Sharma style, he didn’t grade the climb, but he did give it a name: Realization . (French tradition calls or the route to be named by the bolter; U.S. tradition calls or the route to be named by the first ascensionist, hence the dual moniker.) The route saw six more ascents over the course o 13 years, when American Jonathan Siegrist kicked o a send train in early June 2014 afer a month o working it (see p. 26). Alex Megos (pictured) ollowed suit on July 11, completing it on the third try o his first day, and 11 days later, Adam Ondra sent—two years afer he tried to flash it while the world watched via social media. One week into August, Japanese strongman Sachi Amma rounded out the sends with the eleventh total ascent. MIKEY SCHAEFER
CLIMBING.COM
|9
FLASH
Alex Puccio
Top Notch (V13) Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado Despite her position as one of the strongest female climbers in the world, with dozens of international podium appearances, a half-dozen national bouldering championships, and countless V12 sends under her belt, Alex Puccio had yet to tick V13 as of June 2014. Then on July 1, she headed to Chaos Canyon and sent the diffi cult Top Notch (V13) on her second day working it. Five days later, she put away Nuthin’ But Sunshine , another V13 in Chaos Canyon, which she said was not quite as hard as Top Notch . The summer of sends didn’t end there: On August 2, she ticked her first V14 with an
10 | OCTOBER 2014
ascent of Daniel Woods’ iconic testpiece Jade , also in Chaos Canyon; it was the first try of her fourth day on the problem. The lady-crushing rounded out with two more women climbing V14 (see opposite page), Angie Payne getting the first female ascent of her four-year project Freaks of the Industry (V13) in Chaos Canyon (read the backstory at climbing.com/odetothealpine ), Brooke Raboutou nabbing her first V13 with Fragile Steps in Rocklands, South Africa, and Ashima Shiraishi sending Betta Move (V13), also in Rocklands. JOEL ZERR
Shauna Coxsey New Base Line (V14)
Magic Wood, Switzerland
Afer breaking her leg in Magic Wood two years prior, 21-yearold British crusher Shauna Coxsey came back or revenge this summer, which she got in spades with her send o New Base Line, securing her position as the third woman in the world to climb V14. It was a fierce race or second place. Coxsey’s ascent came only a ew days afer Ashima Shiraishi, 13, became the second emale to send the grade with her ascent o Golden Shadow in Rocklands, South Arica (inset). (In October 2012, Japanese climber Tomoko Ogawa, 34, nabbed the top spot when she sent Catharsis in Shiobara, Japan, afer three years o eort.) Coxsey, who is known as a top competition climber, including an overall second place finish in the 2014 IFSC Boulder World Cup, visited the Wood to wrap up some two-year-old nemesis projects: Piranja (V10), which she broke her leg on in 2012, and One Summer in Paradise (V13). When she sent both quicker than expected—saying they “lacked the fight I had been craving”— she moved on to New Base Line , a problem that was at the top o her wish list. Despite three days o rain and an emotional battle with a committing move toward the end, Coxsey stuck with it and secured her place in climbing history. LUKA TAMBAČA (INSET) KENJI TSUKAMOTO
FLASH
12 | OCTOBER 2014
Mike Brumbaugh Original Avluntning (5.11a) Lofoten Islands, Norway With gigantic granite walls rising straight out o the ocean, a latitude that lies within the Arctic Circle, and a surprisingly temperate climate or how ar north it is, the archipelago o the Looten Islands is a multidiscipline climber’s dream. Think: World-class ice climbing in the winter meets accessible all-day alpine ridges, big walls, and countless boulders in the summer (by all day, we mean 24 hours o daylight with the characteristic midnight sun). Several main islands with ford-laden topographical eatures and an exceedingly long coastline mean this area is rie with rock. Climbing in Norway originated in this region about 150 years ago, and there are currently enough established lines to fill a lietime—with enough new-route potential to fill 10 more. Here, Mike Brumbaugh thinks about his next move on Original Avluntning , graded 7 on the Norwegian scale. ANDREW BURR
CLIMBING.COM
| 13
FLASH
14 | OCTOBER 2014
James Pearson and Caroline Ciavaldini Rocklands, South Africa In recent years, boulderers have flocked to Rocklands or the seemingly limitless rock and opposite optimal season (our summer is their winter), but these small stone–minded developers largely ignored the potential or trad lines in the uniquely shaped sandstone. Briton James Pearson and Frenchwoman Caroline Ciavaldini (who’s originally rom La Réunion, a French island in the South Indian Ocean) visited the area or three weeks this summer, establishing several hard new trad routes on the sculpted rock—many o which were within sight o campsites and popular bouldering spots. Growing up climbing on the gritstone o the United Kingdom, Pearson is no stranger to climbing hard through scary runouts over tricky gear, but he ound the opposite in South Arica: “The amazing rock is ull o horizontal cracks, making gear placement really easy. The routes are ofen steep and athletic, and almost always completely sae—Rocklands is a trad-loving sport climber’s dream.” That was perect or Ciavaldini, who got her start on the lead competition climbing circuit, but eventually moved to repeating—and now establishing—hard lines outside. It’s almost guaranteed that the duo will be back or what Pearson calls “potential or literally thousands o new routes.” RIKY FELDERER LA SPORTIVA/WILD COUNTRY
SERIOUSLY
LIGHT!
NEW METOLIUS
ULTRALIGHT
CHALK BAGS
FOR THE WEIGHT CONSCIOUS
CLIMBER!
www.metoliusclimbing.com
Bill Morse suits up for a larger than life burn on “California 5.12”, a steep and thuggy 12c at Red Rock Canyon, Nevada Photo: Ben Moon
T H E
A P P R O A C H CONTRIBUTORS
ANDREW BYDLON This perma-stoked 28-year-old founder of the Boulder, Colorado– based Caveman Collective (a commercial photography group) shot portraits for “Everyday Hero” (p. 60) and has this advice: “Make strong eye contact and listen to your subject. This will help establish a deeper connection and a more honest image.” MATT LLOYD Born in Johannesburg, South Africa, and raised in Europe and the U.S., Lloyd eventually settled in Denver for its proximity to several lifetimes’ worth of climbing. This professional climber and guide researched fear and how to manage it (“The Mind Game,” p. 72) and found that it’s as important to train your mind as it is your body. “I find this comforting,” he says. “It means you don’t have to be born a certain way to achieve a healthy, productive relationship with fear in our sport.”
EDITOR’S NOTE
A Day’s Work BY SHANNON DAVIS
I L A M U L E M M O R ; K R A L C T T O C S . D ; R R U B W E R D N A ; ) 2 ( Y S E T R U O C ; R R U B W E R D N A : T F E L P O T M O R F E S I W K C O L C
My neighbor Ben is a great dude. Our kids ride bikes to the park together; our wives race triathlons and gossip; we share beers and laughs around many a cookout. We’re the prototypical neighborhood friends, as if out of some TV show. A couple weekends ago, he was late meeting up and apologized. “Bad climbing accident,” he said, still a little shaken. “Skull fracture.” Ben’s the park manager at Eldorado Canyon State Park, and he was a responder to a ground fall from 60 feet up on Little Peanut Wall. The climber, Front Range hardman Wayne Crill, was wearing a helmet, “and it was one of the fastest rescues you could imagine. In a litter, through the scree, down the trail, and finally to a helicopter within an hour.” With severe head and other internal injuries, Crill has a ways to go, but he survived because of Ben, longtime climbing ranger Steve Muehlhauser, Rocky Mountain Rescue Group, and other climbers’ quick actions. That makes them heroes in my book. But to Ben and others in his line of work, stuff like this could happen on any given day. It’s part of the job description. Have you ever deeply considered the job description of climbing partner? On page 19, we asked what qualities you value most in a partner. Spoiler alert: “Keeps me laughing when things get rough” won. I’m all about that (insert fart joke—or actual fart—here), but when you rope up with someone, it involves way more than one-liners. In “Everyday Hero” by Dougald MacDonald (p. 60), we found five climbers who saved another’s life, people who fully embody the type of partner we should all strive to be.
S T E Y H H E T N G I L M R H O U R O G I F J H
ROB PIZEM “Big wall dreams can only come true by mastering offwidths and chimneys. Don’t hold your climbing life back by avoiding them, just get in there and embrace the gap!” says Grand Junction, Colorado–based family man, teacher, and professional climber Rob Pizem. Take the first step in mastering the art of ascending extraextra-wide cracks by reading Rob’s hard-earned chimney tips on page 32.
Laughing at ourselves
Laughing at Cedar Wright
Learning more about fear
Being in awe
I have two flappers and a blood blister right now, and our readers shared photos of their #climberproblems, too.
If you’re doing the dirtbag thing, you know that odd jobs put gas in the tank and PBRs in your mouth. In this month’s edition of “The Wright Stuff,” Cedar details what is surely one of the oddest odd jobs in climbing history. Without giving too much away, let’s just say he learned a lot about anatomy.
Control it to climb harder.
“Don’t worry, I am the strongest motherfucker on the planet. I had the notion that if it meant walking to Seattle I would do it. The limitation was time, not my determination.” This powerful line from our heroes feature (p. 60) is just one of many that will put a fire in your gut.
CLIMBING.COM
| 17
THE APPROACH VIRTUAL DISCUSSION
ARCHIVES
In his Jul y 2014 col umn, Cedar Wright l amented the end of the cla ssic Yosemite dirtbag era. The digital version at Climbing.com elicited opinions, nostalgia, and longing from our readers. See the full story at climbing.com/dirtbag .
COMMENTS News
Flash: It’s dead. If you don’t think so, try buying a climbing T-shirt. $75 for a shortsleeved “climbing” shirt. Shiloh Dorsett – 07/30/14 04:30:23 My
wife and I gave up dirtbagging many years ago. We miss it terribly. When the weight of responsibility presses down hard on us, I tell her, “One day, my love, we will do it again.” I may never onsight 12a trad again or do the Nose in a day again, but we will live poor and free again. Peter L. Scott - 07/30/2014 9:59:58 The dirtbags of yesterday are
the pros of today, thanks to so many climbing companies putting money into the sport.
tent again in a heartbeat. Rob Hanson - 07/30/14 04:42:11
hiding. My advice to aspiring dirtbags is to go up to the North Cascades. No crowds. You can still run into Beckey out there— and the next guard. Beck - 07/30/2014 5:40:21 Modern
climbers lead a balanced life compared to the climbing-centric days of my youth. Dirtbagging was a means to an end. Somehow it morphed into a glorified alternative lifestyle, with its practitioners regarded as modern-day ascetics who are better than those enjoying a more comfortable existence. Marc B - 07/31/2014 4:45:59
db - 07/30/2014 4:37:11 If I were in my 20s, I’d live in
Dirtbags aren’t dead. They’re
There are still some of us out
a
here. I’d send you a picture of my Tacoma, but the house is too messy from my latest trip to take a picture right now. Mike - 07/31/2014 9:17:40
KEEP IN TOUCH
[email protected] /climbingmagazine @climbingmag
@climbingmagazine
Chris Sharma: The Early Years Climbing’s first mention o Chris Sharma (in the December 1995 issue) began with a question: “Who the hell is Chris Sharma anyway?” At the time, the 14-year-old had just won his age group at the 1995 sport climbing Youth World Championships, earning his first-ever magazine photo (above) and beginning his reign as one o the world’s top climbers. Perhaps most impressive is that he’d only begun climbing two years prior at age 12, and he was already sending 5.13c outside with little eort. The article states:
“His first experience was in the ‘Kids’ Belay’ program at Pacific Edge climbing gym in Santa Cruz, California. Chris breeze d through the grades, master ing 5.12 within his first year of clim bing. His mento rs began settin g more diffic ult and devious routes in hopes of thwarting the youngster, who had begun to sport a bit of an attitude, constantly downgrading the gy m’s hardest routes.”
Climbing The Ranks Only our issues afer his initial appearance, Sharma graced the back cover o our June 1996 issue in this Five Ten ad. At this point he was climbing 5.14a (pictured), and had won another handul o competitions. Within the next year he would redpoint America’s hardest testpieces o the day.
Opening Statements
OVERHEARD “I could climb it, but I’m not sober enough to drive there.” —Boulder, CO climber on soloing the Second Flatiron (5.0) at midnight on a Monday. “It’s unny to think about all the climbers out there that would be at hephers [sic] i they didn’t rock climb.” —Pro climber Joe Kinder, on Facebook. “Luckily, the 10 minutes ollowing my ascent where I couldn’t get down o the boulder weren’t caught on camera.” —Shauna Coxsey, on her blog, describes becoming the third woman to climb V14, and then being unable to climb off it.
18 | OCTOBER 2014
In our first Sharma interview (August 1997), the 16-year-old phenom stated his opinion on the practice o red-tagging a project (the act o a route developer claiming a climb, to keep others rom taking the first ascent). The quote below came afer he had bagged a years-old Tony Yaniro project, but his sentiment remained when he ound his own mega-project in La Dura Dura (5.15c), which was first climbed by Adam Ondra just last year.
“It’s like teasing someone, ‘Look at my project, but you can’t get on it.’ If I bolt something, I’m not going to put a red tag on it. I wouldn’t think it would discourage you to watch somebody else climb a project that you had spent a lot of time on. It should motivate you to work on i t more.”
OBVIOUS LINES
What’s the most important quality you look for in a climbing partner (assuming they’re safe)? Keeps me laughing when things get rough
107
Super psyched Other
“Can bail on routes, but not on plans.”
55
Nice, sof catches
“I only climb with my wife. Anyone
46
Strong enough to lead all the hard pitches
else would be considered cheating.”
41
Always brings post-climb beers
“Will pick up the sharp end when
33
Anyone who can breathe/saely operate a belay device Owns a huge rack o expensive, shiny pro
OTHER:
78
I’m so scared that I question why I ever started climbing in the first place.”
31 6
35 *Source: Climbing reader survey. Join at climbing.com/readerpanel.
RE-GRAM
#ClimberProblems Life changes when you become a climber. Your body becomes lean and captivating. Gravity becomes a force that can be overcome. Pickle jars become easy to open. On the other hand, climbers face unique, everyday challenges that our proportionately forearmed brethren will never understand. Here is a small sampling of those #climberproblems, shared by our readers.
“This ella cheese-grated down Breashear’s Crack in Morrison, incurring a burly lapper in the process.” @_ha_vee_air_
“My girlriend is too small to properly spot me, so I strapped together three Mondos and a sit pad.” @carerommel
“Five guides were getting fingerprinted or work at a climbing camp. We had a contest to see who had the most shredded tips. I won with five rejected prints.” - @erikthatcher
“Afer cruising up Fake Pamplemousse (V11), Fraser McIlwraith finds the descent harder than the climb.” @pennylopeorr
“Finally ound a way to dry my rope—and a use or the ironing board that sits in my closet gathering dust.” @aparker_ut
“Put me in a dress and heels on a boat, but nothing changes. I still try to climb everything and anything.” @kaderines
“The search or boulders isn’t always easy—or clean—near Laramie Peak in Wyoming.” @ghoulish
“At Washoe Boulders, NV. I ripped the best hold o Hal- loween Hangover (V7) and onto my domepiece.” @jazzy_monkey
CLIMBING.COM
| 19
THE APPROACH
OFF THE WALL
Climbing as Art
Meet two artists who are pushing our sport into fine art galleries BY KEVIN CORRIGAN
IT’S NOT OF TEN THAT rock climbers are admired in New York City art galleries, but Missoula, Montana painter Barb Schwarz Karst has accomplished just that. Her painting “Face to Face” shows her husband of 28 years, Tim Karst, climbing Witness The Tickness (5.11a/b) in Mill Creek, Montana. The photorealist portrait has been featured in places from the retired art teacher’s home state to Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. What inspired you to paint “Face To Face?”
How did your husband react when he saw it?
When I started dating my husband, the first piece of artwork I ever gave him was a colored pencil drawing of him climbing. He loved it. Since then, every year he says, “When are you gonna do another painting of me?” I kept thinking, If I do that, I really want to do something that has a good sense of what it’s like with him on the rock, how he’s built, and how he climbs.
He loves it. He acts like a proud parent. He showed it to the group of guys he climbs with. I think he’s just really proud that his wife’s a painter.
Tell us about the painting.
It’s 48” tall and 24” wide and about 1.5” deep. It’s on wood. So it’s all painted; there are no tiles or anything. The little tile shapes that you’re seeing are like littles hexes. It’s kind of a spin-off. I wanted to use the actual shape, but they’re not perfectly symmetrical. The whole thing took more than 300 hours.
Are you a climber yourself?
I could probably climb a 5.8 or a 5.9, but I don’t have the nerve for it . It’s in Tim’s blood. When we first started dating, I really thought, He’ll probably climb for like 10 years and then lose interest. Oh no, he’s only built up steam. What’s next?
I think a series with alternative outdoor sports, like kayaking and hang gli ding would be really fun. I’ve had people approach me and say, “You should do more of t hese. They’re incredible!” (See more at schwarzkarststudio.com.)
WE’ VE AL L SE EN those woven climbing-rope rugs and thought about making one. Boulder, Colorado artist Mick Tresemer takes them to the next level. His pieces feature intricately woven colors, words, and even three-dimensional designs. How’d you get started?
Every year for Christmas I make family presents. I’d seen the woven rope rugs and decided to try a few as gifts. I was like, “Oh, this is really fun.” At the time, I was using one single color. Then I started mixing colors because I had all these different ropes from the outdoor consignment shop I work at. I really love to re-use.
Did the difficulty increase when you shifted to the third dimension?
It adds a dimension of difficulty for sure, literally. But I think it adds 10 times the interest. I use hot glue and it will melt the rope and stick it together. It’s like welding almost. The first time was an accident. I got some glue on the side, and I was like, “Ohhhhh!” Accidents drive a lot of art. I don’t think just mine, but a lot of people’s art.
Where do you get all the ropes?
I did find myself running out of ropes in the beginning. Not any more. I made a deal with a climbing gym in Boulder. I made them a huge rug for their entrance, and they let me know when they have rope. And actually people started bringing them to me, too. I’m the rope guy now.
20 | O C T O B E R 2 0 1 4
Any tips for anyone that wants to try this at home?
Don’t hold yourself back. A rope is just li ke a line on a piece of paper. If you can draw then you can make anything you want. It’s limitless. (See more at micktres.com.)
) 2 ( R E M E S E R T K C I M ; ) P O T ( T S R A K Z R A W H C S B R A B
AS IN YAK
ysc
BURANG Enhanced with Tibetan Yak leather, G-1000 ® Heavy Duty Fabric, and chrome-free lining, the Burang is an exclusive hiking shoe perfect for any condition. The Vibram® EVA wedge Sole provides balance on rocky trails, and the dual-rubber interior provides comfort and fit during any adventure.
WWW.HANWAGBOOT.COM
THE APPROACH UNBELAYVABLE!
Scary (and true) tales from a crag near you There was a climber leading a sport route. The belayer was half belaying and half messing with a tangle. Halfway up the route, the climber stopped at a ledge, then untied and threw the rope down so that the belayer could sort everything out. He wasn’t clipped in to anything. After straightening out the rope, the belayer—after many tries—tossed the rope back up to the climber, who tied back in. He wasn’t safe until he reached the next clip, though. When he tossed the rope down, it had fallen out of the lower draws. —L.V., via Climbing.com LESSON: Given what gravity and
sudden impacts can do to a body, you should never be on a route unanchored. It’s too easy to lose your balance and pitch off the wall, especially when
you’re doing something like, say, trying to catch an airborne rope. The best course is to prevent these problems before they start. Always flake your rope at the base of a route before starting a climb to eliminate knots and tangles.
miracle, the Grigri hadn’t fallen out. No one noticed the oddly open biner until I yelled for them to close it. —Rui Rosado, via Climbing.com
If you do find yourself in a situation
I climbed a multi-pitch sport route with a friend recently. He led and built an anchor. When I got to the top, I saw that he had the tube-style belay device clipped to the chains only by the wire at the base of the device. —Cody, via Climbing.com
like this, either go in direct while your
LESSON: Carabiners are signifi-
belayer sorts it out, or suck it up and
cantly weaker when loaded along their
lower, fix the problem, and start over.
minor axis (width-wise instead of
LESSON: The wire on a belay device
It’s better to waste 10 minutes than to
length-wise). Anti–cross-loading
is called a keeper loop. Its purpose is
fall off a cliff.
biners are designed to prevent this
to keep the device from sliding up the
problem by fixing themselves in the
rope during a rappel. It’s not load-bear-
proper orientation. This benefit is
ing. Had the climber fallen, it would
completely negated when the gate
have likely been a grounder. Even if the
is open, which reduces a carabiner’s
wire didn’t break, the device wouldn’t
strength the same as cross-loading.
have stopped the rope from moving
A simple check to make sure your
through it because it was not set up
carabiner is locked should be part of
correctly in guide mode. Make sure you
your pre-climb routine. Better: Use an
know how to properly use your device.
I met a group of climbers working a route on toprope. The belayer was using an anti–cross-loading carabiner, which was connected to his leg and waist loops instead of the belay loop or tie-in points. It was also unscrewed, and the leg loop was jammed on the inner gate, holding it open. By some
auto-locking carabiner and make sure it’s closed. Also, belay from your belay loop. That’s what it’s there for.
See something unbelayvable? Email
[email protected].
Download Our Free Training Programs We’ve partnered with Climbing magazine to bring you two free training programs, available for download today! REACH YOUR PEAK TRAINING GUIDE
TRUBLUE GYM TRAINING IPAD APP
Reach Your Peak is an eight-week training program that utilizes the TRUBLUE Auto Belay as an essential tool for climbers to improve their skills and reach their personal �tness goals.
We worked with some of the top climbing trainers in the country to come up with these 13 targeted workouts designed to keep you motivated and boost strength and endurance. The best part? This isn’t a daunting multi-month program—just pick a muscle group and get going.
Find a TRUBLUE near you, download the training guide, and get started!
Download for free now at www.autobelay.com/climbers Why Trublue? TRUBLUE Auto Belays are appropriate training tools for climbers of all ages and abilities—whether you have never climbed before or you’re just about to send that 5.14b, the TRUBLUE can help you develop the necessary skills to be the best climber you can be. TRUBLUE Auto Belays are easy to find—just scan the QR code to find the TRUBLUE Auto Belay closest to you and get climbing!
To find your nearest TRUBLUE, scan the QR code or visit www.autobelay.com/contact-us/trublue-locations
2 6
G U I D E //
3 9
G E A R //
47
C L I N I C S //
5 3
VOICES
T H E 24 | OCTOBER 2014
C
Patrick Kingsbury demonstrates perfect “froggy style” technique on Scream and Slither (5.11) in Long Canyon, Utah, an area that has six of legendary offwidth climber Craig Luebben’s 10 favorite wide cracks. Turn to page 32 for a quick but comprehensive look at climbing chimneys of all widths—from true squeeze slots to full-body stems—with stellar advice from wide-crack expert Rob Pizem. Then check out route developer and crusher Jonathan Siegrist’s suggestions for redpointing at your limit, and make sure to start any day of hard climbing with our ridiculously delicious oatmeal recipe. It’s good—we promise, especially if you follow Conrad Anker and Kate Rutherford’s customized topping suggestions.
L I M B ANDREW BURR
CLIMBING.COM
| 25
THE
CLIMB
GUIDE
ADVICE
It’s not authentic French climbing without a little flagging action! Jonathan Siegrist locks it off on Biographie/ Realization , a historic 5.15a in Céüse, France. The American climber, who has put up several 5.14 first ascents (sport and trad), spent more than a month working the route, with the ultimate goal of using it as a 5.15 benchmark for his own original lines back in the States.
26 | OCTOBER 2014
Breaking Barriers BY JULIE ELLISON
What Jonathan Siegrist learned from sending his first 5.15 more than I’ve wanted anything in my life,” Jonathan Siegrist told me, as we sat drinking espresso (his was decaf) in Chamonix, exactly two weeks after he nabbed the eighth ascent of Biographie (5.15a), aka Realization, in Céüse, France. Chris Sharma first sent the full route in 2001 and chose not to grade it, but it was widely speculated (and later confirmed) to be the world’s first 5.15. “I wanted this route
Siegrist, 29, has been a fixture in the national climbing scene for the past five years, ticking off hard sport routes across the globe, adding his own 5.14 lines (both bolted and on gear), and bringing a smile and positive attitude to every crag he visits. Although his father, Bob Siegrist (who, at 64, sent his first 5.13 in July 2014), had always urged his son to try the sport, Siegrist didn’t start climbing until he was 18. Eventually climbers in Colorado’s Front Range began to see him everywhere, sending the area’s hardest lines. He gained international attention in 2009 when he visited Kentucky’s Red River Gorge and cleaned up: three 5.14c’s, three 5.14a flashes, three 5.13c onsights, and more than a dozen other 5.13 and 5.14 routes—all dispatched quickly. According to his website ( jstarinorbit.com), Siegrist has about 150 5.14 sends (many of
them flashes and first ascents) and more than 400 5.13s under his belt. Siegrist thought sending Biographie was important to his credibility as a route developer because it represented the next level of difficulty. “I want to add some of the hardest sport routes in the U.S., and with my routes La Lune and La Rêve, I speculated they could be 5.15, but I didn’t know,” he said. “I thought Biographie would give me a respectable benchmark so I wouldn’t have to speculate about grades. I could say, ‘OK, now I know what this difficulty feels like,’” he explained. “It was also encouraging to know that shorter climbers had done it, like Ramon Julian Puigblanque and Enzo Oddo—who’s actually huge now.” (Siegrist is 5’ 5.5”) Siegrist also wanted a challenging objective that would inspire him to train and try harder. “The challenge forced me to train in a new way, to adapt my lifestyle, to approach my climbing differently, and to really improve,” he said. That dogged attitude meant months of hang boarding, campusing, and weightlifting, which led to what he calls his first quantifiable improvement since 2010, when he sent his first 5.14d ( Kryptonite in western Colorado). “When [sending Biographie] finally sank in, it felt like more than just a reflection of the last six months. It was a reflection of the last 10 years of my climbing life.”
How to Redpoint Like a Pro
1 ) T E S N I ( O B R E S N I L E C ; R E I A M N O R E M A C
2
JUST DO IT
STAY POSITIVE
Hard redpointing is bigger than climbing. It allows you to grow as a human being because you have to deal with failure, frustration, inner dialogue, stress, and anxiety. It’s not always fun when it’s happening, but what it creates is a much more valuable and meaningful experience in the end. You shouldn’t be stressing every day about the weather or your skin, but having that process at least a few times is great. It makes you a better person.
Sometimes it’s OK to walk away, but it depends on how much the route means to you. I p repared by telling myself I would try it for 11 weeks, but it would be OK if I got on the plane and had sent nothing. This goal was about improving and learning something—more so than ticking a 5.15. You want to look back and know you gave everything you had, even if you didn’t send. If it becomes a negative experience, consider moving on.
—As told to Julie Ellison
3 TRAIN AWAY WEAKNESS
I don’t have inherent talent, but I worked really hard. I trained for months and tried the route for 30 days. Everything I did, day and night, was for the route. I made sure my skin was good, ate healthy, drank a gallon of water a day, slept well. I love running, but I stopped so I could focus all my energy on climbing. My biggest weakness is power, so I trained two hours a day on the campus board a few times a week.
4 ADAPT
Not reaching your goals is hard. I remind myself that it’s important enough to me that I’m just going to keep trying. Instead of pressuring myself with each attempt, I’m always thinking ahead: OK, I have partners for Tuesday, Thursday, Friday. What’s the route going to be like in late June when it’s hotter? Embrace the general attitude of “this could take a while,” instead of feeling pressure to send every day. I also quit caffeine; coffee gave me the jitters!
5 EMBRACE THE ROLLER COASTER
Going through the range of emotions is mandatory, and that’s one of the coolest and most frustrating things. I get emotional. I get close in the beginning and think, I’m gonna do this thing! Then it’s, I’m never gonna climb this thing! No matter how much you want to skip the highs and lows, you can’t. You’ll often find success in the next phase when you finally say, I’m just gonna keep trying, and maybe one day I’ll do it.
C L I M B I N G . C O M | 27
GUIDE
CRAGS
Epicenter: Chattanooga, TN Teaming up with our friends at mountainproject.com, we’re creating the ultimate primers to our country’s premier climbing towns. In this issue, we spotlight one of the South’s most happening areas. BY CAROLINE MELEEDY
Daniel Boone National Forest
KINGS BLUFF BIG SOUTH FORK
40 routes
BACKBONE ROCK
5 problems, 2 routes
75
31 routes
24
DEVIL’S RACETRACK
24 routes NORRIS LAKE OBED & CLEAR CREEK
198 routes
Nashville
Kingsport
1 DWS route Big South Fork National River & Recreation Area
26
Cherokee National Forest
81
HIGHBALL AREA
40
9 problems
Catoosa Wildlife Management Area
40
STONE DOOR
Knoxville
6 routes DAYTON POCKET/ LAUREL FALLS
5 problems
SUCK CREEK CANYON
BLUE HOLE FALLS
18 problems
40
LOOK ROCK
8 routes
19 routes
Great Smoky Mountains National Park
LEDA 75
TENNESSEE WALL 24
Pisgah National Forest
40 routes
Asheville STARR MOUNTAIN
185 routes
7 routes
FOSTER FALLS
100 routes
26
3
DOG BOY VILLAGE
2 routes CASTLE ROCK
7 routes
DEEP CREEK
Chattanooga 59
28 routes
SUNSET PARK
STONE FORT
81 routes
171 problems
Chattahoochee National Forest
TRAD
TOPROPE
SPORT
BOULDERING
THE SCENE
Southern Cragging Capital Nowhere in the South is there such a high concentration of lifelist climbing destinations. Within an hour’s drive of Chattanooga are eight crags, each with enough routes to last most climbers a lifetime. And if you ever get tired of Chattanooga (not likely, its population has grown every year for the past 20), there are dozens of other climbing areas to keep you busy near Nashville to the northwest and Knoxville to the northeast, both less than two hours away. The city of more than 170,000 just opened one of the country’s most innovative rock gyms. High Point Climbing and Fitness has 28,000 square feet of climbing inside—and out. The facility has transparent exterior walls with multiple routes. The town has even lured badasses like Lisa Rands and Wills Young to take up residence; the pair runs High Point’s climbing school. In short, this laidback town is a must-stop for any road tripper or itinerant rock climber looking for a home. Much of the climbing in Tennessee is on the Cumberland Plateau, a 300-mile
ridge that stretches into Alabama and Kentucky. The rock is hard, high-quality sandstone, and the terrain can include long crack climbs as well as overhanging jug-fests; the variety is incredible. The area boasts climbing year-round, and in the dead of winter, you’ll see climbers on the rock in their T-shirts at south-facing crags like Tennessee Wall (aka T-Wall). When summer is at its hottest, Sunset Park is a great destination; the west-facing cliff stays shady until well into the afternoon. But it’s not all milk and honey; it can get stiflingly humid in summer. Plan for a fall or winter visit. October and November are pitch-perfect. There’s plenty to do no matter what your climbing style. For trad leaders, T-Wall and Sunset are the top choices; others include Suck Creek Canyon and Prentice Cooper. Sport climbers can clip bolts at Foster Falls and Obed. And there’s a little of both at Leda. For the truly adventurous who want to carve out their own routes, there’s Big South Fork, a real climbing frontier.
Tyler Wilcutt on the first ascent of the hardest route near Chattanooga: El Camino del Diablo (5.14b).
D R A L L A B T T A M
POWERED BY
28 | O C T O B E R 2 0 1 4
Sebastien Ratel - Beyond Good & Evil
TRILOGY L I M I T E D S E R I E S TM
OUTSTANDING PRODUCTS LEADING INNOVATION
WATERPROOF
I N S U L A T I O N
F O O R P D N I W
BREATHABILITY
PROTECTIVE SHELLS TM
TRILOGY PRO GTX JKT
WWW.MILLETUSA.COM
G U I D E
CRAGS
LOCALS KNOW
Where climbers: [stay] If you want to set up camp, hit the parking lot of Tennessee Wall in the Prentice Cooper Wildlife Management Area. There are plenty of car camping sites and a pit toilet. Bonus! It’s free— first come, first served. If you’d like a real bed and roof (or need to find climbing partners), try out the Crash Pad (crashpadchattanooga.com , 423648-8393). This hostel is the unofficial basecamp for visiting climbers (hikers and boaters, too) with community rooms (starting at $28 per night for a bunk) and private rooms. Nice: free Wi-Fi and a DIY breakfast bar.
A welcome hands-free rest on the pumpy Twistin’ in the Wind
(5.12c) at T-Wall.
[eat/drink] Check out the Flying Squirrel (flyingsquirrelbar.com ). This local bar and restaurant is a favorite among traveling climbers. Open until 3 a.m., this joint serves everything from kale salads to duck tacos. They have a Sunday brunch menu as well, with Sriracha Bloody Marys and a dish called Dirtbag Benny (two small pieces of waffle, fried eggs, avocado slices, and bacon bits with molasses). With an extensive list of craft beers and house cocktails, this place is sure to please. (Tip: If you’re staying at the Crash Pad, be sure to mention it—you’ll get a discount on your bill.) If you’re looking to get caffeinated before a day of climbing, head to Mean Mug
Coffeehouse (423-825-4206) for locally roasted coffee, specialty lattes, and a full lunch menu. [gear up] Rock/Creek (rockcreek.com , 888707-6708) has four locations in Chattanooga alone. They carry a wide variety of outdoor gear, from apparel to any climbing gear you left as booty at the last crag. These guys are super-involved in the climbing scene in Chattanooga and have helped with many projects over the years, including building the parking lot and camping area at Tennessee Wall. Look around the store for local gear company Granola. They hand-build chalkbags, day packs, and the Camp Grounds Coffee Kit, which includes an AeroPress, a burr grinder, two cups, and locally roasted coffee. [learn the ropes] Let Rocky Top Guides (rockytop guides.com , 706-333-2089) show you around. They offer a wide variety of courses, including a rescue course and a Transition from Indoors class, for those who want a bit of training before taking on real rock. Or look up Lisa and Wills if you stop into High Point Climbing and Fitness (highpointclimbing.com, 432-602-7625). They offer everything from basic instruction to personal training and guiding.
METRICS
STYLE Paradise of sport and trad cragging
QUALITY DIFFICULTY
Nearly 600 routes at 3 stars or higher
A moderate climber’s heaven 240
Trad
4 stars
384 3 stars
180
Sport
120
461 60
2 stars
TR 25
1 star
0
30 | OCTOBER 2014
150
300
450
0
s s l e r o
6 5 .
7 5 .
8 5 .
9 5 .
0 1 5 .
1 1 5 .
2 1 5 .
3 1 5 .
Y R T N E G H A C I M
ROUTES
Chatty Classics The 10 best 4-star routes as ranked by Mountain Project users Golden Locks (5.8+) Tennessee Wall “Beautiful splitter crack with exposure above the Tennessee River, the most popular and perhaps the most sandbagged route.” Open Casket (5.9) Tennessee Wall “You think this cannot be 5.9, yet unlikely reaches to secret jugs with wild stemming across the chasm and locker hand jams under the huge chockstones prove you wrong. High Indiana Jones value on this one.” Holy War (5.9) Foster Falls “Argued to be the best of the grade at Foster Falls, and I would have to agree. The climbing is pretty continuous and interesting with a
wide variety of moves—crimps, jugs, flakes, and even a mono pocket!”
but it’ll cost you some burn time on those forearms.”
Hurts So Good (5.10a) Foster Falls “A long, fairly sustained route with a bouldery start followed by a very thin finish with lots of jugs in between. Crux comes at the ‘roof’ and the thin face crimpers near the end.”
Something’s Always Wrong (5.10d) Foster Falls “No argument about it. Best 5.10 at Fosters. Move left after the roof for a good rest before you tackle the overhanging face at the top.”
Stepping Stone (5.10a/b) Tennessee Wall “This is one of the best single pitches you will do anywhere. Place your pro well on the bottom section. Easy and well-protected terrain leads to a committing situation on the arête, at which point you’ll want to begin channelling your inner sport climber by firing for the top like you really mean it. Good pro is there for the taking,
Sugar in the Raw (5.11a) Tennessee Wall “Classic route with bouldery moves and small but good gear. Milk all the rests and don’t pass up any placements. Pull a hard roof and then move to good stances. Follow the thin cracks with decent pro to the crux that comes in the middle, then go up through several moderate roofs to the anchor.”
POWERED BY
Heresey (5.11b) Obed “Probably my favorite climb at the Obed. The sloper crux down low is a fun little boulder problem, and the jug-fest roof is just good, clean fun. Highly recommend this one. It’s like climbing a sandstone jungle g ym.” Solstice (5.12a) Obed “This is a pumpy climb with an amazing roof. Fall off anywhere, and you’ll have a heck of a time getting back on the route.” Twistin’ in the Wind (5.12c) Tennessee Wall “Touted by some as one of the best sport routes in the South. Certainly one of the best at T-Wall and is a must-do if you have what it takes.”
*Stats are for the immediate Chattanooga area. Get route beta, photos, and topos for the whole state at mountainproject.com/tennessee .
Details That Matter
What does a hiking boot company like LOWA know about climbing shoes? We don’t have any rock stars, we don’t have any first ascents, we haven’t given away tons of product, but here’s what we do have: 90 years of boot-making experience that, among other things, has taken climbers to the summit of every 8000 meter peak in the world. Our new X-BOULDER carries our legacy forward.
HANDCRAFTED IN EUROPE NEW X-Boulder
To see LOWA’s new line of rock shoes, visit www.lowaboots.com
© 2014 LOWA Boots, LLC. VIBRAM®, the Octagon Logo, and the Yellow Octagon Logo and the color Canary Yellow are registered trademarks of Vibram S.p.A.
G U I D E
INSTANT EXPERT
Squeeze Tactics Conquer chimney sections with these experience-driven techniques BY JULIE ELLISON
ROYAL ARCHES ,
Yosemite. KOR-INGALLS ROUTE, Castleton Tower. DURRANCE ROUTE , Devil’s Tower. What do these superclassic moderates have in common? They each have a physically demanding chimney. This term refers to any fissure that your body fits inside, ranging from a squeeze chimney (one to two
feet wide) to much wider, where you must stem the gap with a foot and hand on each side. Each width requires its own set of unique movements, so we talked with wide-crack wizard Rob Pizem (who points out that this was one of the earliest climbing techniques) to break it down into a step-by-step process.
Movement A
B
A SQUEEZE The tightest of the tight, where just breathing in can prevent you from moving upward. Remove any bulky gear (pack, shoes on harness, etc.), put it on a sling, and clip it to your belay loop so it hangs down. Choose a side to stick in first: If the crack gets tighter as it goes deeper, put your dominant hand inside for jamming, or if there are more edges on one side, face it so you can use them for holds. This style is “anything goes,” but every movement should be small and approached with patience. Look for narrower sections to wedge your feet with heel and toe smeared on opposite sides, like you’re standing. Try heel-toe cams, twisting your ankle so your foot cams sideways into place (Pizem’s favorite), or a T-shape (feet perpendicular, with the heel nested into the arch of the other
C
foot). Hands should be doing anything: finding edges/crimps (including on the face next to the crack!), smearing with palms, and arm-barring or using a chicken-wing (palm on one side and upper arm on the other)—try elbow up and down. Inhaling may lock you into place, so exhaling might release you.
B
FROGGY STYLE
This is required for chimneys that are just bigger than squeeze but not expansive enough to fully stem. Back on one side, knees pushing into the other. With the soles of your feet pressing into the back-side, push out with your palms—fingers pointing down or to the side—kept low for leverage. Lean your upper body slightly forward, and push down and out with your feet and hands so you can scoot your butt a nd lower back upward. It
CHIMNEY CHEATS with Rob Pizem
will be slow and steady, but push with everything to hold you in place while your upper legs lift your body. Repeat pushing to slide your legs up.
C STEMMING For the widest chimneys out there, put your left foot and hand on one side with the right hand and foot on the other. Press and push your feet and hands outward, trying to maintain as much external pressure as possible. “Think about pushing through the wall,” Pizem says. “Most people slip because they are pushing down when the holds actually require them to push out.” Always be looking for edges, bumps, or slabbier sections to use as footholds. Pull down on holds above or palm the wall to get some downward force so you can move up one foot at a time.
technique, then attack the longer ones. Plan on being runout at times, but totally secure. Breathe and climb from rest to rest. This will keep you focused on the few feet in front of you.
Gear
Protection
Place when you can, not when you want to. That means taking everything you can get: small nuts, slinging blocks, or walking a huge cam up next to you. Look for spots on the face, too. Pro will be limited, but your position is surprisingly secure.
No tight, downturned shoes; think flat, stiff, and supportive. Check belay loops, waistbelt, and leg loops for damage. Use a webbing strap to move your chalkbag (side or front). Pants, pants, pants! Protect your legs with jeans or canvas. Put all pro on a sling. If the chimney gets tight, hang the gear down and out of the way by clipping it to the belay loop. Tie your knot with a longer bight so it’s below your crotch. Take your helmet off—just put it back on when it’s over! Mental
I tell myself that the first ascensionist would have placed a bolt if it were really bad! The only reason you’ll fall is if you quit or go limp. Start on shorter chimneys to build endurance and
32 | O C T O B E R 2 0 1 4
Rest
Find a way in which you are not app lying external pressure but you still won’t slide down. Turn your upper body so your shoulders are wedged, or inhale to lodge your chest in place. In froggy style, lean forward so your chest is against the rock, or sit down on your wedged feet. Look for any holds, bumps, or edges to put your feet on. You have to rest your way up.
G N I L R E T S P I K S ; ) 3 (
R R U B W E R D N A
Made In Spain
FIXEhardware Introducting the Alien Lite 25% Weight Reduction
Stronger, Abrasion Resistant Dyneema Sling
Ergonomic Rubber Thumb Pull
Stronger Aluminum Cable Swage Higher Strength & Flexibility Steel Cable Improved Trigger Design
20% Reduced
G U I D E
TRAINING
Complete Core BY CAROLINE MELEEDY
Build a powerful base with these 10 effective (and fun!) exercises A STRONG CORE IS CRUCIAL to progressing as a climber. Body tension, keeping your feet on, moving efficiently, toeing-in on overhangs—it all revolves around the core. Plus, a solid core helps prevent injury. You’ve probably heard a core-strength evangelist preach the benefits before, and you’ve probably been pointed toward endless crunches or even expensive programs like Pilates, TRX, or yoga. Get ready for a new approach: varied exercises that are specifically targeted to work multiple parts of your body at the same time—just like climbing does.
1. Hanging Leg Lif
GUIDELINES Pick
five or more of these exercises and do them at least three (and up to five) times a week for best results. Add
as many sets or exercises as you need to feel the burn; you should be struggling to complete the last set. Do
these any time—end of a climbing session, on a rest day, in the morning before work—but avoid doing them right before you climb, as this could make your base tired and give you poor, injury-causing technique. A good core workout hits all aspects of your trunk, not j ust the abs i n the front. Each of these exercises has varied motions to work your front, back, and sides. Take
at least one to two rest days every week to let your muscles recover. If
Start on the jugs of a hangboard or a pull-up bar. Keep your arms straight, shoulders engaged (squeeze shoulder blades together), and legs straight down. Lift your legs up so your hips are at 90°, without bending your knees. When you lower back down, keep your body as still as possible (you’ll have a tendency to swing). Raise your legs again without using momentum. Do three sets of 15, resting about one minute in between.
you have a history of back or neck problems, consult your doctor before starting high-intensity exercises like these.
Variation: For a tougher challenge, raise your legs with knees b ent, pulling
them all the way into your chest. Or try just hanging with knees bent, hips at 90°, and have a friend put weight on your lap. Start with 10 to 15 pounds, hanging for 15 seconds. Have your friend remove the weight before lowering legs. Focus: Abs, lower back, hip flexors
2. Arm Dip Stand straight, feet shoulder-distance apart. Choose a dumbbell that will provide good resistance; 15 pounds is a good starting point. Hold it in your left hand and slowly lower your left shoulder straight down, as far as it will go. Try to keep your right hip in line with your body; don’t let it jut out to the side. In a controlled motion, bring the weight and your body back up to the starting position. The up and the down should be two separate motions. Do 20 reps and then switch arms. Focus: Obliques
3. Sit Up, Stand Up Lie with your back on the ground, knees bent, feet flat on the floor. Hold a weight plate (start with 20 lbs.) near the ground with arms straight out from your head. Using momentum, do a sit-up with the plate in the air, get your feet under you near your butt, and stand up all the way—keeping the plate in the air. Lie back down in the starting position (plate doesn’t have to be up when sitting back down, but don’t put it on the ground); repeat 15 times. Focus: Abs, hip flexors, hamstrings, quads, shoulders
34 | OCTOBER 2014
4. Wheelbarrow Walk Those wheelbarrow races you did as a kid are actually great for your core. Get into a high plank, with your hands directly below your shoulders. Have a partner lift you by your ankles. Keeping your body straight (don’t dip at the waist) and looking straight ahead, move your right hand forward about six inches. Then move your left hand up six inches past your right, finding a good pace for you and your p artner to avoid face planting. Keep your core and glutes contracted to maximize the movement. Go about 30 feet, then switch with your partner. Try to do five rounds, without compromising technique. Focus: Obliques, abs, lower back, glutes,
shoulders, arms
5. Oblique Knee Raise Plank Start in a high plank. Bend one leg and bring your knee to just outside the corresponding elbow. This should open your groin up to the ground as you move your knee up. R eturn to starting position and repeat wit h the other leg . Keep it controlled but maintain a steady pace. Do this for one minute. Focus: Abs, lower back, obliques, glutes, hip flexors, shoulders, chest
6. Farmer’s Walk Pick two weights that are in the high end of your comfort range. Holding one in each hand, start walking. For this motion to be effective, keep your core tight and your posture straight, standing as tall as you can. Either go for distance (50 yards) or time (1 minute) . If you want to test yoursel f, walk until your arms are about to give out; just be careful not to drop the weights.
9. Kettlebell Figure Eight Start with legs a little wider than shoulder width, and bend at the waist, keeping your back flat and head up. Use a lightweight kettlebell and go around your rig ht leg with you r rig ht han d, the n pass it under your right leg to your left hand. Repeat on the left side. That’s one rep; repeat 15 times. Focus: Abs, lower back, glutes, hip
flexors, obliques, arms, quads
Variation: Instead of using the same weight in each hand, hold a weight that’s about five pounds heavier in one hand. This will force you to keep your core tight as you try to balance the two different weights. Focus: Lower back, obliques, abs, forearms, hamstrings, quads, calves
7. A-Frame Arm Drop Begin in a C-sit position, knees bent at 90°, abs engaged so upper body is off the floor, and just heels on the ground. Put both arms straight above your head, holding palms together. While keeping your upper and lower body completely still, slowly lower your arms down to the right of your hip, tap the floor, and bring them back up overhead. Now lower to the left side. Do 30 total, 15 per side. Focus: Abs, obliques, lower back, shoulders
8. Plank Variations S R E D N A S Y E N T R U O C O T S K N A H T L A I C E P S ; ) 1 1 ( R E I E M T T I H E I L S E L
With a full-body burn, it’s hard to ignore planks as an effective core-strengthening exercise, but here are a few variations to keep it interesting. For each, keep muscles engaged and actively holding the plank. Start with three rounds of one minute, resting one minute between rounds.
10. The Matrix Start on knees that are hip-width apart with a straight back. Hold a weight near your belly button and slowly lean back as far as you can, keeping your back straight. Hold for three seconds, and then slowly come back to the starting position. Repeat 20 times. Focus: Abs, lower back, glutes, quads,
hip flexors
Elevated plank: This is a standard high plank, but you want your toes up on an elevated surface (bench, chair, etc.), so that your whole body is parallel to the floor. Use a wobbly exercise ball for increased difficulty. Sideways walking plank: Get into high-plank position. From here, move your right hand about six inches to the right, and then move your left hand six inches right. Move your left hand back to starting position and follow with your ri ght. Go to t he lef t side, then rep eat. Side plank with leg raise: In a side-plank position (left hand on floor directly under shoulder, body straight, balancing on outside edge of left foot), raise the right leg so your feet are wider than your shoulders and hold. Focus: Full body
CLIMBING.COM
| 35
GUIDE
NUTRITION
Wild Oats Power up for long days with this energy-filled breakfast BY LESLIE HITTMEIER
OATS FIRST HIT the breakfast scene in about 1000 B.C. in central Europe. They’ve been the quick and gut-filling choice for farmers, warriors, and anyone else with a big day ahead (hello, climbers) ever since. Sadly, oatmeal also has a tendency to go down like glue. Until now. Biju’s Oatmeal is not only quick and simple to make, but it’s also tasty—and super-charged to help you tackle huge objectives. Add the fact that it’s easy on sensitive stomachs, inexpensive, and a great base to customize to your personal taste, and you’ve got an unbeatable morning meal. Make it at home or on a camp stove, and the complex carbs and fiber will give your muscles long-lasting energy and keep you full until lunch, all wh ile warming your body from the inside out. The sugar, molasses, and banana provide immediate energy, while the added water makes the oatmeal easy to digest. Use Biju’s as the starting point and then add whatever you want, from chia seeds to dark chocolate chips to almond butter (check out the next page to see pro climbers’ picks). Vegan (with non-dairy milk), vegetarian, gluten-free, and delicious, this is the perfect kick-start to a day of h ard climbing.
Directions In
a medium saucepan, bring water and salt to a low boil. Add oats and cook about five minutes, stirring frequently. Add
milk and brown sugar, then return the mixture to a low boil. Add molasses, banana, and raisins, continuing to stir until oatmeal reaches desired thickness. Remove from heat. Let it sit for 10 to 15 minutes if you have the time. Finish
by adding other desired toppings and a splash of milk.
TIP: Use any kind of milk you want: dairy, soy, almond, etc. Start
with one cup and add more to achieve your desired consistency.
Nutrition Facts per serving (half total amount) Energy 490 cal Fat 6g Sodium 181mg
Carbs 102g Fiber 10g Protein 19g
Ingredients
FILL UP! *Republished with permission of VeloPress from The Feed Zone Cookbook . Try more recipes at feedzone1 cup water
Dash of salt
1 cup old-fashioned rolled oats
1 banana, chopped
1/4 cup raisins
1 tablespoon brown sugar
36 | O C T O B E R 2 0 1 4
1 to 2 cups milk, depending on desired thickness
1 tablespoon molasses
cookbook.com.
) 4 ( R E I E M T T I H E I L S E L ) ; ) 0 1 5 ( N O T R E L L U F N E B
Next Level
and, of course, make everything taste better!
How the pros do oatmeal Steph Davis: “I love oatmeal. I usually like to add dried mango and dried bananas—the whole, sot kind, not banana chips— with powdered soy milk and cin namon.” The kind of bananas Davis uses are much healthier because they’re simply dried bananas, while banana chips usually have added sugar and oil. Powdered soy milk is a great way to add texture and thickness to the oatmeal if you don’t do dairy. Research from the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition shows that cinnamon slows digestion after meals, so seasoning a high-carb food like oatmeal
with cinnamon can lengthen the time that your body draws energy from breakfast. Conrad Anker: “Oatmeal is the best. I suggest adding soy-based protein powder, dates, and dried blueberries. Mix everything in a bowl beore you go out, and then package into pre-built meals. In the Himalaya, you can use tsampa instead, which is roasted barley lour.” Roasted barley flour is high in complex carbs, fiber, protein, and certain vitamins and minerals; it also has a moist texture and nutty flavor. Sometimes real nuts or protein sources are
a luxury when weight counts, so replacing those with packable protein powder that offers the nutrients without the weight is a great idea. Dried fruit is also lightweight and adds sweetness when you can’t fit a bottle of maple syrup or agave. Kate Rutherford: “Whatever you do—add at! My avorite is real butter, nuts, or nut butter. Coconut shavings are awesome, too. Otherwise I’m hungry again all too soon.” Healthy fats like the ones Rutherford suggests are an ideal part of a morning meal as they help you feel fuller longer, offer sustained energy,
Adrian Ballinger: “I have a love/ hate relationship with oatmeal. It works; it’s uel; it’s warm. But damn, I hate it most o the time! My secret or big-mountain, high-altitude oatmeal is a hefy pad o butter and some good dark chocolate. It makes a gooey, chocolatey, high-calorie, high-at mess that keeps me warm and climbing hard. I learned the trick rom my Alaska mentor Aaron Zanto on my first trip to Denali. It kept me warm then, and now I look orward to it when I’m cold and wet in a tent, waiting or daylight. Eating it means I’ve got a big day coming up.” Again, added fat is good for climbers. And there’s nothing wrong with that little extra sugar; you’re definitely going
to need those calories on big days. Some other sources of good fats: avocados, nuts, seeds, eggs, and even olive oil if you prefer a savory flavor. Will Gadd: “Plain oatmeal is horrible, a gastronomic crime right up there with serving spaghetti without sauce. But add some dried apricots, a little maple syrup, some pecans or cashews, a bit o salt, and boom! Now you have ood instead o glue! I look at oatmeal as a platorm on which to do culinary experiments with whatever is hanging around my house or camp pantry.” Pecans, cashews, salt, apricots, and maple syrup are brilliant suggestions. A great balance of protein, sodium, sugar, and carbs adds a huge amount of flavor to your breakfast bowl.
OVERNIGHT OATS A no-cook breakfast for alpine starts
R E I E M T T I H E I L S E L ; ) 3 ( Y S E T R U O C ; E W O L X A M ; Y S E T R U O C : T F E L P O T M O R F E S I W K C O L C
If you’re heading out early, throw everything in a jar the night before, leave it in your fridge, and in the morning, you’ll have fresh-made oats ready for you—no stove required! If you prefer hot oatmeal, add a splash of water in the morning (to keep it from drying out) and put your meal in the microwave or on the stove for a few minutes. Oats soak up whatever liquid you leave them in, so you can use any kind of milk or yogurt. The difference for overnight oats is that using only milk, rather than part milk, part water yields better results. Use equal parts oats and milk, but add or subtract based on the thickness you prefer. Don’t forget to jazz it up with your personal additions (chocolate chips, chia seeds, cinnamon, bananas, etc.).
“BARTLETT REALLY VALUES PEOPLE. THEY CARE ABOUT OUR SAFETY, OUR SCHEDULES AND WE ALL FEEL LIKE FAMILY.” — RAMON, FOREMAN, HIRED 2004
Enhance your skills and advance your career with the #1 tree and shrub care company in the world. bartlett.com/careers
Opportunity grows on trees.
. An equal opportunity empl oyer.
scarpa.com/stix
You only get 26,320 days, more or less. How will you spend them?
THE
PRIMER
CLIMB
GEAR
Rock Shoes An embarrassment of riches. That’s what this fall brings to the rock shoe scene. New models and new companies are offering more women’s-specific pairs as well as high-quality budget options. Our test team tried them all out and narrowed it down to the 11 top performers on the following pages. But first, take a look at how climbing shoes are made.
Step 1 The last is a hard plastic cast that is in the shape o the oot and ankle; this is the oundation that the shoe is built around. Every size o the shoe has its own last, and while multiple models can use the same la st, most styles require a unique one.
E O H S D E T C E S S I D E H T R O F K C O R D A M D N A T S A L E H T R O F V L O V E O T S K N A H T L A I C E P S ; ) 2 ( R E I E M T T I H E I L S E L
Step 2 Since climbing shoes conorm closely to the wearer’s eet, the materials that make up the shoe (upper, sole, lining, and closure systems) are cut using stencils made rom molds that were ormed around the last.
Step 3 Pieces o the upper are sewn into a bootie, which is put on the last. The rand and sole rubber parts are heated, stretched, and then applied. Stretching the rubber beore applying, called tension randing, creates a snug fit and helps unnel power to the toe.
Step 4 Afer the sole is on, the shoes are put into a special machine that compresses the whole unit to get a tight seal on the newly glued rubber.
Step 5 The final step is hand-grinding the outside to get clean, ray-ree edges on the rubber, including a brushed finish on the sole and rand or extra strength and durability.
See the sum of the above parts— the Mad Rock Lotus—on page 43.
CLIMBING.COM
| 39
G E A R
BIG REVIEW
Rock Shoe Roundup BY JULIE ELLISON
Top out with these 11 new kicks
Shoe
Thanks to the widespread growth of climbing as a sport, new companies are popping up (or expanding into the rock shoe market), veteran manufacturers are rounding out their collections with more models, and many brands are targeting the female climbing populace with additional women’s-specific options. The result is tons of new rock shoes for fall, and our test team can’t complain. They took more than a dozen pairs of top contenders to some of the best climbing hot spots in the U.S.: big walling in Zion, topping out boulders in Little Rock City, Tennessee, bolt-clipping at Wild Iris, Wyoming, getting funky in the Gunks of New York, and lots of other crags in between. Rock shoes are the one piece of gear that can make an immediate impact on your climbing, and no matter your discipline, we promise you’ll find your next favorite pair in the subsequent pages.
Performance
Profile
Conclusion
Bottom Line 40 | O C T O B E R 2 0 1 4
Boreal Satori
Scarpa Booster S
$159; e-boreal.com
$175; scarpa.com
Right out of the box, the Satori impressed testers with well-thought-out details, a nearperfect fit, and an aggressive feel. The forefoot is designed to scrunch your toes for precision and power, but designers lifted the roof of the toe box to give those cramped digits space, instead of smashing them down. Boreal’s proprietary Toe Flexion System also kept the forefoot very flexible. “I could wear these bouldering V6 in the alpine, and then rock them for three-hour sport sessions in the gym,” one tester said of the Satori’s versatility and comfort, the latter thanks to a foot-hugging sock-like lining on the top that sits underneath a padded tongue. “The lacing system is the best of two worlds. You get the simplicity of a single Velcro strap, but laces cover more than half your foot, so you can dial in a snug, tightened-down-all-over fit,” one tester said. “It really locked my foot in place,” which was great when combined with the all-rubber, narrow heel cup that made even the most technical heel hooks a breeze. By placing additional toe rubber over the entire top of the forefoot, testers could toe hook at all types of angles, even on the most extreme and awkward features. However, the shoes’ overall stiff feel, even in the upper, made these less than perfect on anything slabbier than vertical.
“These are like a decked-out Formula 1 race car—they just scream performance,” one tester said after using the Booster S on roofs in Wild Iris, Wyoming, and American Fork Canyon, Utah. “The ultra-downturned platform and perfectly chiseled toe combined with ample rubber on the top of the forefoot and a suction-cup heel make this a masterpiece of a rock shoe. It has ruined me for all other shoes.” Testers found the toe to be very sensitive (especially compared to the manufacturer’s other high-performance shoes, which are stiffer) and the midsole incredibly flexible, which together made finding the sweet spot on the tiniest nubs and toeing in hard on steeps quite easy. Proprietary Tri-Tension Active Randing places a piece of rubber on the midsole that funnels power and precision from the sides and the back of the foot to the forefoot and toe, without sacrificing any flex or sensitivity. “The amount of power my toes get is unbelievable, considering how lightweight and minimalist this shoe is,” another tester said. The two Velcro straps dialed in a great fit—better than other Velcro shoes in the test—thanks to the design that places one strap low over the top of the foot and one high, with opposite tightening directions, meaning one closes on the right and one closes on the left. Con: Price is high.
[ AGGRESSIVE ]
[ AGGRESSIVE ]
Boulderers and bolt-clippers take note: These shoes rival some of the highest-performance climbing shoes on the market with their aggressive downturn, super-sticky rubber, chiseled toe, and dedicated heel cup.
If your project is past vertical, in a cave, has a roof—this is the shoe for you. A sensitive and precise toe sits in front of a flexible midsole that offers maximum torque, which then leads into a narrow, snug-fitting heel that’s wrapped with a band of rubber that pushes power to the toe.
Stiffness for Steeps
Overhang Ace
GENDER BIAS
Women’s-specific climbing shoes might be a relatively new addition to the market, but don’t let the gender label fool you: Men might find these shoes fit better than some unisex models. Originally, designers would take a men’s last (see p. 39 for definition) and chisel it down to create a shoe with less volume. But that wasn’t good enough. “Men’s and women’s feet are similar, but not the same. If you start with a men’s last, it won’t fit a woman perfectly, even if you make several changes,” says Mad Rock Sales Manager Kenny Suh. With the number of ladies in the climbing scene growing rapidly, manufacturers have chosen to s tart from scratch, building lasts that are more specific to woman’s foot. “Typically women have higher arches, a thinner Achilles, and narrower feet,” says Suh, “so we are doing things like Arch Flex technology that creates a higher arch in the shoe, minimizing dead space and increasing tension throughout, so it hugs the foot all the way around.” Although they’re designed for women, it doesn’t mean some men don’t share the same foot traits, and in the end, it’s all about finding the right fit for your foot. The opposite also rings true: Some women might have wider, flatter feet. The moral of the story is to choose a shoe based on the fit for your specific foot shape, regardless of gender. —LESLIE HITTMEIER
Butora Mantra
Five Ten Hiangle
Mad Rock Lyra
$145; butora.com
$150; fiveten.com
$105; madrockclimbing.com
“Present-day Gunks-goers and Eldo-lovers will be smitten with this super-stiffie just as much as the Stonemasters would have loved it for their bold, long, technical ascents in Yosemite,” one tester said. And that’s exactly where the designer got his inspiration for this comfortable, board-lasted kick. It’s got a time-tested design with a modern aesthetic and thoughtful updates. Putting small patches of memory foam against the pinky toe on the interior of the shoe “makes foot jamming fairly comfortable—I’ve never said that before!” one tester exclaimed. Plus, a padded tongue kept the tops of boney feet happy, making the sh oes easy to wear all day. To-the-toe lacing means you can dial in a solid fit so the shoe doesn’t slide around when you’re in a precarious position, but the low profile, lack of metal, and eyelets in the added toe rubber mean the laces don’t dig in when jamming. “This has more support and stiffness than some of my approach shoes,” one tester said of the multipart sole that includes a full-length midsole, an additional layer of memory foam under the heel and arch, and a soft footbed. That rigidity made it excellent for edging, and it stood out on slabs and straight-vertical terrain alike. The absolute stiffness and support of the Mantra means sensitivity and precision you get from a softer shoe are missing, but testers found it still smeared well.
Downturned but not too downturned. Soft but not too soft. Stiff but not too stiff. One tester called these “the Goldilocks of performance shoes” because of the balance between comfort and technical performance. However, the shoe did go to one extreme—“Sticky, sticky, sticky!” is how another tester described the tried and true Stealth C4 rubber. The aggressive profile, pointed toe, and sensitive feel made this great for the overhangs and steeps of Little River Canyon in Alabama, but a stiffer midsole meant that testers could still edge well on the vertical walls of Shelf Road in Colorado. “Wears like a slipper, performs like a Velcro,” said one tester of the single strap, which is placed high over the arch of the foot to lock everything in place. A slightly oversized toe box allowed testers’ toes to have room to curl up so they could wear them for long gym sessions and only take them off a few times. Plus, the unlined leather upper proved itself to be stink-free for four different testers after five months of use. Even though it is a leather shoe, meaning it will stretch slightly over time, the sizing is quite small, so go up at least a half size from your street shoe. Testers found it was “difficult to get on—like putting a large orange in a small sock.” Narrow-heeled testers said the heel felt “slightly baggy and insecure.”
“Ideal for harder multi-pitch routes, because it feels like a comfort shoe, but it has the performance of a more precise kick,” one tester said. A flatter, less-downturned profile and a supportive midsole that runs from the forefoot down to the start of the heel made this shoe great for when one tester was on her feet for five pitches of foot jamming in Rocky Mountain National Park. A tension-randed piece of rubber underneath the arch of the foot provided additional support and rounded out the easy-fit features. However, the Lyra has the extra toe rubber, the dedicated heel cup (one piece of rubber as opposed to rubber and leather or synthetic leather), the precise toe, and the band of rubber that wraps around the Achilles (pushing power to the forefoot) of a high-performance rock shoe. Designers added a few more strips of soft Velcro, so testers could change the angle of the closure straps based on foot size and shape. Bonus: “With everything I can wear this shoe for—bouldering, trad climbing, after-work gym sessions, sport climbing—this is a true bargain!” Testers reported the rubber started to wear down after about two months of use. Though not quite as sticky as other shoe rubber in the test, this degradation didn’t affect performance. “It immediately became my go-to shoe.”
[ FLAT]
[ AGGRESSIVE ]
[ FLAT]
Traddies and alpinists who want full support and stability from a sticky-rubber rock shoe will love the Mantra and its old-school style that has added comfort and thoughtful features.
With a comfortable fit and medium-high level of performance, the Hiangle is excellent for climbers looking for their first pair of aggressive shoes or those who want a higher level of performance in the gym.
One shoe to conquer them all—the Lyra’s flatter build and supportive midsole make it easy to wear all day outside or for hours in the gym, but certain features (heel cup, precise toe, power platform) give it excellent performance.
Stiff Trad
Goldilocks Perfomance
Ladies’ Quiver of One
CLIMBING.COM
|
41
G E A R
BIG REVIEW
Shoe
Boreal Dharma
Evolv Axiom
Butora Sensa
$159; e-boreal.com
$125; evolvsports.com
$98; butora.com
Performance
Not only are these shoes very burly and durable (proven after six months of bad footwork and four-times-a-week use), they have a specialized “anti-deformation” midsole designed to keep the toe curved down over the life of the shoe— perfect for steep bouldering and sport climbing. “Many of my high-performance kicks have flattened out over time,” one tester complained, “but these have maintained their shape very well, especially in the toe, despite cramming into packs and walking around the gym floor.” Zenith rubber was delightfully sticky on all types of rock—polished limestone, granite, sandstone—and generous application on top of the toe, up on the sides, and a one-piece heel cup meant testers could do virtually any type of foot movement and be touching sticky rubber to rock. The sock lining on top of the foot vacuum-sealed a snug but not overly tight fit, and then cranking down the three Velcro straps kept everything in place without restricting easy on– easy off usage. Testers also lauded the Rand Wrap that put tensioned rubber (meaning the rubber was stretched out before it was applied) under the arch and behind the heel, which hugs the foot and funnels strength into the toe. With 4 to 4.5mm of rubber (depending on shoe size) and relative stiffness in the toe and heel, these shoes weren’t ideal for slabs, smearing, or any smedging moves that might require more sensitivity.
“On the comfort-performance spectrum, these fall almost smack dab in the middle because they’re easy to wear for eight or 10 hours, but I can edge like a champ on vertical faces and find micronubs on slabs,” one tester said. Although rare for a flat-lasted shoe, the band of rubber up and over the Achilles really drove power to the toe and forefoot for precision moves on the stem-fest Not My Cross to Bear in Penitente Canyon, Colorado. Testers’ feet weren’t the least bit fatigued on 10-pitch routes in Red Rock, Nevada. Testers praised the Tongue-Lock System, which placed Velcro between the tongue and the side of the shoe that prevents the super-soft and cushy tongue from sliding out of place when twisting and torqueing your foot into place. A full-length midsole and 4.2mm of TRAX rubber meant testers could stand at belays for hours without foot fatigue or arch pain, and they added to the durability of the shoe: “From Vedauwoo to Tuolumne Meadows, I’ve tried to beat these up, but they’re not wavering in the least.” Plus, thicker rubber on the toe prevented one climber’s bad footwork from burning through the easily damaged forefoot area. The leather upper will stretch about a half-size, which might also mean a few weeks of discomfort in the shoe before it molds to your foot. Wide or high-volume feet should look elsewhere.
With some of the best climbing shoes on the market coming out of Europe, American shoe brands definitely have something to prove, and Californiabased Butora has charged out of the gate with some of our favorite shoes of the year. The Sensa is a classic slipper design with a flexible, flat sole. One tester loved it for foot jamming on Melvin’s Wheel in Lumpy Ridge, Colorado, but also found the sensitivity and softness great for smedging (smearing + edging) on the dime edges of J Crack , also in Lumpy. Testers found the proprietary Butora rubber to be just as sticky as the namebrand rubbers of other shoes in the test: “From first wear, I never questioned the stickiness—especially because that first wear was on slightly damp granite!” A synthetic upper won’t stretch over the life of the shoe, so size accordingly. Super-awesome, far-out bonus: The price! “Don’t be fooled by that sub-$100 price tag; these shoes are truly high quality,” one user said. This two-man startup, run out of a garage, owns the factory where they produce shoes, and they intentionally keep overhead minimal so they can keep prices low. This shoe quickly proved itself to be on par with some of the best currently on the market. Full sensitivity means just that, and some users experienced foot fatigue and/or pain after wearing them for all-day routes. Like most classic slippers, it’s slightly challenging to get them off and on.
[ AGGRESSIVE ]
[ FLAT]
[ FLAT]
If you want a high level of performance, enough comfort to wear for a few hours at a time, and an all-around shoe that edges all day, the Dharma will quickly turn into your go-to pair of high-performance but wearable kicks.
“A solid, do-it-all shoe that is comfortable on everything moderate: cracks, in the gym, and on 10-pitch sufferfests.” A leather upper and laces allow you to dial in a full-comfort fit or a tighter one, with unbeatable edging power.
Slipper purists that don’t want anything fancy—just a sticky-rubber sock—will love the Sensa for its simple, straightforward design, not to mention the phenomenal price.
Everlasting Performance
Comfy All-Around
Sensitive Slipper
Profile
Conclusion
Bottom Line 42 | OCTOBER 2014
Shoe
Tenaya Tarifa
Mad Rock Lotus
Butora Endeavor
$165; trango.com
$119; madrockclimbing.com
$98; butora.com
Performance
Following Tenaya’s motto that high performance doesn’t have to mean low comfort, the Tarifa is a medium-stiff shoe that has top-notch performance on every angle and type of terrain. “It’s stiff and supportive where you need it— heel cup and forefoot, but completely flexible in one key spot—the arch/ middle of the foot,” one tester said of this narrow-lasted shoe. “That means I can edge on a razor crimp as well as I can smear on a low-angle section as well as I can dig in deep on tiny nubs on a roof. Its versatility is unrivaled.” The Tarifa really shined on a 5.12 sport route in Boulder Canyon that required a perfect balance of stiffness and flexibility. A fitted interior sock makes the shoe feel snug from the get-go, and with slight padding in the sock, you can crank down the laces as much as you want when fine-tuning fit for hard bouldering. Vibram XS Grip rubber extends all the way around the shoe and up on the sides, including an extra-large patch on the toe for hooks and bicycles. It was ex tremely sticky on all rock types, from craggy limestone to polished granite, and it showed no signs of wear or lessened stickiness after three months of heavy use. The right size can be a challenge to find because the shoe is so comfortable that you can literally go down multiple sizes (one tester was a full 2.5 sizes down from her other performance kicks) and it will still feel good on your foot.
With full-on flexibility throughout the shoe and maximum sensitivity, the Lotus performs like a slipper, making it an excellent choice for steep terrain with small holds, competition climbing, and everything in between. As their first foray into women’s-specific shoes, Mad Rock nailed the fit with their ladies’ last that’s narrower through the length of the foot, especially in the heel, with a lower-volume profile. “Bam! The best fit ever—right out of the box,” one smitten user said. “No gaps, no uncomfortable pinching, no cramped toes, and no saggy heel!” A small piece of plastic is used as a minimalistic midsole, offering a small amount of support under the ball of your foot so your toes don’t have to do all the work b ut you don’t lose sensitivity. A single Velcro strap runs over the middle, but then zig-zags back over the very top to dial in fit, and a padded split tongue directly underneath allowed testers to crank it down without pain or discomfort. The split also makes it easier to pull on than other standard slippers. Testers lauded the rubber heel cup, which wraps the heel of the foot in one piece of stiff rubber, no saggy upper to stretch out, reducing performance. A pronounced strip of rubber runs right down the middle of the heel, offering security that one tester “trusted more for heel hooks.” If you’re used to more support and stability, it might take a while to maximize these super-softies.
As the one-stop shop of rock shoes, the Endeavor is a durable, medium-stiff, medium-flex, sticky-rubber kick that is at home on vertical, slabby, and even slightly overhanging terrain. “If I could only climb in one pair of shoes for the rest of my life; these would be it,” one tester said after a few months of easy bouldering, moderate sport routes, and big multi-pitch days. With the addition of a few thoughtful features, this shoe rises above the dozen other moderateperformance pairs on shelves now. A welded polyurethane reinforcement in the leather-upper heel gives more stability and security in the back of the shoe without the full rigidity of a one-piece rubber heel cup. A strip of welded polyurethane on the upper runs across the toe for increased durability and structure, preventing the forefoot from stretching out or caving in. The double straps of Velcro are opposed (one latches down on the left, the other on the right), with double and triple attachment points so that when testers pulled one strap, they could feel the shoe tightening down all around their foot. The Endeavor also has a two-face upper, with leather in the back half for breathability and comfort, and synthetic in the front that won’t stretch out or deform. Sweet: It’s available in half sizes from 5 to 15, with a wide option. Ding: Although it’s good at everything, it doesn’t particularly excel at anything.
Profile
Conclusion
Bottom Line
[ AGGRESSIVE ]
[ AGGRESSIVE ]
[MODERATE ]
Bouldering, sport, hard trad, single-pitch, or multi-pitch—the Tarifa can do it all. If you’re looking for top performance in an easy-to-wear package, look no further than this all-around ass-kicking pick.
If you love the fit and sensitivity of a snug slipper, but want slightly more support for toeing in on steeps, this is your shoe. Even the narrowest-footed ladies will get excited over the well-designed fit, and the perfect heel is unbeatable.
Great performance without downsizing, an aggressive curve, or any pain. The dirtbag-friendly price makes this an excellent option for gym or mileage shoes, and the well-designed details mean way more value for your money.
Master of All Trades
Cinderella’s Slipper
Quiver of One
CLIMBING.COM
| 43
G E A R
TESTED
Field Notes The latest and greatest from our diligent testers BY JULIE ELLISON AND LESLIE HITTMEIER
QUICK-CLIPPING DRAW
Petzl Djinn Axess After testing no fewer than 10 types of quickdraws this year, our Colorado tester declared this one “my hands-down favorite.” What separates one draw from another? With the Djinn, it’s the extra-large carabiners with a slight bump on the outside of the spine. The size and bump give the biners an ergonomic fit that nestled perfectly in testers’ hands. Combine that with a wide gate opening, and you’ll get the clip the first time with less bumbling and fumbling. A smooth, snag-free nose shape kept the biner from catching on bolt hangers when cleaning, and a small indent on the straight-gate biner made clipping the bolt easier and smoother. The Axess sling is durable and wide enough to grab in a pinch, but not so hefty that it adds a ton of weight; the 12cm version weighs in at a mere 3.8 ounces. $17–18; petzl.com petzl.com ULTRA-LIGHT,, PA ULTRA-LIGHT PACKABLE CKABLE DIGS
Brooks-Range Tension 30 This three-season, twoperson tent packs down to the size of a loaf of bread and weighs less than two large cans of beans (2 lbs., 7 oz.), but it’s not a flimsy shelter that needs to be babied. One carbon fiber pole cuts down significantly on weight but increases strength, two other aluminum poles offer a nice balance of strength for the weight, and a 2mm cord sewn into the seams increases the structural integrity of the tent body without adding
44 | O C T O B E R 2 0 1 4
noticeable weight. Together these three factors offer a sturdy,, storm-worthy shelter sturdy for alpine missions. After comfortablyy riding out 30+ comfortabl mph winds on Gothics in the Adirondacks Adirondac ks this spring, our tester said it “laughs in the face of a stiff wind, practicall practicallyy disappears in my pack, and doesn’t skimp on space. I packed, unpacked, and generally beat it up—I knew it could handle the abuse, but I wasn’t hurting because of any extra weight.” He went on to say, “This will be perfect for a full fall of alpine climbing in Europe because the 30 square feet of space is perfect for my partner and me—and we’re big guys.” Ding: Vestibule space is just more than six square feet, so testers had to cram and pile gear in the small space. $420; brooks-range.com BLAZE OF GLORY
Bosavi USB Headlamp With a high light output, scant weight, and USB rechargeability, the Bosavi headlamp is a must-have for climbers and alpinists who should always carry a head torch in their pack. The 110-lumen light reached far out enough for our tester to run quickly downhill through a scree field. White and red LEDs provided options for seeing at night, whether it was on the rock or reading in the tent, and the pleasantly light weight—2.1 ounces, battery included—was included—w as unbeatable. (Compare to other lights with similar specs: 3 oz. without the battery.) But its usefulness isn’t limited to camp and alpine starts. Wrap the light with its own packaging to create a lantern, or pop it on your bike with the included mount for late-night returns from the gym. The strap was
comfortable on sweaty heads, and it easily transitioned from skull to brain bucket. Our testers praised the versatile functions and intuitive interface: “You can remove modes you never use, like red or strobe, to simplify dialing in what you want, and a lock button prevents unintentionally draining the battery while in your pack.” $70; bosavi.com ONE-POUND CHILLAXING SYSTEM
Grand Trunk Single Hammock Hammocks are popping up more and more at crags across the country, and just like anybody else, we get annoyed by folks taking over an entire area by hanging a hammock, but these elevated beds are heavenly for chilling in camp, a quick nap, or even for sleeping overnight in fair weather. (Or use it in a friend’s backyard so you don’t wear out your welcome by overtaking his couch.) “Perfectly comfy and an easy setup for relaxing on hot afternoons while waiting for temps to cool in Bishop,” one tester said. “Just find two trees, tie a quick girth-hitch, and you’re ready to go.” Testers paired it with the Packable Travel Blanket ($80) to create a super-cushy bed setup for short afternoon naps that had them rested and recovered for the evening session. It weighs in at one pound and packs to the size of a g rapefruit, and the high-strength nylon with triple stitching can hold up to
400 pounds. Everything you need to hang hang it is included, and the fast assembly,, small size, and assembly budget-friendly price make it a dirtbagger’s dream. $55; grandtrunkgoods.com END-ALL, BE-ALL DAY DA Y HAUL ER
Trango Crag Pack Think durability and comfort can’t come in a light, functional package? Think again. “My favorite crag pack—out of about 10—from first wear,” said our tester after he lugged it a few dozen miles over the course of two months throughout Colorado and the Rockies. The 3.6-pound, 48-liter bag has a haulbag-like design—and the correspo correspondnding burliness—but it
carries as comfortably and loads up as smartly as a techy alpine pack. Nice touches: A mesh pouch on the outside of the pack for shoes helps them dry quicker (and stink less), a side zipper gives immediate access to the inside, and an included mini tarp keeps ropes clean. A flat bottom helps it stand upright when digging for gear, and the vinyl Titan Wrap fabric proved more durable than any other pack we’ve tested in the last year (dedicated haulbags excluded). With smooth zipper operation, padded (but not bulky) straps, and a side pocket big enough for even the thickest of crag bibles, our tester was first in line to purchase his own: “It has no annoying hiccups, it’s comfy, and it’s more than capable for cragging and donein-a-day alpine adventures.” $99; trango.com
THE
BEGIN HERE
CLIMB
CLINICS
USING THE SHELF By Julie Ellison
KEEP ANCHORS CLEAN AND ORGANIZED WI TH THIS SIMPLE TRICK
STANDARD CORDELETTE ANCHOR (Fig. 1) *
Efficiency is directly related to success on any multi-pitch climb, and being neat and tidy from the beginning is a key to effi ciency. With ropes, belay devices, cordelette, and slings crowding the anchor, it’s easy for this important setup to become an overcomplicated rat’s nest. Keep your belay orderly with this effortless technique: using the “shelf.” The shelf is a secondary point (the first being the master point) you can use to clip into directly. On a standard cordelette anchor built with at least two attachment points, it sits right above the knot. Using this redundant and full-strength clip-in spot keeps the master point free for the belay device and for your follower (or followers) to clip into. It streamlines the whole setup, especially if you have three or more climbers clipping into the anchor. Here, we’ve explained two common scenarios and the proper way to use the shelf in each.
Use a cordelette to build a solid, equalized, redundant, efficient, and extension-free anchor (SERENE/ ERNEST) that includes a master point. Above the knot that creates the master point, there will be two strands of cord running from each piece of gear (you must have at least two pieces for this to be redundant) into the knot. Grab a strand from each pair and clip a locking biner through all of them. Make sure the biner goes through the strands, not just around them, which could result in the biner slipping down and coming off the anchor—very bad! Tie a clove hitch on the biner with the rope from your harness. Lock the biner and you’re clipped in. Note: For this system to be solid, you must have a biner clipped
fig. 1
fig. 2
through the master point—weighted or unweighted—so there’s no way the knot can come undone. Clipping the belay device to the master point for use in guide mode is sufficient.
TREE ANCHOR (Fig. 2) *
Use a double-length sling or cordelette to create an anchor around a solid tree that’s at least five inches in diameter, firmly rooted in the ground, and alive. Wrap the sling/ cord around the tree, match the ends, and tie a figure eight on a bight to create a master point. The difference in this scenario is that to make it redundant, you must clip all the strands on one side of the knot, as opposed to taking a strand from each pair of strands like in the previous example. If you were to clip one strand from each side of the knot and one loop (top or bottom) failed, the biner would be clipped to nothing.
) 2 ( N R O C R E P U S
CLIMBING.COM
| 47
C L I N I C S
RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
LAWS OF LIGHTNING By Julie Ellison
LEARN THE TRUTH—AND MYTHS—ABOUT LIGHTNING TO STAY SAFE ON YOUR NEXT ADVENTURE
In July 2014, two hikers in Rocky Mountain National Park of Colorado were killed by lightning strikes in two separate incidents on back-to-back days, and collectively, about a dozen others were injured. While these fatalities occurred on hiking trails relatively close to the road, lightning is an even bigger risk for backcountry and alpine climbers who are committed to being far away from a safe place for hours at a time. As the number of these climbers grow, it’s important to realize that lightning is a very serious threat that occurs practically every day in the high country. We teamed up with meteorologist William Roeder, who works with the U.S. space program in central Florida (aka Lightning Alley), and NOLS Curriculum and Research Manager John Gookin to compile the most pertinent information and best protocol for backcountry climbers.
First and Foremost The only places that are completely safe from lightning are in a fully enclosed building with wiring and plumbing (house, office, restaurant—not a gazebo or o pen-sided shelter) or in a vehi cle that has a solid metal roo f and solid metal sides. That means the biggest and best rule for lightning safety is not to be outside when a storm hits—period. Time your activities so you’re not outside if a storm is coming, or turn back on the approach or bail off a climb if a storm is moving in. Roeder says, “You should never refer to ‘outdoor lightning safety ’; instead, you should call it ‘ lightning risk reduction.’” But even if you’ve done everything to mitigate risk from the start, a storm you don’t expect can still present problems. When lightning threatens, your first goal should be to get indoors or back in your vehicle. If that’s not possible, the next step is to get to the safest place available; follow the diagram below to see where the safest spot is, based on where you are. 1 1
1 2
Most danger
2 1
2
Moderate danger
3
Least danger
2
2 3 1
3 2 3
2
PROTOCOL If you are in the backcountry and get stuck in a storm, immediately move to the safest position possible, following the diagram above. However, two common situations that climbers might find themselves in that are not covered in the diagram are: being stuck on a vertical face or in a large, treeless boulderfield. Both o f these situations are risky and subject to judgment based on the specific situation as to where lightning might strike. The spots most likely to be struck are based on three factors (in order of importance): relative height (summit vs. valley), isolation (think tall tree in an open field), and a streamlined, skinnier shape (tree vs. a boulder). Rock shelters and cave entrances are also dangerous because lightning will travel along any surface to reach electrical ground. If any part of your body touches any part of these surfaces, the lightning will travel through your body (fig. 1 ).
fig. 1
48 | O C T O B E R 2 0 1 4
Boulderfield: Sit on a dry crashpad (or sleeping pad or pack—whatever you h ave wi th yo u), no t a w et o ne. Both hiding in rock caves and sitting exposed out in the open are dangerous, but since most people won’t want to get drenched during a storm, you’ll probably take shelter under the rocks if available. In this situation, the biggest risk is lightning flashing over rocks. Mitigate cave risk by sitting far back f rom t he en trance and havi ng as much space between your head and the rock ceiling as possible. That means potentially finding a different cave to wait out the storm.
Vertical face: Generally, it’s best to keep moving down to safer terrain, unless you come to a spot that’s more dangerous—such as a rock cave on the side of a face (fig. 1). If the storm is right on top of you, get into the lightning position (see next page) until the storm moves away. If the storm is still pretty distant, sneak across the danger zone as quickly as possible. Same goes once you reach the ground: Keep moving until you hit a dangerous area (e.g., exposed ridgeline). If the storm is right over your head, assume the li ghtning position. If not, move over that spot as quickly as possible.
Quick Hits
FIRST AID PRIMER Lightning fatalities and injuries occur due to the high voltage of electricity, the heat, and the blast of air (like an explosion). While burns, temporary loss of hearing, unconsciousness, and other injuries can occur, the most serious problems are cardiac arrest and respiratory arrest, so the most important first aid is CPR. (Call rescue services, 911, or emergency medical professionals immediately.) Roeder recommends following the most current CPR procedure, which emphasizes chest compressions rather than rescue breathing. AEDs (automated external defibrillators) work well, too.
Myths—Busted! Rubber tires or shoes insulate you from lightning. The amount of rubber in these items is way too small to insulate from the incredibly high voltage of lightning; it’s actually the metal body of the car that protects you. When a car is struck, the current travels around the outside of the vehicle (only if it has a metal top and sides), protecting the people inside. Your rack or cell phones
attract lightning. Metal rods on skyscraper roofs do attract lightning; your cams and biners won’t. Don’t waste time shedding gear; focus on getting to safety early and quickly. Someone who has just been struck will electrocute you if touched. Nope, you should immediately start providing first aid. It won’t happen to me. Possibly the most dangerous myth—the threat of lightning
IMPORTANT VOCABULARY Ground current is when the voltage from a strike runs along the ground; this happens with every bolt.
should be respected and taken seriously, even if you have to change your plans. Lightning never strikes the same place twice. False! You’re not safe until you’re inside a building or vehicle. Thunder doesn’t mean lightning. Thunder is caused by lightning, so if you hear thunder, there IS lightning. The flash can hide behind a mountain, deep in a cloud, or just the opposite direction of where you’re looking.
INJURY-CAUSING MECHANISMS Upward leaders Direct strike 12%
3%
Contact voltage 4%
Side flash jumps from tall objects (trees, antenna) when that object is struck. Contact voltage comes from touching a conductive object that was struck (wire fence). Upward leaders originate from tall, pointed conductors trying to touch the approaching lightning a split-second before the strike. Direct strikes are just what they sound like: The bolt hits you dire ctly.
Ground current
Side flash
50%
31%
LIGHTNING POSITION The most important part of this position is to stand with your feet together, which reduces exposure to ground current. You can stand or squat, on top of a pad or a pack if you have it, just keep your footprint on the ground as small as p ossible. Your biggest goal is ge tting to one of the two safe places listed earlier, and only do this lightning position if you experience the signs of an imminent strike (see “Quick Hits”). After 10 seconds, feel for signs of an imminent strike again. If present, get back into position. If not, continue seeking shelter.
) ) 2 2 ( ( G G N N I I L L R R E E T T S S P P I I K K S S
JOHN GOOKIN As the Curriculum and Research Manager for the National Outdoor Leadership School, John Gookin, Ph.D., is an expert in backcountry lightning risk management. He’s also on the Lightning Safety Team for the National Weather Service.
Rule of thumb for time: On top by 10 a.m., off by noon. Only 10% of those w ho encounter lightning are killed, but 70% of survivors have lifelong debilitating injuries. When thunder roars, go indoors. Spread out when hiking in a storm; current jumps from person to person. Aim for 20 feet between people to reduce the chances of others getting hurt, but make sure you’re within hearing distance. Signs of imminent lightning: hair standing up, cracking/static sounds from the air, skin tingling, light metal objects (cams, biners, ice axe) or your rope vibrating. NEVER lie flat on the ground, which increases your exposure to ground current. Turn around immediately if you hear thunder, which means lightning is less than 10 miles away. Sounds travels one mile every five seconds. Count the seconds between the flash and the bang, then divide by five. That’s how many miles away the storm is. Avoid any and all water.
Real World Phil Broscovak It felt like being stung by 10,000 wasps at the same time, from the inside out. I can’t describe how much pain I was in. I’d had more than a dozen close calls, ground shocks, and near-death lightning experiences on serious climbs before being blasted nine years ago. After all that, to finally Ed. Note: Broscovak, be “lit up” ripped my life apart. now 57, was struck This is a subject that strips me on Edward’s Crack bare and exposes the rawest edg- in Vedauwoo on es of my being, and I do not take August 13, 2005. He it lightly. The real Phil Brosco- was retrieving gear vak died that day. And since from the climb after then, I’ve dealt with the con- getting his group sequences: a lifetime in a very (two of his kids and personal but invisible hell while a nephew) to safety everyone tells me how “lucky” I when the storm am to have survived. The elec- moved in. Lightning trical shock caused a traumatic struck the rock about brain injury that’s left me with eight inches from periods of normalness punctuat- his head and then ed by massive mood swings, hy- traveled to him. persensitivity to sound, di fficulty writing and speaking , insomnia, extreme fatigue where I can barely force my eyes open, and an inability to regulate body temperature (sweating at 30°F and shivering at 80°F). This has affected every one of my relationships, and it was a huge factor in my divorce. It’s only been in the last two years that I have begun to “normalize” around bad weather. People acknowledge some of the risk, but they do not comprehend any of the co nsequences. If any of my stories can promote greater awareness, then I will continue to talk about it. No one dies from awareness.
CLIMBING.COM
| 49
C L I N I C S
SHOP TECH
FRICTION SCIENCE By David Flanagan
LEARNING THE PROPERTIES OF FRICTION WILL HELP YOU SEND
Friction is the magic ingredient in climbing. It’s what keeps you off the ground and makes subtle weight shifts and delicate sequences successful. Understanding the how and why will make you a better climber. In simple terms, friction is the resistance that one surface encounters when moving over another. In high school physics terms, friction is independent of the contact area, but in a climbing context, friction is proportional to the contact area (more contact equals more friction). We’ll look at three materials—rubber, skin, rock—to see how each behaves.
RUBBER Climbing shoe rubber is designed to be soft enough to mold to the rock, and this softness results in increased frictio n because it wraps around the irregularities in the rock, upping the contact area between the two surfaces. This softness and the resulting performance vary based on temperature; this means some days you can stand on a certain foothold and others you can’t.
Temperature Climbing shoe manufacturers design their rubber to work best in a specific temperature range—approximately 32° to 41°F. (Of course, all rubber compounds are different, but this is an average according to shoe manufacturers.) Below this range, the rubber is harder and won’t mold well to the shape of the rock. Above it, the rubber will be too soft and will deform easily, causing it to slip. The reason climbing shoes work best in the cold is because they are designed to. But why such a low temperature range? At temps above that range, most people’s hands will begin to sweat (even ever so slightly), which
fig. 1
reduces gripping ability. So shoe rub ber is designed to function best at the same time that we have optimal hand grip. The 32° to 41°F range is too cold for hands to sweat, but it’s not so cold that you can’t warm your mitts up relatively easily. The variability of rub ber’s friction with temperature means that a climbing shoe that works well when bouldering in Hueco in January won’t have maximum performance sport climbing in Rifle in August. (That’s not to say climbing in Rifle in the summer is pointless; your shoes just won’t be in the absolute optimal temps for highest friction.) When Formula 1 cars hurtle around a track at 200 mph, the tires heat up significantly, so F1 tires use
rubber that works best at those high temps. This is why pit crews pre-heat their tires before a race—so they work optimally right from the start. Climbers can do the same thing with some very simple tactics. During winter when your shoes are cold and dry, try warming them up by putting them in your puffy next to your heat-radiating body, and during summer, leave them in the shade or next to a chilled water bottle after you take them off.
Edging When standing on a small, flat edge, friction isn’t the deciding issue; this is why mountaineering boots are reasonably good at edging. Standing on an edge is mainly a mechanical act, so the best rubber for edging is actually stiff, meaning it won’t deform and roll off the edge. In contrast, smearing is most effective with soft rubber. Manufacturers compromise by choosing a rubber compound that lies somewhere in the middle, striking a reasonable balance between smearing
and edging performance. Reasonably new shoes tend to be more effective on really small edges, as their more pronounced toe allows them to maximize the contact area (fig. 1).
Tread Car tires have tread to improve grip in wet conditions because it allows the water on the surface of the road to escape as the tire presses down on it, improving the contact between the tire and the road. Without treads, the water is unable to escape, and a thin layer of water remains between the road and the tire, reducing grip. However, if the road is dry, the tread reduces the contact area between the tire and the road, thereby reducing potential grip. This is why treadless tires are used in motor racing when the track is smooth and dry. This is the same reason climbing shoes don’t have tread while sneakers and approach shoes do.
fig. 2
DAVID FLANAGAN
As a climber, writer, and freelance journalist living in Dublin, David Flanagan has developed and published guidebooks for several areas in his home country. His newest book, Bouldering Essentials , has practical advice for everyone interested in bouldering—beginner or expert ( threerockbooks.com ).
50 | O C T O B E R 2 0 1 4
G N I L R E T S P I K S
ROCK
Rock factors that determine friction:
Anyone who has climbed on a variety of rock types knows that rougher rock (limestone, unpolished sandstone) seems to have more friction. But rougher is better only up to a point. On really rough rock, the irregularities are so large that the rubber can’t adapt to them. This is the point when increasing roughness reduces friction (fig. 2). Softer rubber is particularly effective on rough rock, as it molds better. Similarly, rubber will perform better on rough rock at a slightly higher temp than the aforementioned range (32° to 41°F). Morals of the story: Smooth rock is best climbed in temps on the lower/colder end because you don’t need rubber to be at maximum softness. Rough rock is best climbed in temps on the higher/warmer end because of increased softness.
fig. 3
•Grain Size The physical dimensions of individual particles of rock: Some are larger, and you can see the big crystals (coarse-grained quartz monzonite of Joshua Tree); some are smaller, and the rock seems more uniform (finegrained granite of Yosemite). •Grain Shape Sharp grains will have higher friction than round ones. How the rock was weathered (wind, water, glaciers, etc.) influences the grain shape to be smoother or more jagged. •Porosity The proportion of the non-solid volume to the total volume (fig. 3). Greater porosity (meaning denser rock, less air—image on right), the larger the surface area for rubber contact (read: more friction). •Sorting Rock that consists of a range of different particle sizes is less porous than rock that is well-sorted (uniform particles size), as the smaller particles fill the gaps between larger ones. •Composition Chemical components in the rock; e.g., granite is largely silicon dioxide and aluminum oxide. Certain compounds have more or less friction. •Cementation How well the rock is held together.
SKIN The skin on our fingertips gets a lot of punishment from friction, and it’s not unusual for sore or bloody tips to force a session to a premature halt. Our tips can only bear a certain amount of pressure before the skin starts to tear. This pressure (force over a given area) can consist of a low force on a small area (a tiny crimp on a slab), a high force on a large area (a big sloper on an overhang), or anything in between. Get more mileage from skin by maximizing contact area with the rock, which spreads the load and reduces the chance of damage. Contrary to what you might think, if your skin is feeling thin and damaged, avoid crimps and small holds, aiming for climbs with bigger, slopier holds that require more skin contac t.
Temperature Like rubber, skin is affected by temperature. Obviously if it’s too hot, your skin sweats and creates a layer of moisture between your skin and the rock, hence reducing friction. Also like rubber, your skin grips best at a certain temperature range. It varies by person because of the differences in the temperature at which people sweat, but generally speaking, it works best in the 32° to 41°F range mentioned previously. Cold makes the skin become harder (it reduces the fluidity of the liquids that
constitute our cellular membranes) and prevents sweat. When it gets too cold, your fingers will get numb, and that will prevent you from climbing. Keeping hands warm between burns is crucial to being able to grip on super-cold days. Beyond that, very dry air in 30° and below temps can cause your tips to get smooth and hard, sometimes described as “glassy.” This condition reduces grip, especially on smoother rock types (some types of granite, polished sandstone), and it can cause your hands to slip quickly and without warning. Warm your hands and then use sandpaper
REMEMBER THIS: Think
in terms of the Goldilocks Effect. The rubber on your shoes should be soft but not too soft, your skin should be hard and dry but not too hard and dry, temperatures should be low but not too low. While we can’t manipulate many of the environmental factors that influence friction, there are a few simple things that we can do to tilt the odds in our favor.
Choose cold, dry days with highs in the 40s (noaa.gov has the most accurate weather
lightly on the tips to roughen skin for increased friction and prevention of that glassy feeling.
Best Qualities for Skin •Smooth There should be no rough spots where dead skin is hanging off and can easily tear. Use sandpaper to remove this fraying skin and to smooth the tips between attempts. •Thick Calluses These make climbing on rough rock or sharp holds more comfortable, meaning you can bear down more and increase the contact zone. However, if they get too thick, there is a danger that the entire section will rip off in one massive chunk. Your skin will be naturally thick in some spots, but use sandpaper to smooth calluses down so they’re even with the rest of your skin. It shouldn’t stick out at all. •Dry Moist skin is slippery, so dry is good. Sweat, water, or any other liquid on your skin acts as a lubricant,
reports) to attempt your projects. Wear quality climbing shoes that have brokenin but not damaged (fraying or hole-filled) toes and soles. Carry a small carpet or utilize the included patch of carpet on your pad to clean your shoes of any major dirt. Taking it a step further, use a damp rag to fully clean the soles, allowing a few minutes to air-dry.
decreasing friction. But if skin gets too dry, it becomes brittle and tears easily, so moisturize regularly.
Chalk In 2001, researchers from the University of Birmingham came to the conclusion that chalk—wait for it—reduces friction. Participants in a study were asked to hold a flat rock in their hand while an outside force pulled it away. The coeffi cient of friction (basically how much friction existed between the two surfaces) was less when participants’ hands were chalked (vs. unchalked). So why do we use it? Because a chalked hand still has better friction than a sweaty, unchalked hand. If you are lucky enough to have hands that don’t sweat, then you can enjoy great grip without chalk. Otherwise, only use the bare minimum of chalk necessary. Once you dip your hands, remove the excess by blowing it off or patting your pants before you start climbing. Try one of the brands of chalk that contains an extra drying agent to increase sweat absorption.
Use the minimum amount o f chalk necessary, remove any excess from your hands before you climb, and never put chalk on footholds. Brush the holds between attempts to remove chalk, thereby increasing contact and friction between your skin and the rock itself. Keep your skin in good condition by moisturizing consistently and sanding it as appropriate.
CLIMBING.COM
| 51
THE
CLIMBER WISDOM
CLIMB
VOICES What’s the final word on booty? —Brittany S., Little Rock, AR
Ask Answer Man He knows climbing. And he knows it. Clipping your toenails in the middle of the gym is totally disgusting—am I right? —Zack N., Augusta, ME
I T N U R F F A T T E R B
You are. And it’s not the only nasty gym-etiquette offense. For easy identification, I’ve made a list of the nastiest offenders and how they can de-grossify. The Clipper. Those fungus-laced, ballistic stench-crescents cannot be contained— no matter how hard you try—and I don’t want to step on them or have one land in my chalkbag. Alternative: Clip nails at home, out by your car, or in the gym’s bathroom. The Biohazard. We all know the mélange of moist awfulness that graces a bathroom floor. Don’t go in there in your climbing shoes only to sashay back out and smear every surface (and handhold) available with your toddler footwork. Alternative: Take 10 seconds to put on your street shoes or a pair of flip-flops. And wash your hands. You nasty. The Yard Sale. You open your gear bag and spray forth stuff like the Mount St. Helens of chalk, nylon, sticky rubber, and beanies. Alternative: Every gym has cub bies. Full? Keep stuff you’re not using in your bag and neatly stow the bag somewhere. The Bleeder. You huck big for a grainy jug, catch the hold, swing out, and rip a massive flapper in the process. Then you laugh, fill it with chalk, and continue climbing, leaking blood everywhere. Great job. Alternative: Head to the front desk for some tape and a Band-Aid. Then, march your ass straight to the bathroom (wearing appropriate footwear, see above), clean the area, apply the Band-Aid, and tape over it. The Greased Pig. I see folks over in the workout facility wiping down machinery every time they use it. This is not a thing that greasy climbers seem to worry about as they slip-slide all over the crashpads. Alternative: A shirt helps. So does Speed Stick. And a healthy dose of self-awareness.
AND OTHER TOPICS...
Wow, quite a softball for me, the Barr y Bonds of innuendo. If I weren’t so tired from day drinking after my sesh, I’d be working hard to offend every humanities professor with a gender studies syllabus from here to England. Lucky for you, Deep Eddy vodka was on sale, so I’ll keep this schlort. I mean quick. If you find a single bail biner or a lone piece of gear on a route and you can get it out, it’s yours to keep, but keep in mind a warped cam that’s been jammed in a crack for months might not be safe to use. Never take any part of a permanent anchor (quick links, chains, rings, etc.), fixed rappel station, or any perma-draws, whether they’re on every bolt of a steep climb or a couple that are strategically positioned for easier and safer cleaning of a traversing or roof-filled route. Stashed gear (e.g., a guide company’s alpine cache) is not up for grabs, and neither is anything you find at the base: shoes, gear, sunglasses, etc. Eith er leave it where it is, or (if it looks abandoned or lost) earn some kar ma points by taking it with you and posting on Mountain Project or SuperTopo (or even Craigslist) that you found some gear at X crag on Y day, and actively try to find the owner. If no one responds within a few weeks, do whatever you want with it.
Can you officially say you sent a route like El Cap even though you only climbed the 15 easiest pitches on lead? —Max G., Monroe, NJ Well, let’s clear one thing up: El Cap is not, like, a route. Shaming aside, the answer is both no and yes. Way back when, Tommy Caldwell and Beth Rodden free climbed the Nose as a pair, swapping leads. The second would follow (without falling I might add), and upon reaching the top, they celebrated with a collective ascent. However, as Tommy is wont to do, he set out to lead the whole thing himself (in 12 hours no less!) a mere two days later. He, as well as a host of other cli mbers, find value in complete ownership of a climb, i.e., sending every single pitch in a continuous push. While sport climbing is slightly more black and white in its appraisals of particular ascents, big walls require more elaboration in style and technique. In your case, if you didn’t cleanly follow the harder pitches, then no, you did not send the route. In the end, being clear, concise, and—above all—honest about your ascent is what matters. But let’s not forget that you’re not Tommy Caldwell, and climbing El Cap, in whatever style, is righteously cool.
Do you need a car to be a dirtbag? With charm you’ll graduate to “Resident Dirtbag.” // Can I smoke at the crag? Only if you brought enough for everyone. // Is it OK to point out dabs to strangers? What are you, 12? // How redundant is too redundant? When you no longer get to climb.
CLIMBING.COM
| 53
V O I C E S
THE WRIGHT STUFF
Good Work If You Can Get It BY CEDAR WRIGHT
I was watching a man’s dream crumble before my eyes. “It’s over,” Dean “Bullwinkle” Fidelman, creator of the black and white nude bouldering calendar Stone Nudes, said with tears welling up in his eyes. “I’ve lost my funding.” With Dean’s yearly income in the very low five figures—mostly thanks to Stone Nudes—it was looking like a four-figure year.
Living out every bouldering bro’s fantasy, Cedar Wright offers an up-close-andpersonal spot to a birthday suit–clad climber chick.
54 | OCTOBER 2014
It wouldn’t be Dean’s first time surviving on next to nothing, though. He is, by my estimation, the longest standing dirtbag in the history of Yosemite, with an illustrious career spanning from the 1970s to current day. In fact, he was recently found scrubbing toilets in Yosemite with one of the most stalwart new-school dirtbags, James Lucas. Fidelman has photographed everyone from John Bachar and Lynn Hill to Dean Potter and the Huber brothers, all while sleeping in his car or in a cave. And for the last 15 years Dean has been coaxing women (and for a short time, men) out of their skivvies to pose for nude black and white images, which he still shoots on medium format film. In the past 15 years of producing his calendar and a coffee table book, he’s reached more than a million people through sales, website hits, and video content. He’s received recognition in the New York art scene from fashion photographer Bruce Weber, and is, in my opinion, one of the few true artists of our community. But in spite of all its merit, Stone Nudes had met its tragic end. Back in the late ’90s when I first met Bullwinkle, somewhere along the Yosemite to Joshua Tree climbing-bum circuit, Stone Nudes had not yet been conceived. A couple years later when Dean first discussed creating a calendar of artistic black and white photographs that celebrated the contrast of the sof t and flowing female form against hard and angular stone (aka naked women bouldering), I remember thinking it was a solid—if not genius—idea. But where would Dean ever find 12 climbing girls who would pose for nothing, wearing nothing , high up on some rock? I couldn’t deny that fit climbing women were the per fect models f or fine ar t nudes, and in fact, it seemed to me this would be a unique and original exploration, perhaps even an elevation of nude photog-
) T F E L ( N A M L E D I F N A E D
raphy. But it seemed like an insurmountable goal for the dirtiest of dirtbags. Plus, Dean had recently dropped his camera off a cliff. But he had a dream, and like a man possessed, he pushed forward. Dean had grown up in the Stonemaster era of climbing, and many of his partners from those bygone years had since become successful businessmen. So he called up his old buddy Charles Cole, founder of Five Ten, and borrowed his large format camera. Right around that time, I pulled off the ultimate coup for a destitute Yosemite climber and somehow landed a shapely, young National Park Service employee as a girlfriend. She was an accomplished climber, and after quite a bit of coaxing and a flip through Bullwinkle’s truly impressive portfolio of climbing photography, she agreed to be one of his first Stone Nudes. Having cracked the code, I would become Bullwinkle’s top talent scout over the years. This was never a paying job, though the position bore certain rewards, you could say. And as Dean, uh, fleshed out his body of work, it became easier for me to convince potential talent that this project was a fine art endeavor and not some creepy dude-climber wank-along fantasy. In fact, Dean was capturing unique harmonies of light, bodies, and rock, and the results were at times remarkable, far surpassing all the other nudes I had seen. Not that I have ever studied nudes, you understand, or ever ferreted around the Internet for naked women. I’m just saying... Soon Dean was photographing some of the world’s most beautiful and talented climbers—all nude. Professional climber Kate Rutherford wrote in Dean’s coffee table book: “I could see that he really loved to, and was especially skilled at, capturing beauty. To travel in the vertical landscape requires me to use strength along with instinct to unlock nature’s puzzle. Dean’s Stone Nudes depicts that puzzle of mind, muscle, and stone in simple and true images.” And, of her own Stone Nudes experience, she said, “I had a dark bruise on my shoulder and another on my hip from climbing, but Dean’s eye made my scrappy, tired body look downright elegant.” Anyhow, a principal benefit to being Bullw inkle’s close friend w as standi ng in as his assistant during the actual shoots. This work was often slow and surprisingly strenuous. For instance, it was more aesthetic to feature the models in bare feet. So, it fell on me to muscle a gorgeous, curved, toned, ripped, taut, naked women up into a precarious position, somewhere directly overhead on the rock. In the name of art, and you can read it and weep, I saw and had the pleasure of hoisting onto the rock some of the most stunning and athletic women in the world—buck naked. Stone Nudes wasn’t all glory, though. One day I wrenched the crap out of my back while boosting a model up to an out-of-reach perch. I spent t he f ollowing week i n bed with a compressed spine. Another time, a model from Spain pitc hed off near the top of a boulder. I plucked her from the air bare-handed and got dump-trucked onto the stony ground so mercilessly that I bruised my sacroiliac joint. I couldn’t sit down
Dean Fidelman shooting for his Stone Nudes project at The Wave, near the Arizona-Utah border.
for a month, and my girlfriend had a bad knee so she couldn’t stand up. (It was odd going for a while in our little SAR tent-cabin at the back of Camp 4.) There was also the day I spotted the late, great Jose Pereyra, for the short-lived Stone Nudes companion piece, Stone Dudes, which it turns out lacked a substantial audience in the largely male-dominated climbing scene. The climb in question was so h igh that, for Jose’s safety, I had to spot from directly below him, staring straight up at a dark and troubling eye that was staring straight back at me. Not good. My time as Dean’s spotter and talent recruiter is special to my heart. I took true satisfaction in helping a master make his art, just as Picasso’s wine-gopher must’ve felt. And the thought that some young climber dude might not get to take my place as safety on Dean’s shoots seemed unfair. “I’m going to start a Kickstarter to help self-publish the calendar this year,” Dean told me. If there’s one thing Dean is, it’s tenacious; this was the guy who, against all odds, had already published 14 calendars and a beautiful coffee table book through the sheer power of determination. I loyally stepped back to the plate as one of Dean’s biggest recruiters, this time recruiting people to preorder the calendar—or even better, both calendars and prints—so that Dean could make his fundraising goal before it was too late. I worked my social media and climbing connections, trying to get anyone and everyone on board. I personally ordered enough nude prints to wallpaper my man cave. The fact that for so long, the climbing community has supported a quirky art project like Stone Nudes is something I find heartening. We aren’t the most mainstream group of people, and we have a nice history of helping eccentric characters climb to greatness. So, it was immensely reassuring to see Bullwinkle scrape past his funding goal with just a couple days to go. Things felt right in the world. Stone Nudes was back. I believe that Americans lack the Europeans’ acceptance of nudity, which is a shame, because the simple unadulterated human form is a wondrous thing, and the bodies of climbers are some of the most beautiful of all. But the fact is that Americans are k ind of prudes, so finding funding for the calendar is an uphill battle each time. It is, year after beautiful year, a labor of love. Dean has gone into debt, survived on a pittance, driven around the country, and flown around the world, all so a small but faithful audience can continue to enjoy his work. As time goes on, Stone Nudes has deservedly become an iconic part of the wildly diverse world of climbing. All along, the project has transcended both the individuals involved and the community from which it spr ang. And so, Sto ne Nudes lives on... and I will be calling Bullwinkle to get my old job back.
Cedar Wright is a professional climber and contributing editor for Climbing. He will spot you any time.
CLIMBING.COM
| 55
V O I C E S
SEMI-RAD
The Accidental Art of Punting BY BRENDAN LEONARD
I traversed over
to the tree at the top of the West Chimney (5.6) on Eldo’s Redgarden Wall, pouring sweat. I hadn’t touched real rock in a month, so I was pleased to have made it to the top of the first pitch of The Great Zot (5.8+) without falling, without pulling the loose block out from under the roof, and without doing anything really embarrassing. After the difficulties ended, I carefully moved right to get us to the West Chimney, where my girlfriend would take us up Swa nson Arête (5.5) (one of her first trad leads), so I could take photos of her for a gui debook project. I tied a cord around the tree, clipped myself in, yelled down to Hilary that I was off belay, and felt around for my belay device on the back right loop of my harness. Where it was n’t . I felt the back left loop. Not the re either. I twisted to look at the loops, left, then right, because no way did I jus t climb up here without my goddamn belay device. 56 | OCTOBER 2014
Alas, I did just climb up here without my goddamn belay device. I said nothing. I went over the options in my head. I could lower off, except I was 130 feet off the ground, so I’d need to have Hilary lower me to the first set of anchor bolts, clip in, and then have her lower me to the ground, where I could walk back down to the van, grab my belay device, walk back up the approach trail, and finally re-lead that pitch again. Of course, I’d probably need to drink a half gallon of water to get rehydrated, and by the time I walked down and back up, we’d have a good chance of getting caught in an afternoon thunderstorm, this being Colorado and all. I could lower off and we could go home, depriving Hilary of her first lead in Eldo and requiring me to climb this route again to get the photos for the guidebook. Or I could belay Hilary off a Munter hitch, if I could remember how. I went with the third option. I twisted the rope around a locking carabiner, playing the “Is this a Munter hitch or not?” game for a couple minutes, making sure it worked properly, because Hilary is not only my climbing partner, but also my girlfriend. I chose to not tell her about any of this until she got to the belay. The Munter worked, though it kind of kinked the rope and slowed
PU NTING s e k a t s i m f o #
Time it takes to climb things down a little. We climbed, I shot photos, and at the top, we decided to rappel since no one was below us. I lowered Hilary down each of the four single-rope raps, then rappelled myself, which took forever and turned a three-pitch casual outing into a long endurance day. Low rumbles of thunder got closer and closer as we made our way down the Redgarden Wall, and I continually cursed myself for leaving my belay de vice clipped to a different harness in the van. Just as we pulled the rope from the last of the rappels, the sky opened up and started pouring rain on Eldorado Canyon. We walked down the trail and got soaked, but we weren’t stranded up high, we didn’t get struck by lightning, we weren’t injured, and we weren’t having a full-blown epic. I just kind of blew it, and an easy climb took us embarrassingly long. The next week, when I went out climbing with my friend Chris, I said something about having long days full of mistakes—getting off route, getting rap ropes stuck, getting lost on the approach, and generally just taking longer than usual—but not quite having an epic. “At the office, we just call that ‘punting,’” he said. His office being Black Diamond’s headquarters in Salt Lake City, where the tradition of Dawn Patrol has employees knocking off half-day skiing and climbing objectives before 9 a.m. on weekdays—unless they punt and show up late for work. “Ah yes, punting,” I said. “I’m an aficionado.” I heard the East Slabs descent was straightforward, but we picked the wrong gully and after a couple rappels, we’re going to be late picking our kids up from day care. I picked the wrong left-facing corner, which led to a dead-end unprotectable slab, so we rapped the off-route pitch. Turns out that took a while, and now the sun’s going down and even if we climb the last two pitches super-fast, there’s no way we’re going to make it to that barbecue on time. I couldn’t find the alleged “third class downclimb,” and then the rap rope got stuck, and neither of us brought a headlamp, and if we get back tonight at all, your significant other is never going to let you go climbing with me again. Hell, I’ve even punted in the American Alpine Club Library—I thought I was going in to find one book about one place, and then sat down on the floor with a half-dozen books and… Whoa, would you look at the time! There is no great honor in punting, no pride of surviving an open bivy or a freak storm. There is also no great dishonor, just a sheepish admission to very few people, and maybe an apology for taking so long. Sometimes you set out with the idea that you’re dialed on everything—“Oh yeah, it’s two hours car to car”—except that thanks to the accidental art of punting, you forget your belay device, and now y ou’re clocking in at a notso-proud five hours. But at least in punting, you can learn something. As the saying goes, “Good judgment comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgment.”
Brendan Leonard is a contributing editor for Climbing. He lives for the relentless pursuit of 5.fun and writes at semi-rad.com.
tarif FALL 2014
PROFILE
YOSEMITE
The Long View Meet Tom Evans. From his perch at the bridge in El Cap Meadow, he’s a one-man news source and historian for climbing in the Valley. BY DAVE DAVIS AND MARY GRANDELIS
We had just arrived in Yosemite Valley while working on a documentary about our buddy Mike Kozuko’s quest to solo a big wall (elcapreportthefilm.com), and we had asked him to be himself and do what he usually does—we just wanted to tag along. Since checking in with Tom was the first thing that Mike would normally do, it was what we did. And it was the right thing to do. Tom has an encyclopedic knowledge of the 100 or so climbing routes on El Capitan. He intimately knows the features and the pitches. He knows the alternates and the variations. He knows the trade routes (the easier, more popular lines) from the hard-core routes that only the toughest, most seasoned climbers would tackle. He knows the history, the backstories, the controversial climbs and controversial climbers alike, and he knows pretty much all of the serious, well-known climbers who still make the pilgrimage to the Valley every year. He knows all this in part because of his blog: the El Cap Report (elcapreport.com). Every day during El Cap’s two climbing seasons— spring and fall—Tom spends his time watching and photographing the big wall climbers on El Cap’s East and West faces from his vantage point on the bridge or from El Cap Meadow. At the end of the day, he selects the best photos, writes summaries of the climbers’ progress—or lack thereof, and then posts it all to his site. He’s been posting online since 2007, but he’s been taking pictures of El Cap climbers since the mid-1990s when a Glen Denny photo ( glendenny.c om) caught his eye. It was then that he started practicing photography, particularly telephoto style, seriously. He switched from film to digital photography in 2005 at the suggestion of another well-known climber/photographer/ friend of his, Dean Fidelman (stonenudes.com, find more on p. 54), and this made it possible for him to start posting his pictures online. Our first day with Tom did not disappoint. We had barely set foot on the bridge wh en Cedar Wright came by to chat with Tom and see who was doing what on the
58 | O C T O B E R 2 0 1 4
Tom Evans on the last pitch of the Nose on El Cap in 1983.
Captain. We recognized Cedar from a climbing film we had seen, and Tom made the introduction. Within the hour we also met, either directly through Tom or because of him, a shopping list of top international climbers: Conrad Anker, Jimmy Chin, Ivo Ninov, David Hahn, Thomas and Alex Huber (see a video clip climbing.com/ elcapreport ). It was a lot like getting a backstage pass at your favorite rock concert and then meeting all the guys in the band. These big-name climbers welcomed us, in no small part because of our new association with Tom. Tom, in our experience, is a straight-shooter kind of guy. He tells it like he sees it, often mixing in sarcasm and humor. He’s tough on the guys who can take it, but he’s considerate of the feelings of those who can’t. He attributes a lot of his ways to a turning-point event in his life. After high school, he wanted, in his own words, to “go to a party school.” But he had no money to enroll. Tom’s father gave him the option to go to Virginia Military Institute instead, offering to pay the tuition. Tom went, and he’s glad he did. He feels this training gave him the discipline and logic necessary to develop the skills of a big wall climber at a time when it was more a trial- and-error kind of effort. In the mid-1960s, Tom was in the Army and doing some climbing at places like Seneca Rocks in West Virginia. There he met a guy who told him about Yosemite and big w all climbing. On leave i n 1967, he made his fi rst tr ip out West to climb i n the Valley. Having seen El Capitan, he became determi ned to return and tackle the Nose.
S R E D N A S M A H A R G
To put this in context for younger climbers, this was back when there were only a handful of routes on El Cap and only a couple of handfuls of ascents. The Nose had been conquered less than a decade earlier, and it had taken 47 days for a team of climbers to make it to the top. Tom wasn’t exactly a pioneer, but he was certainly an early settler. Climbing techniques and gear were stil l in the early stages of development, and Tom pounded in a lot of pitons back in the day. Tom took a practical approach to climbing the Nose. The day he got out of the Army in 1969, he drove straight to Yosemite to spend six weeks climbing smaller walls to build his technique, knowledge, skills, and strength. Finally in 1971, he teamed up with Paul Sibley to make his first ascent of El Cap via the Nose route. It was a classically epic six-day ascent for the pair, storms and all. After an unsuccessful attempt on Dihedral Wall in 1972, Tom’s personal life kept him at a distance from Yosemite for several years. But by the mid-1980s, he had moved to California and could spend more time in the Valley. His last El Cap success was Zodiac in ’95 at the age of 51. He tried several more times after that, but by then his main interest had turned to photography and documenting and eventually reporting on El Cap climbs on his blog. As Tom himself likes to say, El Cap Report currently justifies his standing in the climbing community. Judging from all the people we’ve talked to over the years we’ve been working on our film, climbers feel the same. They respect Tom and what he does, all agreeing that he provides a valuable service. And Tom’s base on the bridg e is one of the ha ndful of places tha t climbers regularly gather to talk shop, compare notes and beta, and then brag and tell stories about their big adventures on one of the most famous and beloved big walls in the wo rld. Climbing gear, techniques, attitudes, and abilities— pretty much everything has changed since Tom first climbed the Captain all those years ago. While his initial intention was to do a climbing photography book, as new technologies came along, his goals evolved into what enabled him to l aunch the unique El Cap Repor t. Mothers, fathers, wives, husbands, and lovers of rock climbers around the world check Tom’s report when someone they care about is up on the wall. Tom has threatened to shut down the Report for different reasons at various times, and has even done so once or twice. But to his followers, h e’s there, solid as rock, consistently reporting each day’s efforts for all the world to follow along. He has a name for climbers who are stuck at a desk job somewhere—cubicle pukes. Not unlike us, these are the folks who wish they were there, climbing El Cap. And when they finally do, they’ll check in with Tom at the bridge first—if they know what’s good for them. Tom Evans in his Y S E T R U O C
Dave Davis and his partner Mary Grandelis filmed the documentary “El Cap Report,” which will air on PBS stations this fall. Find more at elcapreportthefilm.com.
natural element— long lens pointed up at El Cap.
CLIMBING.COM
| 59
S E I L L I G H G I L B
60 | OCTOBER 2014
5 ordinary climbers who saved a life By Dougald MacDonald nless you’re part of a search and res- Many are open to new experiences, dependable and cue team, you don’t head out for the disciplined, extroverted, compassionate, and emoday expecting to be thrust into a life-or- tionally secure. They usually have strong feelings of death situation. Heroism, like the acci- morality and responsibility. In addition, according to dents and epics that might prompt it, is a 2012 article in the Wall Street Journal , “Heroes tend something you can’t plan for. by nature to be hopeful, believing events will turn out Yet because of experience and training, innate well. They consciously try to keep fear from hamperability and fortitude, or just instinctive reactions ing their pursuit of goals, and they tend to block out in moments of crisis, average climbers can respond the possibility of injury or material loss.” They sound to deadly emergencies in extraordinary ways. With a lot like climbers. courage, calm, stamina, strength, and ingenuity, on We combed through dozens of stories of climbers a day when nobody expected anything but the simple helping other climbers to find the five amazing exampleasures of climbing, they end up saving a life. ples reported here. Hopefully you’ll never have to re What would you do in a similar situation? How spond to a similar crisis. But if the proverbial shit hits would you perform? Research psychologists have the fan, it just might help to know that other climbers determined that heroes share a few common traits: have been there before.
CLIMBING.COM
| 61
Had I fallen, he would have held me, even after death. —Kerry Pyle
62 | OCTOBER 2014
N O L D Y B W E R D N A
A Proper Belay Peter Terbush GLACIER POINT APRON, YOSEMITE VALLEY JUNE 1999
“Never take your brake hand off the rope.” That lesson is drilled into every climber from the first day he or she ties in, yet it’s all too easy to witness climbers disobeying this fundamental rule simpl y to swat a fl y or reach for a snack. Now imagi ne keeping your brake hand on th e rop e even a s yo u sta re dea th in the face.
The Scene On a warm evening in June, Pete Terbush and two fr iends, Joe Kewin and Kerry Pyle, were climbing Apron Jam, a single-pitch 5.9 on Glacier Point Apron in Yosemite. All in their early 20s, they had met in Colorado, where they had attended Western State Colorado University. Pyle led the climb as Terbush belayed and Kewin hung out at the base. It’s easy to imagine their chatter, r ehashing the climbs they’d done and making plans for the summer. Far overhead, mayhem was about to erupt. As Pyle neared the two-bolt anchor on Apron Jam, an estimated 525 tons of rock broke loose from the cliff more than 1,000 feet above the climbers. The rockfall originated several hundred feet to the right, but as the blocks fell, they shattered into thousands of pieces and sprayed the slabs and talus below. Kewin ran to the foot of the wall and took shelter as best he could. Pyle scrambled up the last few feet to the anchor, clipped a quickdraw to each bolt, and started tying a knot to clip in. But as rocks pelted down around him, several pieces hit him in the head—he was not wearing a helmet—so he just grabbed onto the quickdraws, pressed himself against the cliff, and tried to hang on. The tag line he had trailed for rappelling was sev ered right below his knees, and his scalp was severely cut. Pyle nearly fainted but did not fall.
When the barrage stopped, Pyle yelled down to see if his friends were OK . Ke win sa id he was alright, but Terbush had taken a direct hit to the head.
The Response In his last minutes, no doubt torn between seeking cover and making sure his friend stayed on belay, Pete Terbush held his position and kept his brake hand firmly on the rope. “Joe had to pry Peter’s hands from the rope in the locked position just to release it from the belay device, in order for me to rappel back down,” Pyle said. “Had I fallen, he would have held me, even after death.” John Dill, the longtime Yosemite climbing ranger and rescuer, wrote of Terbush’s final moments in Accidents in North American Mountaineering : “We’ll never know his thoughts or intentions, but he did know that his partner was still on belay. Whether deliberate or instinctive, he stayed put, maintaining that belay at the expense of his own safety.” In a eulogy, Dr. James Terbush said his son Peter “grew up reading about heroes. We have an entire shelf of hero books at home, and Pete had read most every one.” The family had traveled widely when Peter was growing up, and he and his dad climbed together in the Himalaya. “While in India we came upon an accident where a bus had rolled off a cliff and down the side of a mountain,” Dr. Terbush said. “The passengers were scattered all over. Since we were some of the first people there, Peter and his Singaporean friend Justin took charge and rigged a climbing rope over the edge, rappelled down, and began to assist the injured back up to the road. His mind was filled with examples of heroism under circumstances of great danger—he was ready when the time came.”
Aferward
Y S E T R U O C
Terbush’s gravestone
Kerry Pyle, who runs a custom woodworking company in Gunnison, Colorado, has developed vertigo—possibly hereditary, no cure yet— over the last couple of years and hardly ever climbs. He has lost touch with Kewin, who moved back to his home state of New York. In 2001, Western State, the three men’s alma mater, launched the Peter Ter bush Memorial Outdoor Leadership Summit, a week-long program held each June to train collegiate outdoor leaders in rock climbing and mountaineering. Thanks in part to gifts from the Terbush family, participants receive $1,000 in scholarship assistance. In 2002, in the near by Black Canyon of the Gunnison, several students from the Leadership Summit established Peter Terbush Tower (5.11-), a five-pitch route to a previously unclimbed summit. An e-book on Terbush’s story will be on Amazon this fall..
CLIMBING.COM
| 63
If it meant walking to Seattle I would do it. The limitation was time, not my determination. —Charlie Sassara
Charlie Sassara on Mt. Augusta, before the accident.
Going for Help Charlie Sassara MT. AUGUSTA, YUKON TERRITORY JUNE 2002
The “brotherhood of the rope” is the unspoken bond between climbing partners who trust each other with their lives. But what happens when the best way to aid your stricken partner is to leave him behind?
The Scene Twelve pitches up a 7,000-foot new route on the north face of Mt. Augusta, a 14,072-foot, seldom-climbed peak in the St. Elias Range, on the border of Alaska and the Yukon, Charlie Sassara and Jack Tackle
64 | OCTOBER 2014
were looking for a place to rest. Th e climb was going well, but there was a growing problem: It was getting warm, and melting ice had begun launching rock missiles around them. At around 8 p.m., as Tackle was probing for a ledge about 60 feet above Sassara, a block the size of a briefcase fell from high above and smashed into his back. Tackle cartwheeled off the face. Although Sassara held his fall, Tackle was partially paralyzed and felt severe pain in his chest and abdomen. (Doctors later determined he had a broken back and neck, bruised spinal cord and other nerves, torn cartilage, and severe contusions.) Sassara lowered Tackle to the belay stance, spun him upright, anchored him to the wall, and set to work stabilizing his partner. He chopped a shoulder-width ledge and pulled a sleeping bag and tent over the in jured man. Throughout the night he pumped fluids, food, and painkillers into Tackle, all the while working out how they could both get down the mountain.
Y S E T R U O C
The Response
Y S E T R U O C
Both men had experienced the other side of the coin in such a situation. Fifteen years earlier, Sassara and his climbing partner, Dave McGivern, were avalanched near the foot of Mt. Johnson in Alaska, and in the ensuing tumble, the rope wrapped around Sassara’s neck and nearly choked him to death. McGivern had to resuscitate his partner before they could descend. Twenty-three years before the accident on Augusta, Tackle was the one with a seriously injured partner high on a mountain: Ken Currens had taken a 250-foot fall on a new route on Denali and suffered a head injury and broken femur. Tackle had to downclimb the face and ski 10 miles along a glacier, unroped, to call for help. On Augusta, Sassara said, he recognized the enormity of the situation yet remained focused on the steps that would give them the best chance of surviving. “Once past the adrenaline rush, there is simply the work,” he explained. “I segmented it into phases: take care of Jack, get down the face, get to our skis, get to camp. I said to myself, I’m not going to think about all of it now. I’m just going to think about this phase. And if I have the opportunity to think about the next one, I’ll deal with it then.’” At first Sassara assumed the next phase would be lowering Tackle down the wall. “I could visualize every anchor and the problems associated with each, how I was going to lower him, and everything else I’d have to do,” he recalled. “Yet I had a real sense that it would probably be fatal to both of us, whether because of rockfall or poor anchors.” Tackle spared him that thought. “You can’t do that,” the injured man groaned. “I can’t do it. The best option is for you to go down by yourself and get to the sat phone in our tent.” After doing everything he could to prepare Tackle for a long wait for help, Sassara checked his anchor and clipped into his rappel device. “Travel safe,” Tackle said to him. At 6:30 a.m. Sassara began rappelling. It took him five hours to make 13 rappels to the glacier, using nearly all of their gear and segments of their ropes to build anchors. A tem perature inversion had hit the mountain, and “the wall was coming unglued,” Sassara said. “It was like rappelling into a melting gravel pit.” Despite the hazards of falling rocks and concern for the state of his stranded partner, he took great care with every step. “It was the disci pline of the work—not cheating, not compromising—that kept me safe,” he explained. “Testing everything, planning where to go, hiding in safe places, and timing rockfall.” After a final rappel down an ice pitch that was now the consistency of a vanilla slushy, Sassara faced an unroped glacier Tackle’s tent dangles traverse over sagging snow bridges to on the steep ace afer reach his skis. While climbing, the climbhe was cut out o it during the rescue. ers had watched an active icefall obliterate the route he would have to cross. But the 45-year-old remained confident. Back at the bivy site, when Tackle asked how he was doing, Sassara’s response was, “Don’t worry, I am the strongest motherfucker on the planet.” On the glacier, he recalled, “I had the notion that if it meant walking to Seattle I would do it. The limitation was time, not my determination.” Sassara carefully crawled and leaped through a minefield of holes and droop ing snow bridges. He took his time, even pausing at the edge of one crevasse to admire the “gorgeous abyss” and the spectrum of icy light inside: black, blue, violet, and white. “It was super-quiet at that
time of morning, and I f elt like my senses were heightened,” he said. “I felt like I could almost hear the holes.” Fog had rolled in by the time he reached his skis, and he could see no more than 100 feet ahead. He left the skins on the skis so he could move down the glacier slowly and ever-so-carefully, navigating by the summit of Mt. L ogan looming above the clouds. In midafternoon, eight hours after leaving Tackle, he reached the tent and called Kluane National Park and his then-wife, Siri Moss, to raise the alarm. Tackle would be alone on the face for more than 30 hours before a helicopter crew from the 210th Rescue Squadron of the Alaska Air National Guard spotted him through a break in the clouds. They lowered pararescuer Dave Shuman at the end of a swinging 170-foot wire and plucked Tackle from the face, with low-fuel warning lights flashing inside the chopper. Sassara emphasized that he was only one person among many who took risks and worked tirelessly to save Tackle’s life. “The reason we got out is because our friends pulled out all the stops,” he said. “Siri and Lloyd Freese and the Kluane National Park staff. Daryl Miller at Denali National Park, who secured permission for the U.S. military to conduct operations in Canada within one hour. The crew on board that helicopter, including pilot Rick Watson, flight engineer Tom Dietrich, Denali ranger Joe Reichert, and pararescue jumper Dave Shuman. Ul tima Thule pilot Paul Claus flying over in his own plane and radioing when the weather broke. Climbers Mike Alkaitis, Colby Coombs, and Kelly Cordes, who flew to Yakutat, prepared to climb the wall if the helicopter couldn’t get in. All of this was possible because we had dear friends who loved us and trusted that we would not call for help unless it was really, really necessary. All I had to do was not fuck up.”
Aferward Charlie Sassara, a native Alaskan, cofounded the Alaska Rock Gym and served as president of the American Alpine Club in 2012 and 2013. Jack Tackle, a longtime mountain guide and gear rep based in Bozeman, Montana, has continued to put up new routes around the world. In 2003 the AAC honored both men for their rescues of fellow climbers with the David A. Sowles Memorial Award (see sidebar, next page). The U.S. Air Force gave Sergeant Dave Shuman the Airman’s Medal for his bravery.
CLIMBING.COM
| 65
The Ultimate Body Anchor Roger Putnam KEELER NEEDLE, CALIFORNIA JULY 2011
A tiny ledge three pitches off the ground. The anchor is unclipped. Your belayer has just fallen over the edge. Now what?
The Scene Harrison Forrester and Roger Putnam were seasonal employees in Yosemite National Park and in terrific shape. They didn’t expect much problem with the Harding Route (5.10+) on the east face of Keeler Needle. They camped near the base of the 14,260-foot satellite peak of Mt. Whitney in the southern Sierra Nevada, approached pre-dawn, and expected to be up the 1,500-foot route by noon. Forrester and Putnam, both 27 at the time, were swinging leads, and Forrester quickly dispatched the 5.10 double cracks of the third pitch. In the cramped alcove below the wide crack of the next pitch he plugged a No. 1 cam into a crack and slung a horn for an anchor. He doubled his cordelette before throwing it over the horn, and then tied a figure eight on a bight with both strands, thus making two clip-in loops. Forrester clipped his daisy chain into both loops, backed them up with the cam, and called “Off belay!” to his partner down below. However, he neglected to back up his connection to the anch or with his lead rope—the first in an intertwined series of errors that would soon lead to a near-fatal accident. When Putnam reached the stance, he looked up at the next pitch, and both climbers commented that the offwidth didn’t appear as hard as they’d expected. Putnam clipped a locking carabiner into the power point of the anchor—the two loops protruding from the figure eight
knot on the cordelette—and tied in with a clove hitch. Or, at least he thought he had attached himself to the anchor. Instead, he inadver tently clipped his locker between the loops instead of through them. The only thing keeping Putnam attached to the anchor was Forrester’s daisy-chain carabiner, clipped properly through the loops—that cara biner was outside of Putnam’s biner, thus closing the chain. Error No. 2. As Putnam racked for the next pitch, Forrester took their small daypack and clipped it to the figure eight loops on the cordelette with a locking carabiner. Since he had to find room for this biner next to Putnam’s, he ended up clipping it in the same orientation—between the two clip-in loops instead of through them—thus inadvertently mimicking his partner’s mistake. Error No. 3. One more potentially fateful mistake remained. As Putnam prepared to set off on the next pitch, Forrester realized the lead rope was running under his daisy chai n and the loops of rope he h ad flaked over it, and it would be difficult to feed out as Putnam led. “I need to fix this,” Forrester said, as he grabbed the anchor with one hand and unclipped the daisy with the other in order to move it underneath Putnam’s lead rope. “Be careful! You’re not in on anything else!” Putnam cautioned. Forrester realized Putnam was right—he had forgotten to back up his anchor connection with the lead rope—so he quickly moved to reclip his daisy chain. Since the clip-in loops on the cordelette had dropped a little out of reach, he figured he might as well clip into the locker holding the backpack. But now that he had unclipped his daisy chain’s carabiner from the anchor, there was nothing preventing Putnam’s carabiner nor the backpack biner from simply sliding out from between the two loops. Both men were effectively unanchored. Forrester leaned back to weight the anchor and immediately f ell backward off the belay ledge.
The Response
Harrison Forrester (lef) and Roger Putnam on one o their many climbing adventures together.
66 | OCTOBER 2014
“Just like you hear,” Putnam recalls, “time slowed.” He remembers watching his partner fall, realizing that he was no longer clipped to the anchor, wondering if he had time to pull a sling off his harness and clip himself back in, and then deciding he didn’t have time and he had to hold on. Putnam shoved his arms down through the loops of the cordelette and tried to squeeze himself into the alcove. “I’m a tall, scrawny guy, maybe 160 pounds, and my partner is this big guy, over 6 feet and 190 or 200 pounds,” he said. He braced for the impact of what he expected to be a 200-foot fall that likely would pluck him from the ledge like a hand-tied fly snatched off the surface of a stream by a fisherman’s backcast. Putnam remembers thinking: “You HAVE to hold this!” As Forrester fell, the rope whipped
M A N T U P R E G O R
Just like you always hear, time slowed. Then I remember thinking, “You HAVE to hold this!” —Roger Putnam
S E I L L I G H G I L B
CLIMBING.COM
| 67
through his belay device as if he’d let go of a rappel—the friction possibly slowed the fall a little. He also bounced off at least one ledge, slowing his fall a little more. About 70 or 80 feet down, still a couple of hundred feet off the ground, the loops of extra rope Forrester had stacked by his waist at the belay stance snarled and jammed into his device, and he bounced to a stop. Eighty feet overhead, Putnam’s arms were wrenched against the cordelette so violently that his shoulder is still “tweaked” three years later. He was pulled down onto the ledge, shins slamming into the rock and leaving gouges that are still scarred. But he held on. “Grab the rock! Get your weight off the rope!” he screamed down to Forrester. Coincidentally, Forrester had come to a stop by a small ledge. He stood up, wondering what the hell had gone wrong. Putnam fixed the rope at the anchor beside him, and Forrester carefully rappelled down to the next anchor. Once reunited, they continued down to the snowfield below the face and assessed Forrester’s injuries: He had rope burns and a badly sprained ankle, but was otherwise unharmed. He limped out to the trailhead that day.
Aferward “Immediately afterward I swore off climbing, but only for a few weeks,” Roger Putnam said. “But it was a wake-up call for me. I was definitely more reckless and fast in the mountains before. Now I’m a lot more careful.” Putnam now lives in Sonora, California, and teaches geology at a local college. Harrison Forrester, who works as a seasonal hydrologist in Yosemite National Park, didn’t climb for months. But he too has bounced back, and the two men still climb together. This past summer they did the 24-pitch Regular Northwest Face of Half Dome in less than seven hours.
Roger Putnam aid climbing in Yosemite Valley.
Life-Saving Ingenuity Joe Faint SENTINEL ROCK, YOSEMITE VALLEY JUNE 1965
We’re told to carry the Ten Essentials, but we’re also told “light is right.” Most of the time we climb without all the survival gear needed for every possible scenario. Improvising with the gear we do have becomes essential.
The Scene First climbed in 1950 over 4.5 days, the Steck-Salathé route up the 1,500-foot north face of Sentinel Rock is rated “easy 5.10” today, but it is a notoriously punishing 15-pitch route that takes most climbers a very long day to complete. In 1965, a time when El Capitan ascents were still rare and Half Dome had only two routes up its northwest face, the Sentinel was still a major objective for Yosemite hardmen. And Joe Faint, though not nearly as well known today as many Golden Age climbers, was as hard as they came. Faint was a partner of Warren Harding and Yvon Chouinard, and his alpine climbs included the first ascent of the north face of Mt. Assiniboine in the Canadian Rockies and the north prow of Mt. Kennedy in the Yukon. In 1965, at age 26, he was a Camp 4 denizen working his way through the major climbs. For the Sentinel, Faint paired up with Peter Spoecker, 24, who had done a couple of minor new routes in the Valley. The two thought they might do a variation to the Steck-Salathé and brought a bolt kit—a decision that would prove crucial. Both Faint and Spoecker have passed on, but Jeff Foott, a friend of Faint’s who later became Yosemite’s first climbing ranger, remembers they had climbed to somewhere near the Narrows, only a few hundred feet below the top of the face. Spoecker was pulling on a large flake w hen it suddenly detached, crushed his right hand, and fell onto his right leg, breaking his femur. Foott recalls the flake was about 5.5 feet long, two to three feet wide, and several inches thick. At those dimensions it would have weighed more then 600 pounds. The rock slid onto Spoecker’s leg, pinning him to a ledge. Faint tried heaving the rock off, but it wouldn’t budge.
The Response In 1965 there was no YOSAR team in the Valley to call for help. “In those days you couldn’t really count on a rescue,” Foott said. “If you went off to do a climb, you told your friends where you were going and you expected them to come get you if you got in trouble.” But time was of the essence: A broken femur can cause internal bleeding and other potentially fatal complications. Faint thought about what to do next. The two men carried pitons, hammers, and nylon aiders. Maybe he could work out a way to use this gear to winch the giant flake off his partner’s leg. Faint pounded two solid angle pitons into a crack above the climbers, and then, in order to grab ahold of the flake, he drilled a hole into the smooth granite and drove home a bolt. Next, he strung two aiders tied from nylon slings between the piton and the bolt, inserted a hammer between the strands of one of the slings, and twisted it so the sling tightened. He then wedged that hammer handle against the cliff to hold it in place (a technique called the Spanish windlass) and twisted the other sling with the second hammer. In this way, taking turns with each hammer, he slowly lifted the huge block off Spoecker’s leg, just enough for him to slide it out. The ordeal wasn’t over. Spoecker was too immobilized by his injuries and pain to continue up the route. They decided to signal for help, but night fell without anyone hearing their calls. Down in Camp 4, across
68 | OCTOBER 2014
Y S E T R U O C
If Joe hadn hadn’t got that flake off Pete’s leg, he’d have been a goner goner.. It was pretty ingenious. —Jeff Foott Joe Faint reflects in Yosemite.
Y N N E D N E L G
Yosemite Valley, Yosemite Valley, Glen Denny noticed a flashing light that didn’t behave like the usual climbers’ headlamps on a wall. He drove over to the foot of the Sentinel, and in the calm, quiet night he was able to yell up to the climbers and learn that they needed help. Denny and fellow climber John Evans wanted to climb to the top of the Sentinel that night and begin a rescue, but rangers insisted they wait until morning, when a helicopter would be available—it would be the first helicopter-assisted rescue in Yosemite climbing history. The wind was gusty the next morning, and the chopper couldn’t land on Sentinel’s rugged summit, but it put a skid down on a boulder and Foott, Denny, Evans, and other climbers and rangers jumped out. Before long they were able to set up a lowering station and prepare to haul Spoecker out in a litter. Since Faint had managed to free his partner, the rescue went smoothly and quickly, and soon the injured man was helicoptered off the summit and down to the hospital. Foott,
the first climber to reach the stranded men, recalls, “If Joe hadn’t gotten that flake off Pete, he’d have been a goner. It was pretty ingenious.”
Aferward With their typical dark humor, the climbers of Camp 4 reacted to the rescue by giving Faint grief for carrying a bolt kit on an established climb. He has since passed away. Peter Spoecker, who was never a major figure in Yosemite climbing, nonetheless remained an active climber and outdoorsman, living in Joshua Tree and exploring the Sierra. He became a pioneer in electronic music and what is now called world music, popularizing the Australian didgeridoo through performances, recordings, and teaching. In 2005, at age 64, he went on a solo backpacking trip in the Sierra to pursue his avocation of landscape photography. Hikers discovered his body a couple of weeks later in Evolution Lake—he had apparently fallen through thin ice and drowned.
CLIMBING.COM
| 69
Out of Thin Air Nick Nic k Yardley RUMNEY, NEW HAMPSHIRE EARLY 1990S
Everyone’s heard the story about a distraught mother lifting a car off her baby pinned underneath. Hoisting a falling climber back up onto a ledge comes pretty close.
The Scene Back in the early days of sport climbing, around the late 1980s and early ’90s, lowering anchors—if they existed at all—often were placed over a cliff on a near by tree or boulder boulder.. Climbers still had the traditional mentality of topping out a route, and many climbers set up topropes from above, extending the anchors over the edge with slings. Such was the scene at the 5.8 Crag at Rumney, the first real sport climbing area in New Hampshire, when Nick Yardley went out for a day of casual cragging. A native Englishman, Yardley had emigrated to the U.S. in 1986 to work as the head guide at the International Mountain Climbing School in North Conway. He also volunteered as a leader of the local Mountain Rescue Service. As he said, “I got to do a lot of rescues and picked up some broken bodies, but the most profound life-changing moment happened that day at Rumney.” Romancin ncingg the Stone As Yardley Yardley finished a lead of Roma (5.10), he stepped onto the narrow ledge at the top and prepared to clip the anchor at the back of the ledge, about waist high. A few feet to the left, at head height, Snakee (5.10). A college student was the the anchor anchor for Milk Snak had hiked to the top of the cliff and rigged a toprope through this anchor. Now she prepared to rappel the overhanging wall to the ground, about 60 feet below. As she backed up to the edg edgee and bega began n to lean over, over, Yardl Y ardley ey and she both noticed simultan simultaneous eously ly that she had only clipped one strand of the rappel ropes and was about to freefall to the deck. Yardley Yar dley remembered: “You could just see it in her eyes: ‘Oh my god, I fucked up!’”
The Carnegie Medal Since 1904, the Pittsburgh-based Carnegie Hero Commission ( carnegiehero.org ) has has been singling carnegiehero.org ) out “civilian” heroes for recognition and financial support ($36.2 million has been given in onetime grants, scholarship aid, death benefits, and continuing assistance since the award’s inception). As of this summer, 9,697 9,697 Carnegie Medals Medals have been handed out ( five people have won the award twice). There are countless tales of everyday people putting themselves in harm’s way to save another—from drowning and burning building rescues to these climbing-related acts of heroism.
70 | OCTOBER 2014
Nick Yardley in Salt Lake City, August 2014.
DAVID NYMAN
pushed them into a crevasse.
Cajon Mountain in Southern
In 1989, in one of the great
Ultimately, Nyman stomped
California as a wildfire swept
epics of Alaskan climbing
a trench through a mile of
up the mountain in 2010.
history, Nyman worked
fresh snow—up to four feet
The two had climbed three
for eight days to save his
deep—and dragged Sweeney
pitches to the top of First
partner, Jim Sweeney, whose
down the glacier until a heli-
Tier and called for help as the
femur had dislocated from
copter picked them up.
fire approached. Bligh flew up to the ledge system between
the hip socket during a fall on Mt. Johnson. After
SCOTT MATTHEW BLIGH
cliffs and went “toe in” with
lowering Sweeney off the
AND GARY A. KNEESHAW
a skid of the helicopter. With
mountain, Nyman spent the
These two San Diego County
one of the climbers on board,
next week trying to get help
sheriff’s deputies, a helicop-
Kneeshaw stepped out to
and keep his partner alive
ter pilot and tactical flight
wait for Bligh to return—in
as repeated avalanches hit
officer, plucked a pair of
such difficult conditions, the
the pair, including one that
27-year-old climbers from El
small chopper could carry
The Response
It was black and white. If I did nothing, she would have died. If I did it, she lived. The line between life and death is very fine. —Nick Yardley
As the slim girl—Yardley estimated her weigh t at 110 pounds—teetered on the edge of the cliff, Yardley jammed two fingers of his right hand into one of the rings on the anchor bolts in front of him and simultaneously reached across with his left hand, grabbed the belay loop on the woman’s harness, and yanked her back onto the ledge. “It wasn’t a Herculean effort—I just had to change her center of balance,” he said. Nonetheless, he added, “I almost slammed her face right into the rock by the anchor.” Yardley would have taken a monster fall if he hadn’t been able to keep the girl from pitching off, but he was still on belay and likely would have been fine. But he has no doubts about what would h ave become of her. “It was black and white,” he said. “If I hadn’t done that, she would have died. If I did it, she lived. The line between life and death is very fine, and that hit home so har d that day.”
Aferward Nick Yardley is CEO of Julbo Inc., the Burlington, Vermont–based U.S. arm of the French eyewear manufacturer. Amazingly, he never got the young woman’s name after he saved her life, nor has he ever heard from her. “We didn’t say much,” he recalled. “We both shook and dry-heaved and nervously went our own way. I headed to another cliff—I just wanted to boogie. I was feeling sick.” Modern sport climbing anchors have been installed on Romancing the Stone. The route Milk Snake is rarely climbed today and still has traditional anchors set back from the top.
Complete the Circle: Do you know the woman Nick saved all those years ago? If so, contact us at letters@climb at
[email protected], ing.com, and and we’ll bring her out to meet him.
only one climber at a time.
out of the firestorm.
When the helicopter came
N O T R E L L U F N E B
none of the men knew how to swim. Vizbulis waded in,
back, wind had pushed
MATHEW VIZBULIS
swam through turbulent
flames within yards of the
In late July 2006, Viz-
water to the victims,
remaining pair, and Bligh
bulis was bouldering on
and—one after the other—
could barely see the cliff as
the limestone blocks of
dragged the three men to
he maneuvered his machine
Niagara Glen when he
shore, saving all three.
closer, embers and engine
heard screaming from the
alarms filling the cockpit.
river below Niagara Falls.
Fun Fact: Well-known blind
Once the other climber was
Vizbulis ran to the bank and
climber Erik Weihenmayer’s
aboard, Kneeshaw wasn’t
saw three people face-down
great-grandmother, Lucy
going to wait for a third
in the river. A teenager had
Ernst, won a Carnegie
trip—he jumped onto the
gone in to help his younger
Medal for helping save her
skid and hung on outside
brother, and their father had
cousin’s life after a rattle-
the helicopter as Bligh flew
jump ed i n a fter the m—an d
snake bite in 1905.
The Sowles Award Established in 1981 Established 1981 in memo memory ry of of a 29-ye 29-year-o ar-old ld climber climber killed by lightning in the Alps, the American Alpine Club’s David A. Sowles Sowles Memo Memorial rial Award “is confer conferred red from time to time on mountaineers who have distinguished themselves, with unselfish devotion at personal risk or sacrifice of a major objective, in going to the assistance of fellow climbers imperiled in the mountains.” In 33 years, the award has been given only 16 times. In addition to Charlie Sassara and Jack Tackle, honorees include Ed Viesturs, Anatoli Boukreev, Pemba Gyalje Sherpa, Sherp a, and and the 1953 Ameri American can team team on K2. K2. Learn Learn more: americanalpineclub.org/p/ americanalpineclub.o rg/p/sowles-award. sowles-award.
CLIMBING.COM
| 71
I’M GOING TO DIE.
SHIT. I’M SCARED.
DAMMIT!
THIS IS SKETCHY.
SO PUMPED!
THE MIND GAME
IS THIS HOLD GOING TO BREAK?
OH NO...
IS MY BELAYER PAYING ATTENTION? I’M TOO WEAK.
MY LEG WON’T STOP SHAKING. WELL, CRAP.
Afer a near-death climbing experience, I was inspired to dig deeper into the psychology o ear and find out what I could learn about its eect on perormance, how it wells up in the first place, and what we can do to deal with it. What I ound will take your climbing to the next level—and could save your lie. BY MATT LLOYD
72 | OCTOBER 2014
K R A L C T T O C S . D
DON’T FALL, DON’T FALL, DON’T FALL, DON’T FALL, DON’T FALL, DON’T FALL, DON’T FALL!
JUST KEEP BREATHING...
THIS IS A BAD IDEA.
I DON’T WANT TO DIE. UH OH...
THESE FEET ARE SO BAD!
K R A L C T T O C S
CRAP!
THE AUTHOR SOLOS GREEN GULLEY (WI3+), PINE CREEK FALLS, NEAR BOZEMAN, MONTANA.
My feet are slipping, and I’m already so gripped! Is this tool going to hold? Stick, damn it! This ice is shattering everywhere. I don’t want to fall; I REALLY don’t want to fall. Shit! Did the entire column just shift? This whole thing is coming down, and I’m attached to it! Four years ago, I was in Vail, Colorado, climbing a spectacular 90-foot curtain of ice at the Fire House. It had formed a thin, fragile pillar running from the ground to the top in one continuous, beautiful blue column. An ice climber’s dream. Things were going well as I moved up the route; it was a challenging climb, but not at my personal limit. I climbed 50 feet up, placing several ice screws and feeling calm and focused. Then, all of a sudden, a tremendous crack shattered the stillness and my focus, like a cannon going off in
74 | OCTOBER 2014
a library. Looking down, I was horrified to discover the entire pillar had broken horizontally just above my knees. Now, both frozen masses were perched like two school buses balancing nose to nose. The gravity of the situation registered immediately in my body and mind. I was motionless for a few seconds in hyperawareness. The silence that felt expansive earlier now seemed to close in on me. Time slowed, and I watched for signs of the whole climb collapsing—with me on it. My mind was a white-hot fury of in-
put, and an electric heat ran through me. Thoughts fired in disjointed fragments: Screw placements? Belayer out of harm’s way? How far to the top? It finally occurred to me that I was attached to a 100,000-pound ice bomb that was about to explode. I started to shake uncontrollably, the vibration pulsing out to my grip on the ice tools. I had never experienced anything like this, and there was nothing I could do to stop the shaking. I knew I had to control it or there would be fatal consequences. After what seemed like an
K R A L C T T O C S . D
WHAT WOULD HAPPEN IF I FELL RIGHT NOW?
ALEX HONNOLD
Unfortunately, that energy can transform into a sort of full-body handcuff that paralyzes your entire being. The body’s response comes from the activation of the sympathetic nervous system that floods the body with catecholamines (aka adrenaline). While these hormones can enhance a body’s ability to deal with certain situations (brain on high alert, muscles tensing, etc.), it can be dangerous in climbing, whic h requi res mindf ulness and technique. The ability to make and execute calm and calculated technical decisions can get totally hung up by the subsequent freeze response. According to Levine, if you are unable to discharge the built-up adrenaline, you won’t be able to move forward—or up. In such cases, Levine describes that the body has a natural shaking release. This is what happened to me. My body was overloaded with an overwhelming charge from my sympathetic nervous system, and the shaking allowed me to purge it and move on. The shaking, which at the time made me feel out of control, was actually the fear (adrenali ne) leaving my body. After the shaki ng, insti ncti ve respon ses (and some active self-talk, which we’ll discuss later) got me back on course.
IN HIS ELEMENT: FREE SOLOING ON LIBERTY CAP IN YOSEMITE.
L L E W O L T T E R B
eternity, I began taking deep breaths and forcefully exhaling the air to try and take command of the sinking ship that was my nervous system. It started working, and a plan took shape. I focused my mind on small, specific tasks: Yell to belayer to unclip and move to safety. Untie my own knot with one hand. Toss rope down. I thought every second that passed was going to be the end, but I persisted in focusing in on each little step. The realization that I was now 50 feet up a WI5 pillar without a lifeline sunk in, and I stopped to take a few more breaths. The panic finally gave way to clear, pragmatic thinking. I need to get off this piece of ice, and I need to do it now. I reminded myself, Matt, you can climb this without falling, without getting pumped . You can climb this perfectly. One move at a time—swing, stick, pull, repeat, I pulled over the lip 15 minutes later. Safely on top, I inhaled deeply for what felt like the first time in forever.
The Science So what the hell was happening to me throughout this ordeal? Psychologist Peter A. Levine, Ph.D., who has studied stress and trauma for 35 years and served as a stress consultant for NASA, says there are three distinct stages to any traumatic experience, which every climber has gone through at some point, whether getting Elvis leg five feet above a bolt, flailing on the topout of a 25-foot boulder, or running it out over a questionably placed cam. First, there is an event. Second, there is shock. Third, there is the body’s response. This response can take three forms: fight, flight, or freeze. Fight or flight confronts the threat directly, like seeing a bear and running away. Both of these responses discharge the energy that accumulates in the body. More common in climbing, the freeze response can be complex since you can’t exactly run or fight when you’re faced with a hard move above your bolt.
Real vs. Perceived Danger As the greatest free soloist of our generation, Alex Honnold believes most climbers confuse the feeling of fear with experiencing real danger. “A combination of factors makes people feel fear, then they assume that the fear means it’s dangerous,” he explains. “I think it’s important to untangle the various threads that lead to the feeling of fear.” A clear example of this is watching a scary movie: You sit safely in the living room, experiencing the physical and emotional components of fear (sweaty palms, racing heart, anxiety), but you’re not in any real danger. However, distinguishing between experiential fear and actual risk is more diffi cult while hanging on the side of a cliff, so it’s important to know the true, real risk of a chosen adventure before you embark. Then, when you’re faced with the fear response, take a minute to evaluate what caused it. Is it bad weather moving in or loose rock above you? That’s real danger. Is it the fact that you’re a few f eet above your bolt or you’re doing hard moves on toprope? That’s perceived danger.
CLIMBING.COM
| 75
Honnold employs a sense of cautious realism and pragmatism with his own ascents by examining two factors: the potential consequences (e.g., falling to your death) and the probability of it happening (e.g., low if you’re on toprope). This means that if you’re bouldering at your limit five feet off the ground, the probability of falling may be high, but the consequence is so minimal that the risk is somewhat negligi ble. The inverse situation would be if you’re a 5.12 climber soloing 5.2 terrain high off the ground. The consequence is high, but the probability of a fall is so low that, again, the risk probably seems acceptable. The real danger in both examples is low.
Assessing and Trusting Ability
WHY AM I DOING THIS AGAIN?
STEPH DAVIS ON A BOLD SOLO OF PERVERTICAL SANCTUARY (5.11A) ON THE DIAMOND, LONGS PEAK, COLORADO.
76 | OCTOBER 2014
It would be silly and, quite frankly, lifethreatening to reason that just anyone could employ Honnold’s rationale to justify free soloing El Cap or Half Dome or Moonlight Buttress, because the true level of risk is dependent on something unique to each individual climber: personal ability. Accurately assessing your personal ability is an important part of proper risk management, but this may not always prove easy. (Of course, it does not determine the probability 100%, as there are always objective hazards like weather or rockfall.) Underestimating will leave you stuck in the potentially boring middle ground of not progressing, while overestimating could put you in a dangerous or fatal situation. Be realistic, base it on your climbing experience and mileage, and if you do have to guess, do it in a low-consequence situation (sport climbing, toproping, etc.) as often as possible so you can get a better idea of your ability. One strategy to assess your skill level effectively is to recall prior, similar experiences. The trick is to recall the facts rather than the emotions. Don’t think about how you felt about the comparable climb, but rather analyze the outcome of the event, comparing factual details while carefully avoiding emotion. If you regularly climb 5.9 on gear without falling, it would be fair to say your experience will be similar on most comparable routes. Don’t compare apples to oranges—just because you flailed on a 5.10 slab doesn’t really say anything about your potential performance on an overhanging 5.10. Evaluate your memory as rationally as possible by differentiating between real
L L A B M I K N A I R B
and perceived dangers you experienced on past routes. When world-class free soloist and BASE jumper Steph Davis is faced with a big jump or climb, she knows it’s within her ability, and she fully trusts that ability. This allows zero mental space for doubt or fear to slip in and send her on a down ward spiral of anxiety. The best perform so well because they know, without a doubt, that they are capable of attaining an ob jective, and then they fully believe it when performing. Davis purposely empties her mind beforehand of negative mental dialogue, which she says also helps her enjoy those pursuits even more: “When I’m not being held back by fear, I’m free to really enjoy climbing, and I’ve spent a lot of time figuring that out.”
Avoid the Fear State Altogether
N N A M Y D N A
All the pro climbers I interviewed said that completely avoiding the fear state was the single most effective way to perform in high-intensity situations. Chris Schulte, V15 boulderer, first ascensionist, and high ball guru, says, “The minute you get scared you’ve done yourself the worst damage, because your body is just going to take over from there. If you’re scared enough, you’ll lose control, and you won’t be able to get it back. Everything tightens up, you start over-gripping, and your whole being retreats within itself.” The best and boldest climbers consciously avoid triggering their fear response because they understand the danger of falling into their body’s natural fight-flight-freeze response. “I’ll have some little thing happen, and I think, That’s scary,” Honnold says, “but I feel like I’m pretty good at clamping it down and not letting it go down the path of getting more and more scared until I fall apart.” Here, Honnold stops the negative self-talk (“I can’t do this. I’m going to fall. This is scary.”) before it triggers the emotional response of fear. He doesn’t allow the story of falling to enter his mental dialogue at all, thus completely avoiding one of the precursors to fear. One way to avoid this state is being fully prepared and equipped to handle the ob jective. Before alpinist Kelly Cordes was blasting up Great Trango Tower, he was a nationally recognized collegiate boxer. He recalls standing in the ring before his first bout, hoping his opponent wouldn’t show up. He was filled with fear of failure and of
the unknown. After four years and dozens of fights, Cordes stood in that same situation awaiting the arrival of his opponent. Even though the danger of the situation was the same—walking into a ring with a man who is trying to hurt you—his level of experience and preparedness had changed his perception of the danger. He was ready, he was trained, and he had been there before. He says, “I was standing there thinking, This guy better show up!” When you’re prepared and well-practiced, you have no reason to doubt yourself. It’s not about closing your eyes and jumping into the unknown. It’s about having eyes wide open to the dangers around you but knowing that you’re as ready as you can be. Trust in your training and preparedness will give you the required confidence to apply your skills to the task at hand. Then when you’re performing, pay
close attention to possible trigger thoughts as they appear. Stopping them before they manifest into negative emotional responses is paramount. Certified sports psychologist Dr. Lisa Lollar, who coaches professional athletes in realizing their goals, says, “You have to believe and know that your skills and the challenge match.” Then while performing, the pros work consciously and in the current moment. They focus on the task at hand rather than the outcome, staying present rather than thinking too far into the event or about the finish. Honnold says, “You might have moments along the way where your body is scared, but you know that you can [accomplish the climb]. To me it takes [a certain kind of] rationale to look at it from the outside and say, ‘I’m scared, but I’m still holding on. I’m still fine.’ ”
CHRIS SCHULTE FULLY COMMITS ON WHITE LIGHTNING (V8), MT. EVANS, COLORADO.
I HOPE MY HEEL STICKS.
CLIMBING.COM
| 77
Coming Back From Fear So, what if the plan of avoiding the fear response fails? Like my incident in Vail, everything can be fine until some objective hazard or mistake triggers that feeling. When it comes to managing fear and improving performance in climbing, it’s critical to be able to transition out of fear. Imagine a sport climbing scenario where you’re several feet above a bolt. You’re breathing hard and start to over-grip, body tensing and locking up. Ultimately, you either need to keep climbing up or downclimb—or else you’re gonna take the whip anyway. Transitioning out of fear is crucial to making an informed decision as to what you should do next. As we’ve seen, fight, flight, and freeze are a limited repertoire, especially in climbing, where calm is the name of the game. Fortunately, we humans have something special to combat these sometimes irrational, limited responses. That’s the prefrontal cortex, and it gives us the ability to inhibit the fear response of the amygdala, which is part of the “lower brain.” The prefrontal cortex is the rational, conscious part of our brain, the part that makes us civil and human by its ability to reason and filter out our animal instincts. Without the ability of our prefrontal cortex to reason with the instinctual amygdala, we’d never get off the ground in the first place. Lollar helps athletes overcome the fearridden brain to arrive at a place of mental clarity and presence that optimizes performance, and she uses psychological tools like centering, visualization, and self-talk. These bring the prefrontal cortex back online, calming the emotional and instinctive parts of the brain. VISUALIZATION. Use this as much as you can before you even get off the ground, while lying in bed at night or driving to the crag. The basic idea is to imagine and clearly see yourself completing each move with ease. Lollar says it works best when you add as much detail as possible: how your body feels pulling over the crux, the breeze on your face, fingers clamping down on the cold, gray granite. Go through each move step by step from bottom to top. This mental rehearsal is surprisingly similar to physical practice; you can actually perform better without lifting a finger. You are also likely to experience an improved sense of confidence after visualizing, which will decrease your risk of slipping into the full-fledged fear response.
78 | OCTOBER 2014
This technique can encompass more than just your physical experience on the climb, too. Think about how you want to feel on the route in addition to how you want to move. I imagine myself staying calm and devoid of panic, should a foot slip or I fumble the beta on a specific move during a free solo. I visualize myself letting the error pass without any internal reflection or unnecessary mental dialogue, keeping my focus on the moves in front of me. CENTERING. Best done right after coming out of the initial fear flood, it involves paying conscious attention to breathing and bodily sensations. Lollar says staying focused and avoiding distractions are critical to performance. Centering helps the athlete stay in the moment and release past and future thoughts, worries, and plans. When Cordes feels the “oh shit” fear welling up, he says, “I zoom in and focus on each move, each motion, and I don’t get overwhelmed by the bigger picture.” Lollar recommends practicing centering regularly so it can be there when you need it. The next time you’re climbing, see how much of your attention you can bring to the present moment. Notice each inhale,
THE AUTHOR ON A RELATIVELY NONCHALANT FREE SOLO OF THE FOUR-PITCH HEAVY WEATHER (5.9), ELDORADO CANYON, COLORADO.
exhale, and the sound they make, feel for the pulse in your chest, and observe the way the rock feels under your fingertips. Using this will bring you back to the present moment, which is where you need to be to perform. The trick here is to practice this when you’re not scared. Observe yourself when you’re calm and climbing well, so it will be easier to gain presence when you’re entering a dangerous move or hazardous terrain. Repetition is the father of learning. Steph Davis says, “Careful, this
WHOA!
STEPH DAVIS TAKES FLIGHT FROM THE TOMBSTONE NEAR MOAB, UTAH.
K R A L C T T O C S . D ; ) P O T ( D E E P S Y E L I
A B
A FALL WOULD NOT BE PRETTY.
T O I R A C S G I A R C
kind of mental and physical training takes practice. Everyone knows you can’t get strong fingers in one campus board session; it’s the same with your mind. The important thing is to realize that and take the first step down the road of learning.” SELF-TALK. Use this at any time to quiet the amygdala, awaken the prefontal cortex, and regain your calm. Either out loud or in your head, talk to yourself. When you hear the fear response (“That’s not right. I’m scared.”), recognize those words for what they are—products of the part of your brain responsible for generating fear—and force your brain to say something else. Make it simple: “I’m fine” or “I can do this” or “I got it.” If you are struggling with negative thoughts and can’t break out of the cycle, force yourself to smile and hear yourself say, “I’m OK.” It might be all you need to relax back into your flow state. Honnold employed this method on his 2012 solo of the Yosemite Triple: “There were a half-dozen times when something unexpected happened, and I had that moment of Oh, that’s not right . I was scared, but each time I wouldn’t let it get to the
next level. I would shut it off. I would say, ‘I’m fine,’ and keep moving.” Schulte employs similar techniques: “There are all these little monsters you can get rid of with just the right words.” While fear can seem like the enemy of any climber, I’ve learned that there are several things you can do before leaving the ground to mitigate its effect. Step 1: Do risk and ability assessments. Step 2: Have confidence in your ability and preparedness to avoid slipping into the fear state. Step 3: Push negative thoughts out of your mind the moment you feel them start to pop up. Step 4: Employ visualization, centering, and self-talk to prevent or come out of the fear state. Step 5: Review the climb and recall the things you did well. Lollar suggests focusing on actions, thoughts, and behaviors that helped you perform well. It’s been a few years since I was on that particular ice pillar. Looking back, there is little I would have—or could have— changed; luckily things worked out in my favor. That doesn’t mean I rack up my experience to good fortune and move on. Instead, I have used that experience as a jump-start for my mental training. These
days I don’t look at my emotions as random and uncontrollable, but rather a biological process that can be mastered. So when those fear moments do arrive, you’re more than ready. On a recent 5.11 free solo in Golden, Colorado, I sat at the bottom of the climb thinking about how quickly panic sets in. Something as simple as an insecure foothold or a single moment of uncertainty can trigger a flood of negative self-talk and then the biological, chemical response that can so profoundly affect your performance. I then imagined myself handling that experience calmly, breathing deeply, and saying to myself, Relax, you can do this. I still get scared—hell, what climber doesn’t?—but now I’m better equipped to keep my cool, and that’s made all the difference.
Denver-based pro climber, writer, and guide Matt Lloyd has been climbing for 15 years, free soloed 5.12d, survived heinous weather in the high mountains of the Cordillera Blanca, and led 5.13 R routes, but he has yet to conquer his biggest objective ever: his own mind.
KELLY CORDES APPROACHES THE 5,000-FOOT AFANASSIEFF ROUTE (AKA FRENCH NORTHWEST RIDGE ) ON FITZ ROY, PATAGONIA.
JUST KEEP MOVING...
CLIMBING.COM
| 79
PROMOTION
ˆ T H E B E TAˆ
411 from our climbing partners
FIXEhardware OUT WITH THE OLD. IN WITH THE NEW. RESTORING AMERICA’S CRAGS ONE BOLT AT A TIME. Over a decade ago, Climbing launched the Anchor Replacement Initiative (ARI) a movement to replace worn-out fixed hardware at popular crags across the country. To date, hundreds of routes and over 1,000 bolts have been replaced. Thanks to equipment donations from companies like Fixe, climbers are safe to enjoy their favori te routes across the country.
www.climbing.com/community/ari
WMCC RENDEZVOUS, presented by Millet, is an annual fundraiser to keep climbing areas open and conserve
LOWA RED EAGLE L ACE
the climbing environmen t in Western
Performance climbing shoe with a
Massachusetts. The event, held from
moderately aggressive downturn and an
September 19 – 21, includes an outdoor
extra-stiff midsole that excels at steep
competition at Farley Ledges, indoor
and overhanging technical sport and
competition at Central Rock Gym (Hadley),
traditional climbing. High toebox for power
camping, live music and Reel Rock Film Tour.
without discomfort.
www.climbgneiss.org
“Holy Crap! If there were a dime glued to a wall, limbing Field Tester I could edge on that!” —C
presented by
www.lowaboots.com
Making Bargains With God When four young climbers with big-mountain dreams went north to tackle Canada’s highest peak, they had no idea how close they’d come to never returning. Here are their stories.
Y S E T R U O C
Mount Logan kills by a variety of ways, most often by turning down the thermostat. Temperatures below -100°F have been recorded on the summit plateau. If you survive that, a two-week storm can blow in without warning.
Liam Suckling, 27 MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA
Every mountain has a story to tell and lessons to impart. The ruthless ice fields of the St. Elias range and its crown jewel, 19,551-foot Mount Logan, would teach me something about boundaries. At 11,400 feet, pain pierced every extremity. Within minutes, I had gone from lucid cognition and physical fluidity to burning muscle spasms and a mental maelstrom. One moment I had been focused in full swing, pushing my own limits and leading up two pitches of bottomless, steep, sugary snow, and now I was breathing fire in an inverted world beyond a darker and more mysterious boundary. The turbulence escalated. A ripple of agony curled my toes up, and I collapsed onto my anchor. I couldn’t speak coherently. I was disintegrating. I felt a deep frustration with myself for holding the team up, but I couldn’t make sense of the scene. I’d felt great climbing at almost twice this altitude in the past.
82 | OCTOBER 2014
I was well-hydrated. Why was the machine of my body failing me at such a crucial moment? Later I would learn that my symptoms came from too much carbon monoxide exposure due to cooking in the tent without enough ventilation, combined with rapid-onset altitude sickness. I’d pushed beyond the limits of my physiology for the speed at which we were gaining altitude. Matt, Noah, and Jason gathered near me and commenced organizing a rescue plan; their mental dexterity was mesmerizing to me. Guilt and frustration stabbed again. I knew of being the rescuer but not of being rescued; it was agonizing to accept. I felt like I was floating, and rather than having thoughts, I was somehow watching those thoughts from afar with decreasing conviction that they were somehow related to me. “Keep moving, man,” I could hear Jason’s voice and feel the axe in my hand plunging into the slushy snow. We were descending to meet the chopper that would take me in for evaluation. The familiar human limitations eventually returned, though I remained less con vinced of how strict those boundaries are.
Timeline BY NOAH MCKELVIN
In total, we were in the Great White North for more than 45 days. We bought an old van in Anchorage and drove to British Columbia to charter a bush plane into the St. Elias range with our sights on Mount Logan, Canada’s highest peak—and the biggest chunk of ice and rock on the planet. It’s remote and notorious for foul weather, so few attempt it. Some years, only a couple people (literally) reach the summit. Inauspiciously, the van broke down a few times on the way. We were on the glacier for 21 days, and upon hearing we had a seven-day weather window, we went for it. We were on the East Ridge of Mount Logan for 15 days.
6/ 1
STARTED UP EAST RIDGE AND CLIMBED THROUGH THE NIGHT (WITH A TWO-HOUR SITTING BIVY).
6/ 2
ARRIVE AT CAMP 1 (9,500 FEET). STORMS A LITTLE THAT AFTERNOON.
6/ 3
MOVE TO CAMP 2 (10,800 FEET).
Jason Mari, 28 HUMBLE, TEXAS
) 4 ( Y S E T R U O C
It started at 11,000 feet as a little discomfort . At 12,000 feet, it felt like someone was standing on my chest. At 14,000 feet, the gurgling started. If I fell asleep, I would immediately wake up in terror to the sensation of drowning, so I didn’t sleep. I was suffering from HAPE (high-altitude pulmonary edema), a condition that causes a climber’s lungs to fill with fluid. The only treatment is to descend to a lower elevation. Three days later, having summited Mount Logan and started the descent toward the King’s Trench Route, we were pinned by a storm. In my tent, the only consolation was being sheltered from the storm that was raging outside. At night, the winds picked up, and the temperature dropped to -40°F. During the day, the storm continued, and in our desperation, we tried to move our camp in the whiteout. We might have made it a few hundred feet across the glacier. My promise to my partners was that I would keep going until I dropped. Their promise to me was that if I did, they would drag my lifeless body home. I have al ways taken pride in being tough. Not the strongest or fastest or smartest, but tough. That can count for a lot. But near the summit plateau, I broke down completely, realizing that I might be a liability for the team. This experience would forever change my perception of myself, mountaineering, and what a team is capable of. Over the course of those tent-bound days, I had a lot of time to think. I didn’t question our decision-making, as I believed we were correct in the moment (and still do in hindsight). But I did wonder about our fate. Every extra minute we spent on the summit plateau worsened our chances of survival. Mount Logan kills by a variety of ways, most often by turning down the thermostat. Temperatures below -100°F have been recorded on this plateau. For that matter, a two-week storm could blow in without warning. For obvious reasons, we would have a hard time surviving either event. The possibility of death lingered constantly, and it enraged me. My thoughts continually wandered back to my family and friends at home. My responsibility for the people I love and specifically thinking of a letter my sister wrote to me before the trip were the fuel that drove me up the final 1,000 feet to gain Prospector’s Col and our eventual exit
6/4
from this peak. In our final moments on the plateau, my physical condition deteriorated substantially. Each weak step required two of the most painful, shallow breaths that my lungs could bear, after which I proceeded to gasp for air in between fits of coughing, weighting my single, broken trekking pole. For what seemed like an eternity, I alternated crying tears of despair and throwing fits of rage. My mind was host to a circus of emotions. Each time I felt like giving up, I was overcome by a fury that I cannot understand or really explain. It pushed me through the descent and ultimately led to my survival.
ATTEMPT KNIFEEDGE CRUX, GET SHUT DOWN BY MIDDAY HEAT CAUSING UNSTABLE CONDITIONS.
6/ 5 REST. 6/ 6
MOVE OVER C RUX AND REACH CAMP 3 (11,975 FEET). LIAM EVACUATED THAT AFTERNOON.
6/7
TENT-BOUND IN WHITEOUT.
Noah McKelvin, 22 DENVER, COLORADO
6/8
TENT-BOUND IN WHITEOUT.
Mount Logan is not of this Earth. So remote, harsh, and endless. It’s a place where time doesn’t exist. During the two-day storm we weathered near 12,000 feet, I listened to my stomach grumble and stared at our food, nervously anticipating the moment we’d run out. We’d planned for a week-long climb, and I questioned every step that got us here. I knew how easily these tent bound days could turn to weeks. How much snow could we melt with our meager fuel supply? A dark mood de -
6/ 9
LEAVE CAMP IN EVENING AND CLIMB OVERNIGHT TO CAMP 4 (13,943 FEET).
6 / 1 0 REST.
CLIMBING.COM
| 83
Mount Logan held on to us with an unexplainable grip, but we held on to each other even stronger. This changed us forever. 84 | OCTOBER 2014
scended over us. I prayed to God. For me, the thought of dying without having felt that I truly gave life everything I had scared me. I told God that if I made it out, I would use my second chance to care for others more than myself, never to waste a moment of life, to push myself as a climber and as a human being. My past became a dream, and the future was uncertain. There was simply this mountain and nothing else. The moment I tried to take comfort in what life was like back home was the moment I lost concentration. The whiteout soon turned into a bone-chilling cold snap, and I felt we needed to move or we risked never getting out alive. The views at night were something from a dream: infinite snow and ice, the silence deafening. I set off on a steeper pitch of ice, soon encountering snow-covered mixed slabs. I hammered in one picket and belayed. I was exhausted, weighed down, crouching with my head on the snow. There was only onward. Snow conditions were dangerous enough that descending would’ve been a nightmare. The rope so frozen, we soon started hip belaying. We made it to a wide, flat spot with a sea of clouds below. Gaining ground boosted our spirits ever so slightly. We had to give it everything we had. Every day we moved, we did so until we could not take another step forward. My body tried to find the strength somewhere as it slowly ate away 15 pounds of itself over the course of only 15 days. Pulmonary edema was becoming a horrifying reality for Jason, but we thought of every step forward as a step to safety. Though Mount Logan was holding on to us with an unexplainable grip, we held on to each other even stronger. This changed us forever. My old self died on that climb, and I was reborn with a new respect for life. Ultimately, I think that’s exactly why we climb and what we went for.
6/11
GAIN THE PLATEAU; BIVY AT CAMP 5
Matt Grabina, 28
(17,600 FEET).
BOULDER, COLORADO 6/12
) 4 ( Y S E T R U O C
There would be no point in delaying. We had already traveled far beyond our comfort zone. At home in Colorado, I would never have dreamt of stepping onto such a slope, but here, little choice remained. The handwritten route beta (above right) suggested we had reached the “end of the major difficulties,” but this inform ation was 15 years old, so who knows. What we did know was that the climbi ng wouldn’ t be t echnic ally difficu lt but deep powder promise d an aerobic workout and heightened fear given the avalanche danger. And damn, was it painfully cold! The darkest hours of the Yukon night are simply too icy to get any quality rest, so we planned to move again just to keep warm. The bit of comfort the team had taken in reaching the end of those technical cruxes faded as we faced off with a danger we had little contro l over. This slope could rip at any moment. Here we traded in run-ofthe-mill fear for terror in the face of a truly objective danger. We moved slowly, fighting for every step. We found our selves ou tside of time, u nsure of what
TRAVERSE EAST AND MAIN SUMMITS TO CAMP 6 (17,550 FEET).
6 / 1 3 BAD
W EATHER.
ATTEMPT TO MOVE CAMP, MAKE IT A FEW HUNDRED FEET.
our future held. I found it best to set aside fear of what I co uld not contro l, with hop es of making room for courage or anything else to take its place. Soon enough, the going became safer and easier, and the sun was up. When we reached Camp 8, it was diffi cult to recall how cold and bleak things had been just hours before. An expedition is full of highs and lows. This one gave us the lowest I’ve ever felt, but I knew in that moment that the lows forced us to climb on and live life for all it could offer. But looking out over the ice fields and countless summits, each begging for adventure, I felt only the highs.
6/14
DESCEND TO KING’S TRENCH AND CAMP 8 (13,451 FEET).
6 / 1 5 DESCEND
REMAINING ROUTE AND FLY OUT! AN 11-DAY STORM HITS 12 HOURS AFTER OUR DEPARTURE.
CLIMBING.COM
| 85
MARKETPLACE For details on advertising in Marketplace contact Sean H. Bonser:
[email protected]
JACKSON HOLE MOUNTAIN GUIDES & Climbing School Since 1968
800.239.7642
STATE OF THE ART INDOOR ROCK CLIMBING Franchises now available!
gravityvault.com
Insulated Overboots for:
√ Single Boots √ Double Boots √ AT Ski Boots Made in USA
Authorized concessioner of Grand Teton National Park and permittee of Shoshone, BT, Custer National Forests and WY, UT, NV, BLM.
p: (253) 846-2081
www.40below.com
For a No-Slip Grip
Captains of Crush ® Grippers 11 strengths: train from the ground up
www.ironmind.com
IronMind® STR ONGER MI NDS, STRONGER BODIES™
A N I T N E G R A
“
”
A R R E I S
S E I K C O R
K C O R T R E S E D
– Outside Online
Learn the basics Develop con�dence Learn to lead
S E D A C S A C
American Alpine Institute
A K S A L A
E C U A D O R
F R A N C E
“$70 ELBOW FIXER”
N E P A L
P A T A G O N I A
P E R U
R U S S I A
S W I T Z
Maryland | Colorado 1-800-CLIMB-UP
ROCK NOW:
Red Rock, Joshua Tree, Moab, Sierra: courses & climbs at all levels, plus Learn to Lead, Big Wall Training WINTER SOON: Ice Climbing; Denali Prep; Avy Courses; Splitboarding & Skiing, Backcountry to Extreme; CA, CO, WA MAJOR ASCENTS ALWAYS : Patagonia, Ecuador, Aconcagua, Peru, Bolivia, Kili, Eiger, Matterhorn, Denali, Cho Oyu, Everest
“Editors’ Choice”
DEVILS TOWER
CLIMBING
“Highly Recommended”
Above All Climbing Guides
“…get an Armaid”
FINE ACCOMMODATIONS Indoor to Outdoor Top Rope to Lead Single to Multi Pitch Sport to Trad Trad to Rad
Contact us at 307-467-5267
www.devilstowerclimbing.com www.devilstowerlodge.com
armaid com 207 374 9952 800 488 5505 .
.
.
.
.
M A R K E T P L A C E
THE FLOW
Are You a Climbing Accident Waiting to Happen? BY KEVIN CORRIGAN
IN THIS ISSUE, we presented an array of hero climbers (p. 60). These are selfless people who went above and beyond to ensure the safety of others, sometimes at their own peril. And then there are the climbing liabilities. They’re cavalier about essential safety practices. They get themselves in over their heads. And they don’t know what to do w hen things go wrong. Follow the chart below to find out if you’re the kind of climber that gets people into trouble—or out of it. START HERE
HAVE YOU EVER REQUIRED RESCUE IN THE PAST?
No.
How long have you been climbing?
To what would you attribute your flawless safety record?
Years and years. I can recite Yes.
Not too long, but I’m not brand new either.
Which time? That? That could almost definitely but probably never happen again. I have acquired a healthy respect for the mountain environment.
Did you learn from your mistakes?
You are well-versed in selfrescue techniques, right?
Yeah. I’m not crazy.
Oh no, you’re a liability! You’re putting yourself, your partner, and the inevitable search and rescue team in danger by heading into the hills without the proper skills. The good news is that it’s not too late to change.
88 | OCTOBER 2014
I can tie a Munter-mule or execute a counter-balanced rappel with my eyes closed, but I wouldn’t, because that would only add more variables to an already-dangerous situation.
But you at least discuss your plan with your partner and double-check each other’s knots before starting up a route... right?
I’m just kind of figuring it out as I go.
Hills from cover to cover, and I’m meticulous about best practices.
I dunno.
I just started! It’s so much fun!
No, I just don’t fall so it’s fine. Nah. I know how to tie a figure eight; I don’t need to waste time asking my partner to stare at my crotch before every climb.
Freedom of the
I’m taking classes with my local gym or guiding service.
You’re not the most dangerous climber, but you could stand to take a self-rescue course and bone up on your safety knowledge. Remember: You can’t plan for an accident, but you can and should be prepared for them.
When someone offers you safety advice, you...
Tell them to shove it. I lead 5.11. I know what I’m doing.
And how have you been learning?
Listen attentively. My skills can always be improved.
I have an experienced mentor showing me the ropes.
You’re on the right track! Keep educating yourself and some day you’ll be able to mentor other climbers in the fine art of not dying. Just remember to practice all your new skills on the g round before taking them up the wall.
Books, credible Internet articles, YouTube videos.
Congratulations! You’re a safe climber. You know how to p revent accidents and what to do if things do go wrong. If the world were just, the re’d be 10 clim ber s banging on your door, begging to cruise multi-pitches with you right now.
ALTO Triple-density foam system to help you pad your climbing résumé
Thanks to its unique three-layer foam design, the ALTO crashpad provides superior energy absorption for bouldering falls. The ergonomic carrying harness is designed for comfort on long approaches, while the patented zippered closure system keeps the carrying straps out of the dirt and creates an enclosed space for all your gear. www.petzl.com
