Stumbling down the Internet rabbit hole one evening, I came upon a clip from an old 1980s ski film called the Blizzard of Aaahs. The film was directed by Greg Stump and if you grew up in the 80s as a skier, then you almost certainly would’ve remembered this film. At the very least, you’d recognize the character of this emergent genre of extreme ski films.

We’re talking about a glorious time in humanity, when skiers with outrageous hair and brash punk attitudes, wore one-piece neon fart bags and skied on the skinniest little planks you could imagine, all set to Frankie Goes to Hollywood soundtracks.

This clip that I stumbled upon in my reckless Internet carousing features Scot Schmidt and Glen Plake—considered the best extreme skiers in the world at that time. And they were attempting to ski a couloir off the Auguille du Midi.

I immediately recognized this couloir. Years ago, I once rapped down it to reach the base of a popular moderate mixed route, that ascends back to the summit of the Midi. There’s a metal bridge that spans the top of this couloir, leading from the cable car station to various view points and outlooks, so it’s a popular spot. I remembered how steep this couloir is, because it’s hard to tell in this film. And in all seriousness, I couldn’t imagine anyone skiing this line, then or now.

In the film, a small crowd of onlookers is perched on the bridge watching as Scot Schmidt drops in first. He doesn’t even have time to make one turn before he hits what would be, by today’s standards, a pretty small and straight forward drop. And yet as soon as he hits it, it’s almost as somewhere, a voodoo effigy of Schmidt was stabbed at precisely that moment. His body goes limp and sideways like a ragdoll

Glen Plake’s turn was even worse. After hitting that little drop, he launched into a full tomahawk yard sale, both skis ejecting from his feet like arrows being launched over Thermopylae. As Greg Stump the narrator urges the viewers, “Notice the back handspring over the crevasse.”

The soundtrack, Warriors of the Wasteland, turns up while Plake, in what must be one heckuva daze, stands up and triumphantly pumps his fist into the air. And that’s how the film ends.

To my eye, it’s hard to square how whatever it was that we just watched could ever possibly be considered cutting edge—of anything other than perhaps jackassery. Obviously, these guys have big balls, but balls aside, is there really any difference between Schmidt and Plake tomahawking down the Aiguille du Midi and that of rank beginner who yard-sales down a blue run at the local Midwestern ski slope in a pair of Wrangler jeans and a Chicago Bears Starter jacket?

When it comes to assessing success in climbing, sometimes I wonder if we climbers set the bar too high for ourselves. I wonder if we put too much weight on crossing all our t’s and dotting all our i’s to make sure that our ascents “count.” When we’re calling each out for dabbing the filaments of a dandelion, you get the sense that maybe we climbers can be just a bit too anal.

What would be the equivalent in climbing of a couple of double-plankers ricocheting down a couloir? It’s not a perfect analogy, but perhaps it’s something along the lines of getting on a route that’s way above your head, a route that you just have no business being on, that you’re just whipping all over.

Most days, most climbers would come back from an experience like that, licking their wounded egos, telling themselves how much they suck, making plans to hang board a little more and drink a little less. They’d consider it a failure.

But perhaps we shouldn’t. Perhap we could all be a little more like Glen Plake, emerging from the stupor of our brazen insolence to try something so far above our abilities, and instead of self-flagellating, raising our fists in the air triumphantly to the sweet, sweet sounds of 80s rock.

The post Raise Your Fist in Failure appeared first on Evening Sends.

Traditionally, mountaineering has been a sport in which powerful and wealthy men travel from Europe to “exotic” locations in the name of exploration and adventure, leveraging the labor of impoverished locals who are paid a pittance to take much of the risk and receive none of the reward. It’s all for the honor of their own reputations and the glory of the mother nation. Picture a mountaineer or explorer from the early to mid 20th century, and a cartoonish figure emerges: a guy in khaki pants and riding boots with a monocle dangling off a chain on his vest, sipping martinis at the Royal Geographic Society and swapping stories with polite society about the “cheeky natives” in a room with goddamn elephant heads mounted on the walls.

Today monocles may only make ironic appearances in Williamsburg, but the entitled attitude of birthright adventurism remains strong in the sorry bunch of climbers who failed to climb much past Camp 3 on K2 this winter. Since getting utterly schooled by the team of 10 Sherpa-Nepali climbers who nabbed the first winter ascent of K2, one of the last great prizes in mountaineering, all sorts of pitiful “questions”—de facto accusations—have been murmuring around internet forums. “Questions remain” is the frequent dogwhistle naysayers use to throw shade at the Nepalis’ ascent—as if there wasn’t a fucking video of all 10 of them marching arm in arm to the summit of K2.

For me the only question that remains is how some of these people can be so self-centered as to not realize that they sound like a bunch of entitled crybabies. A recent interview with Tomaz Rotar on Explorer’s Web outlines the nature of the K2 Crybabies complaints: that the Nepalis “lied” to other climbers by telling them that they weren’t going for the summit, when in fact they were.

Which is true, as Mingma G acknowledged. So what? The only way you could ever see this tactic as some kind of betrayal—and not as a brilliant fuck-you move to nab the prize for your team and your team alone—is if you’ve been groomed on a certain tradition. The one in which Nepalis have one, and only one, role—to haul your ass to the summit.

Another non-accusation accusation concerns the fact that subsequent climbers couldn’t figure out how to cross a massive crevasse higher on the mountain in the dark. They’re also mad-sad-mad that the Nepalis didn’t tell them about the crevasse, so they were unprepared. This statement from Rotar is just amazing:

“How did everyone on the Nepali team cross the crevasse? I have read Mingma and Sajid’s accounts, and the more I read, the less I understand. The ropes started, as Mingma said, 200 to 300m above Camp 3, but then he states that they fixed everything, including the crevasse that they somehow crossed.

But the route we all followed on the second push ended at a real void. Sajid said there were no ropes where they jumped over it, but I can’t believe they just jumped that huge crevasse—they must have found a different passage, although I really looked around and saw no option. It was dark, of course, but I still can’t solve the riddle.

Maybe the Nepalis fixed two lines of ropes, the one leading to a dead end and the second that took them to the summit?”

Essentially what he’s saying is that the Nepalis are either spiteful little bastards who went out of their way to fix bait ropes that would lead to dead ends, or they’re spiteful little liars who pulled some kind of shenanigans so that no one else would reach the summit this season.

Good, I say. They deserve to bask in the glory of this ascent. This feels like a watershed moment for mountaineering, in which a group of people who have historically played second fiddle get to enjoy the spotlight. Let them have it.

As today’s cultural reckonings take a much-needed critical look at our history, there are heated intellectual debates about whether the entire structure of any aspect of society is irrevocably corrupted and therefore is justified in being torn down by any means necessary. I’m much more optimistic and less cynical than most progressives on this point. Mountaineering’s history hasn’t always been fair or righteous, to put it mildly, but look how far we’ve come. The 10 best mountain climbers in the world right now are all Nepali. And in 10 or 15 years from now, when I predict that all the big Everest outfits will be Nepali owned and run, we’ll look back and see the first winter ascent of K2 as watershed moment in that progression.

Finally, a bit of news …

I’ve been sitting on this mailing list for years for a couple of reasons. 1) Actually sending out emails is a pain in the ass. 2) Who really needs another email clogging up their inboxes?

As traditional media companies continue to decline, the ability to be supported through legacy journalism, as well as the ability to think openly and write freely have gone with it. Now that journalism has entered a new “Substack” era of reader-supported content, I’ve discovered a few things. First, I actually like getting a whole essay delivered to my inbox from a writer whom I enjoy reading. It saves a click from going to the website.

Second, the time has come to make Evening Sends reader-supported. Most of the content remains and will be free, but some of my own pieces are now paywalled. I’ve been running this damn site since 2006, and if you’ve ever enjoyed any of the content that I’ve written here, I’d appreciate if you considered signing up to help me keep this website alive. My whole pitch for why you should subscribe is here.

Select an annual subscription and use the code K2CRYBABY to lock in a lower rate forever! Good through March 31.

Thank you so much!

“Art is the act of triggering deep memories of what it means to be fully human.”–David Whyte.

The post K2 Crybabies appeared first on Evening Sends.

Like all problems at Big Bend, Circus Tricks is a sandbag. It was rated “V4 MA” (V4 My Ass) years ago, back when I had shoulder joints that didn’t withdraw like a turtle pulling into its shell at the thought of recklessly hucking to jugs. I guess a few key holds have broken in the intervening decade, bumping the grade up to a solid “V5 MA,” which made me feel only slightly less pathetic when I didn’t send it recently.

Oh well. Climbing performance was second to escaping the Colorado snow and basking in the Utah sun with the kids, but still ….

A local Moab kid named “Julius” politely asked to join my sesh on Circus Tricks. He had handsome dark features, russet skin, and long dark hair that was pulled into a messy man bun. He was working the stand start, which is quite a bit easier than the full line. He’d been projecting the stand start for “literally two years,” he admitted bashfully.

“How old are you?” I asked.

“Eighteen,” he said. I had to think about that. He had been born after 9/11. I noticed a few pimples on his skin. It had been so long since I’d hung out with someone with zits.

Together we made a breakthrough. Bumping the left foot up onto the higher smear and squeezing with your legs sets you up nicely to huck for the jug. Over the next few efforts, he nearly stuck it. “Whoa,” he said, sheepishly. “I think I can do this.”

Indeed, he did. Next try he stuck the jug at the lip of the house-sized Chaos boulder. “Holy shit,” he muttered.

Now what? He threw his heel over the lip and started flailing and sputtering.

“No, no! Use your toe!” I said. He switched the heel to a toe and starting pulling in, mantling up, his left leg kicking in fits through the air.

Suddenly he was on top. He turned to face down at me. He pushed his hair behind his ears, a smile spreading across his face. “I’ve literally been trying to do that for two years,” he said again, beaming.

“So cool, man!” I said. “Congrats, good job.”

Maybe it’s a sign of age or perhaps of being a father and learning how to re-center your own sense of meaning and joy in that of others, but I just felt really stoked for Julius. Seeing that face, zits and all, smiling and astonished at what he had just achieved, made my whole weekend. Look at that kid. The entire world was his.

History doesn’t always repeat itself but it does rhyme, or so we’re told. I wonder, then, how this next decade’s verse will pair with “Roaring Twenties”?

I’m not the first to point out the historical alliteration at play between our current moment and the events that unfolded a hundred years earlier, when a rager of a decade unfolded as a backlash to the harrowing events preceding it. The Roaring Twenties represented a political, cultural, and economic rebound to another pandemic in 1918. Also, we had just pulled ourselves out of the rubble of the first War. Let the bacchanal begin. It was a great opening of society, a period of sustained economic and cultural growth. Plus, there was a lot of drinking.

The question, then, as we stare down the waning days of this COVID nightmare and try to tone down the stakes of the culture war and sigh relief that the proto-authoritarian MAGA clown coup didn’t succeed this time—the question, then, is are we on the brink of the next Roaring Twenties?

Or will this be the Boring Twenties? More of the same, and nothing new.

I now think back to my younger dirtbag self, and consider what it would’ve felt like to be speeding headlong to Yosemite, my bank account flush with stimmy money. I knew climbers who could stretch $1,400 into a whole year—in fact, it was a point of pride to do so.

Dirtbag culture is alive in spirit in climbing, but perhaps not so much in practice—at least in relation to The Way Things Were. Things are easy now for climbers, who roam the Western landscape in their fine-ass vans. I sometimes wonder if I would’ve found the itinerant, dirtbag lifestyle more sustainable over the long run had I been living out of a Mercedes Sprinter and not a Nissan Sentra; had the ratio of women to men been what it is today at virtual parity; had there been more examples of “how to make this lifestyle work” for me to follow.

It’s kind of incredible to think about how things have changed. Just finding climbing areas is no longer a matter of wrestling a Rand McNally map while steering through bleak wastelands in a car with zero clearance. One merely needs to enter GPS coordinates that can be found on Mountain Project in two seconds flat, then follow Siri’s siren signals as she pipes in over the perfect curated Spotify playlist that entertains you with artists you didn’t need to spend any real time discovering on your own. Who might you meet at this crag? A climbing partner—hopefully something more? You’d never know until you got there and stood by the camp host kiosk, waiting for someone to walk by who looked like they also needed a catch—and it was almost never the person you’d hoped it would be. Now we know who’s where, doing what, and with whom at all times because of our addiction to social media. I know exactly who is climbing at the VRG this week. It’s like we have perfect knowledge. Now instead of meeting our partners through notes written on napkins and stapled to corkboards in campgrounds we find our partners online, chat them up in DMs, and have the benefit of reading their archive of posts that fills us in on 90 percent of who they are and how they think. What’s even left to talk about once you meet in person?

A more mind-boggling change is how these phones are not only the things that perform the basic logistical functions of arranging life on the road, but they are also the ways climbers seem to keep the money flowing their way. You can be an influencer. Make a podcast. Write a blog. Create a YouTube channel. And then all of a sudden a few hundred bucks will just appear in your bank account. And the good life rolls on.

It’s an easy motif to lament the days when things were harder, but I wonder if that’s because we Americans have a hard time shaking the Puritan’s mindset of equating hard work and suffering with moral value. The argument goes that the more you had to suffer for a thing, the more value it holds. Perhaps there’s truth there, something to lament.

On the one hand, it’s easier to be a “dirtbag” today than ever before.

On the other hand, it’s easier to be a dirtbag today than ever before.

It sounds pretty fun to me.

Andrew Bisharat

Andrew Bisharat is the publisher of Evening Sends and the co-host of The RunOut podcast. Please consider supporting this website by subscribing today.

Follow

Finally, a bit of news …

I’ve been sitting on this mailing list for years for a couple of reasons. 1) Actually sending out emails is a pain in the ass. 2) Who really needs another email clogging up their inboxes?

As traditional media companies continue to decline, the ability to be supported through legacy journalism, as well as the ability to think openly and write freely have gone with it. Now that journalism has entered a new “Substack” era of reader-supported content, I’ve discovered a few things. First, I actually like getting a whole essay delivered to my inbox from a writer whom I enjoy reading. It saves a click from going to the website.

Second, the time has come to make Evening Sends reader-supported. Most of the content remains and will be free, but some of my own pieces are now paywalled. I’ve been running this damn site since 2006, and if you’ve ever enjoyed any of the content that I’ve written here, I’d appreciate if you considered signing up to help me keep this website alive. My whole pitch for why you should subscribe is here.

Select an annual subscription and use the code ZOOMER to lock in a lower rate forever! Good through March 31.

Thank you to all the people who signed up for a subscription after last week’s post on K2. I hope to continue this weekly newsletter and I can do so with your support!

More on Evening Sends

The Evening Sends Guide to Building Your First Trad Rack

Everyone should climb trad—or at least know how. Proficient trad climbing skills are like having an all-access pass to some of the most badass and iconic cliffs in the world,…

22 Feb 2021

The post Is Climbing More Fun for Zoomers? appeared first on Evening Sends.

Takuan Soho, a 16th Century master, gave this advice to a young samurai:

“Try not to localize the mind anywhere, but let it fill up the whole body, let it flow throughout the totality of your being. When this happens you use the hands where they are needed, you use the legs where they are needed, and no time or energy will go to waste.”

I thought this quote was quite descriptive of what it feels like to climb well: whether that’s flowing up an onsight or flowing up a redpoint. That moment of flow and perfection, when you are not thinking. You are climbing instinctively, with full focus and commitment, and no hesitation. You climb like a wild animal.

The quote is descriptive of that awesome moment … But it is not prescriptive of how to attain it. In my experience, these moments are rare. I might have only entered this heightened animalistic state a handful of times on the rock. Most of the time, I feel heavy and burdened both by my body’s weight, and the weight of heavy thoughts: over-thinking; not present; doubting.

That said, I do know that these heightened moments of flow aren’t just random gifts from the universe. They come to us after periods of intense and purposeful practice. Whether that means projecting a route, and actually wanting very badly to send it. Or even periods of training through the long winter. The experience of entering this heightened abstract state, and feeling like a weightless animal on the rock, is the real reward waiting at the end this cycle of suffering.

The post Climb Like an Animal appeared first on Evening Sends.

The post Riding Beta Waves appeared first on Evening Sends.

Sean Villanueva O’Driscoll is an enigma wrapped in a mystery shrouded in pure rapture. He is part Belgian man, part feral mountaineer, part pied piper of climbing’s soul. His recent solo “reverse traverse” aka “Moonwalk” of the Fitz Traverse in Patagonia is easily the biggest climbing achievement of 2021.

This video is a fun cut of Sean in pure rapture. Strung out, living his best life, and full of fear and joy. And yet onward he goes. If this doesn’t fill your cup, nothing will.

Make sure you check out Sean’s excellent interview with us on The RunOut podcast!

The post Pure Rapture: Sean Villanueva O’Driscoll Moonwalks Patagonia appeared first on Evening Sends.

For mortals like us, climbing is an utterly absurd and pointless activity. It’s proper entertainment for the gods, however, who love to watch their playthings fail, and fail, and fail again till eventually they get bored enough to let us succeed in reaching the top of some stupid piece of rock. And when we do, we’re like, “Sick, dude!” The gods think that shit is hilarious. Then we proceed to declare that this is what makes life worth living—and the gods laugh and laugh. We’re so dumb. Oh well. Finding meaning in the meaningless—contriving some weird, errant path to self-transcendence—it isn’t much, but it’s all we got.

As society has grown more fragmented, people seem to be rapidly losing faith that our institutions are on our side in helping us navigate this pointless struggle. Perhaps this is why so many folks are seeking fringe, oddball replacements for the traditional ways of making meaning in life (i.e., worshipping the gods). Whether it’s BASE jumping, Q-Anon, or rock climbing, people are unquestionably more desperate than ever to find … something.

A pursuit. A community. Anything that gives folks the simple power of purpose. Climbing may be exploding in popularity because of gyms, but the Crisis of Meaning that Millennial-and-younger generations in particular face cannot be overlooked as being at least one contributing factor in the sport’s growth. A law degree seems unlikely ever to pay for itself—but give us a rack, a rope, and a Sprinter #vanlife hashtag, and suddenly we feel flush in a kind of spiritual currency.

It’s fair to say that I’ve been critical of climbing’s self-promoters and social media influencers. Of course, this line of critique has roots as old as climbing itself, predating my vapid little writing career (which the cruel gods have allowed to continue due to how much glee it gives them to watch me suffer onward.)

Beginning with the very first people to climb mountains “for fun,” climbers have complicated their spiritual journeys by seeking external validation and relying on the support of sponsors. These things aren’t inherently bad, of course, but they certainly seem to make the typical mortal’s journey fraught with the kind of ethical landmines that can potentially derail your ability to be honest with yourself and understand clearly why you’re doing what you’re doing.

Climbers who are old enough to remember what climbing was like before social media will also remember how taboo it was to “spray” about your climbs—which is to say, to speak publicly of your own accomplishments in a way that might be seen as boastful, or, worse: to be seen as a mouthpiece for the brand that gave you the gear you used to wank off your latest proj. Spray was generally considered toxic, an externality to the job of being a professional climber, like sludge dumped into the river of your soul.

Social media has made these concerns obsolete in a way that only the most pessimistic climber could’ve foreseen. Climbing media and climbing discourse is so saturated with a kind of superficial self-aggrandizing bullshit that I sometimes feel crazy for even bringing it up since no one else seems to mind. No one, it seems, can be bothered to write anything longer than an Instagram post, which are inevitably filled with the same banal influencer groupthink.

It’s not bad. It’s just boring.

But that’s not what I wanted to write about today. … I wanted to write about a recent interaction that I had with a (relatively) old-school climber who gave me a glimpse into the other end of the spectrum: a climber who is almost pathologically averse to “spray.” And how this is also fraught with a different set of landmines that can equally derange a person’s relationship to this great (pointless) sport.

I don’t want to name this person but to give some context: this is a climber who actually did some amazing ascents in his heyday. This is a person who you used to read about in climbing magazines, when those were still relevant. This is a person who was the face of major ad campaigns, who launched cutting-edge expeditions in terms of the content of the climbs and the content of the media he created, which changed our perceptions of how far-flung adventures might be shared.

My interaction with this climber was depressing and sad. Here was a person who seemed to be so committed to never speaking of his ascents that he almost couldn’t bear to hear them brought up, as if they were embarrassing. Here was a person who sought to erase his name and route contributions from guidebooks, because in his mind why does he matter? He claims he already got what he got out of them—“the experience,” which no one could possibly understand. Here was a guy who claimed that even his young-adult children didn’t know much about what their dad once did, or who he once was.

At every turn of the conversation, he seemed to be lost in a storm of his own making. He was clutching to this righteous ideal—that one should not speak about their achievements in climbing—as if it were a veritable life raft and not a piece of skanky driftwood in a dark squall. He was grasping at the samurai code that one should not “spray” and yet all I saw was a master who had grown bitter and isolated with age. He’d long since given up on the climbing world. He’d long stopped caring about it. This once bright and meaningful enterprise seemed to have become a nihilistic black hole. Fuck em all. At least no one could accuse him of being a spray lord.

I didn’t believe it for a second. Of course some part of him still cares about climbing. Of course some part of him must care that his FAs have literally given other climbers some of the best climbing experiences of their lives. Of course he wants his kids to know that their dad was courageous on the rock, even if he was too scared to be vulnerable or gracious in the aftermath.

People talk about toxic masculinity as this parasitic blight on society, but here was a case of it eating away at its own host. I’ve written in the past about how masculinity desperately needs to be updated and revised, through new role models, through showing men the difference between being proud and being prideful, through showing men how vulnerability can be a kind of masculine strength.

No one likes the person who likes to spray about themselves just as no one likes the person who likes to receive gifts. For some people—myself included—receiving gifts from others, even from the god’s themselves, especially in times of need, can be one of the hardest things in the world. But you have to learn to let people do nice things for you, including singing your praises. Even if that seems like “spray.”

Climbing is an absurd and pointless activity. But if you actually treat it like that, you may accidentally end up throwing away one of the best gifts you’ll ever get in life.

The post The Gift of Spray and Climbing’s Dark Soul appeared first on Evening Sends.

Over the past year that I’ve become friends with Jordan Cannon, I’ve come to enjoy a particular kind of conversation we seem to have. Jordan approaches me with some kind of question or observation he’s wrestling with, usually about the climbing world at large, and I more or less just listen as he talks aloud and works through his thought process to arrive at a conclusion that in his heart he already knows is true. He’s extremely bright and self-aware, and can be self-conscious in an endearing way about everything, from whether someone assumes he doesn’t climb as hard as he actually does (and how to navigate this interaction politely) to the “right” way to approach his own grade progression in sport climbing.

He called me last week to let me know something far more important. “I’m coming out of the closet on my birthday,” he said.

“Congrats!” I said. And then, “How can I help?” as I knew there was something on his mind he needed to work through.

“I want to share the message that the climbing world at large has been one of the most open and accepting places for me. Without climbing, I’m not sure I would’ve been able to be myself,” he said. “But I also want to make sure that I don’t invalidate other people’s experiences, who may not have had such positive interactions in climbing. Also, I don’t want to become, ‘Jordan, the gay climber.’ I’m gay. I’m a climber. But I’m more than both.”

Years ago when I was working as an editor at one of the climbing magazines, I got into a very short-lived editorial dispute with my colleague Alison. We were running a little one-page profile on Madaleine Sorkin, an amazing female climber, who also happened to be a lesbian. The dispute involved the degree to which we should be focusing on this aspect of her life. To be clear, she was openly gay, and was explicitly fine with us mentioning this part of her identity in the pages of the magazine. That wasn’t the issue. The dispute was over whether it was even relevant to a story highlighting her climbing accomplishments.

Alison’s position was that of course we want to highlight this detail in the story, because it’s a way to show a member of a community that often isn’t represented in climbing media. Alison’s brother is gay, which certainly factored into her perspective. And for broader context, this was at a time when gays still lacked full civil rights because gay marriage still wasn’t yet legal in most places.

Of course, I understood this and was sympathetic to this position, but I wanted to raise a sort of devil’s advocate position to see if there was some kind first principles position on how we talk and write about identities in a climbing magazine. This created the kind of interesting behind-the-scenes conversation that made making a magazine such a rewarding experience. Readers would otherwise never know the degree of thoughtful discourse around topics like this, as well as all kinds of editorial decisions. But these were the regular and respectful interactions I experienced among colleagues, allowing us to sharpen our arguments and really think through any particular issue without fear of judgement let alone cancelation.

The concern I expressed to Alison was that our profile’s sexual preference ought not be all that relevant to her story as an amazing climber. I genuinely felt as if this was the more progressive position, too. I felt as if I was actually attempting to apply a principle of genuine equality, which is to say, to treat her like every other person whose sexual preferences are not relevant to who they are as climbers. Of course, I realized that we weren’t at a place in society where everyone was beginning at an equal place. But in my view, the best way to nudge norms toward the kind of world we aspire to live in, the kind of world in which such differences shouldn’t matter in any meaningful way—not in what we think of people nor in how we treat them politically, morally, or ethically—was to begin pulling these levers in small, minor ways. Such as making a climbing profile about the climbing and not the incidental identity or sexual preference of the subject.

I also worried that overly focusing on this one aspect of her story might cause readers to miss grasping the details that show what a good climber she is. When you can only fit so many words on a single page, each one has to be justified. Again, this the behind-the-scenes process of editorial decision making. Ultimately we landed in a good place. The profile mentioned her sexual identity but it was perhaps done a somewhat more subtle way than it was in the first draft. Most of the profile just described what a badass she is. Alison and I agreed it was well done, and we were happy to shine a spotlight on Madaleine, who remains a good friend of mine to this day.

It’s interesting for me to remember this discussion in light of where our culture is at this moment, in which identity has taken on a kind of super-sized presence in the greater discourse. I’m not sure if my position has changed all that much, to be honest, but I certainly acknowledge that society has gone in the opposite direction.

As I spoke with Jordan on the phone, and heard him talk through his own concerns, I could hear him wrestling with this very crux, the one in which your identity, especially when it is part of a traditionally marginalized group, ought to take on such importance. Why should it matter? And yet … it does, in terms of representation and what it might mean to others who are like you and deserve to see your example of success.

In fact, Madeline recently told me she received feedback from queer climbers after the profile was published, who told her how meaningful it was for them to see her represented in the pages of the magazine. They had never seen an openly gay sponsored climber before.

And yet, over a decade later, we somehow find ourselves living in a culture in which it’s become even more difficult to talk about identity. The numerous landmines around this discourse have added yet more layers of complication, confusion, and pressure on Jordan, making what was already a difficult decision for him to come out feel even more fraught and complicated.

All of this is only the beginning of the full story. We invited Jordan to come on The RunOut podcast to share his experiences as a closeted gay climber who grew up in a religious family and a conservative context, and talk about his experience. He spoke about how climbing became the catalyst for him to finally feel comfortable being himself—openly and honestly. It was one of my favorite episodes yet in part because Jordan was so open and honest in sharing his concerns around maintaining his individuality within a new public identity. Hearing his story made me feel sad that there remains such hurdles to the gay community in being open. But it also made me proud to be a climber, proud to be part of this largely open and accepting community, and mostly proud of and happy for Jordan. I loved this conversation because I got to share in this wonderful feeling of seeing my friend step honestly and openly into the person he is: a climber. A now openly gay man. And so much more.

You can check out our conversation with Jordan at The RunOut podcast, and be sure to also wish Jordan a Happy Birthday and happy coming out day in the comments on his Instagram post.

Photos by Ben Ditto

Jordan Cannon’s birthday Instagram.

Watch “Free as Can Be,” Samuel Crossley’s documentary on Jordan and Mark’s bid on Free Rider.

The post Jordan Cannon Comes Out appeared first on Evening Sends.

Because 2020 was supposed to be the year everyone went gaga over the Olympics and indoor climbing and blah blah blah, just about every climbing company released products intended piggyback of this expectant stoke for parkouring across volumes and sprinting up speed climbs. The La Sportiva Theory, the Solution Comp (stay tuned for review), and the 4.99 (a nod to breaking the elusive 5 second barrier in speed climbing) were all new super-soft 2020 additions to the Italian shoemaker’s line-up that were designed to cater to this trend.

Unfortunately gyms have been all but closed over the past year, people have forgotten that the Olympics is even a thing, and most people have been sneaking outside and carefully traveling to crags and trying not to spread their covid germs to local populations. It’s been a revival of outdoor climbing—or an influx that has overrun crags, depending on how you want to look at it.

Fortunately for me, an outdoor climber, I prefer very soft shoes for most (not all) routes and boulders, and the La Sportiva Theory has been my go-to over the past 6 months of testing.

This post contains affiliate links that help support Evening Sends.

Specifications

L

Upper material: microfiber, leather.

L

Vibram XS Grip2 (2 – 3.5mm). Very thin!

L

Downturned toe, aggressively assymetrical last. Unlined, so it will stretch a bit.

L

True to size. Choose your normal Sportiva shoe size.

Fit

I have a medium-wide foot, and in general, Sportiva shoes feel a bit too narrow for me to really love them. People with narrower feet, of course, will prefer the Sportiva. I found the heel in the Theory to fit me perfectly, which makes me wonder if the typical narrow-footed climber might find it a bit baggy(?). My toes were bunched up in the toe box, not because I had the wrong size but because the shoe is a bit narrow for my feet. However because because the shoe is so soft, it was never painful as long as I got my toes wiggled in the right way.

Design

A single Velcro strap is almost superfluous because the shoe has such a good suction-cup fit, but it adds a bit of additional security, especially on heel hooks so that your heel doesn’t pop out.

Performance

“In theory, I shouldn’t fall, right?” I said, he he he, to my belayer as I cast off a project I was preparing to hang on no fewer than 20 times. This was the first time I was wearing the Theory and I had high hopes. That little line cursed me, however, because my foot popped off a smear unexpectedly in a place I normally would never slip.

“An inauspicious start,” I muttered to myself, dangling at the end of the rope.

It’s hard to talk about a “break in period” for a shoe that is so soft you could stuff it in the pocket of your cargo shorts, if, god forbid, you wear such things. And yet that seemed to be the case. It took a few pitches for the shoe to conform to my foot and give me that sense of confidence of really feeling what I’m standing on, which is what I love about softer shoes.

The toe has a bit of a point to it, though perhaps not quite as pronounced as the Testarossa, which gives a feeling of precision. The Theory really excels on toe hooks thanks to a thin patch of textured rubber on the top of your foot, which really helps you bite into bicycles or toe hooks.

I recently took these for a spin on a new 40-meter 5.12d near my house—a gently overhanging, very footwork intensive route. These were not the right shoes for that. If you’re climbing routes that force you to be doing a lot of standing on your feet, you’ll almost certainly want more support.

However, for shorter and more overhanging routes, for boulder problems, for Moon Boarding, and of course, for doing parkour tricks on indoor comp problems, the Theory are excellent option.

The post La Sportiva Theory appeared first on Evening Sends.

Many people have benefited from the explosion of climbing’s popularity over the past 10 years, primarily and most importantly, all of the thousands if not millions who have gotten to experience firsthand what a wonderful sport, community, and lifestyle that climbing presents.

Many other people, who have been climbers for a long time, have also benefited from climbing’s recent explosion, myself included. If you’ve got a toe in some hot commodity, the temptation is to dive in. I’ve done it. Pro climbers have done it. Climbing media has done it. The climbing industry has done it. Climbing’s non-profits have done it. And now the pool is full.

Climbing has “exploded.” Climbing is the face of our next campaign. Climbing is how we get paid. Climbing is how we get some influence. Climbing is our opportunity. Let’s start by building a gym. Then let’s build another gym, only make it bigger, taller, and with better childcare. Let’s sell it to the one gym conglomerate so that they have the monopoly over the area. Now your pass works everywhere. Now you can train in DerpyDoo South on Wednesdays and DerpyDee North on Thursdays. Let’s do it responsibly. Let’s organize some gym-to-crag initiatives. Let’s get some donuts. Remember to check your knot and pack out your shit. Here’s your membership card and a sticker. Put it on your helmet and go straight to the Creek. The desert is where you create content for your feed. Now we’re on the AP. Now we’re on Good Morning America. This is professional content. We’re all engaged. Let’s start treating climbers as if they’re celebrities. Let’s get climbing in the Olympics. Let’s design next season’s line around an Olympic theme. Actually, we love speed climbing. Always have, too. Let’s get actual Hollywood celebrities climbing. Now they’re cool. Plus they only climb with the best climbers in the world. Hey, let’s do a collab. What about with Gucci? What about with Haliburton? Can we put some solar panels up somewhere? We’re good people now. Can we offset our carbon emissions? Gimme that $700 shell. Gimme that around-the-town downie. Gimme that designer hyperbaric oxygen tent. Let’s get the red blood cell count going. We’re all training now. We’re all fit. We’re all in performance mode. Let’s smash some climbing supplements down our throats and piss all over our projects with our vitamin-enriched urine. Let’s give climbing an Oscar. Maybe if we have time, we can squeeze in a mention of the climber who did the thing that made the whole film a film. Whatever. Who really cares about the actual climbing part? 5.15 five.shmifteen. Give us drama. Give us relationships. This is the Real World, bitch. Give us a relevant targeted message with good SEO. Get the president tweeting about it, as long as it’s the right president. Get climbing on billboards, buses, Times Square, Instagram squares. Actually, those are the most important squares. That’s where the money is. QVC for Gen Z. Get those metrics up. Influence the fuck out of everyone. Get your hashtags going. Everyone must know that #THISisClimbing and #YouCanClimbToo. We’re not elitist! Climbing is for everyone! Everyone can have fun! Everyone can be a climber! Everyone can be engaged! Are you engaged yet?

Several disconcerting and objectively-bad-for-climbing stories have emerged over the past few weeks. First, some fucking guy bolted a 5.3 up a wall of petroglyphs. When I saw that headline, I literally thought this story was a remnant of the lame and unimaginative April Fool’s posts that increasingly irrelevant media conglomerates, desperate for clicks, hire free interns to create ad infinitum in advance of April 1st. This is why I didn’t click on the click-bait-y headline of “climber bolts 5.3 up a wall of petroglyphs” until I was told by others that this thing actually happened. I couldn’t believe it—and yet, of course I could.

Next, I was on virtual stroll through my Instagram stories when I saw people sharing a video of a kid gouging out the start hold on a boulder problem with a rock. Chipping is back, although to be fair, perhaps it never left. But at least people were more discreet about it. Again, I couldn’t believe it—and yet …

And now, we are entering a cycle of stories about how land managers are cracking down on climbers’ access via permit systems. These permits are popping up everywhere from Rocky Mountain National Park to Yosemite. And there are talks of bringing this to other areas like Eldorado Canyon. And guess what, once they’re there, they’re not going away.

Climbing is popular. Climbing has exploded. What did we think was going to happen?

There are many productive and useful conversations to have about what we can do about each or any of these issues. That’s not the purpose of this morning’s rant. The point is to remember that each of these disparate stories have one thing in common: they are the externalities of climbing’s unbridled growth and popularity. This is the new world we live in—and it’s a world that we all had a hand in creating.

If you think some guy bolting a wall of petroglyphs—let alone a spate of 5.3s, which somehow adds yet another layer of offense and insult to the whole thing—is the result of not enough education about indigenous issues in climbing, not enough gym-to-crag initiatives, not enough outreach, you’re wrong. When your population size gets large enough, inevitably we will have lone wolves who go out into these public spaces and do things that ruin everything for everyone else. Most people are good and play by the rules, but there are always those at the margins. They are by nature unpredictable. What’s so discouraging is that they have the capacity to ruin it for everyone. One especially bad tragedy. One particularly egregious offense. One particularly unlucky mishap. It’s all it takes.

Now that I’ve gotten that off my chest, I’ll be trying to spend some time over the next couple weeks addressing these issues more seriously. There are solutions to be imagined. Till then, hold the line.

The post Climbing’s popular. What did you think would happen? appeared first on Evening Sends.

At some point in the course of climbing’s history, the idea of equating tighter shoes with higher performance became a truth as unassailable as the granite of El Cap. The culture of tight shoes took hold in the community, persuading generation upon generation to perpetuate this masochistic ritual of binding one’s feet in painfully tight shackles of rubber and leather, pushing through the discomfort, and later raving about how much “fun” climbing is.

My feet have actually shrunk a whole size after nearly 15 years of crunching my little piggies into the tightest-fitting climbing shoes I could stand. I was as deluded as anyone about the gains in performance I’d get from bound feet. Well, I stand here today, hobbit-footed and humbled, to tell you that your shoes are too tight, too stiff and too painful. And they’re not only holding back your climbing, but causing lasting damage to your feet. Let’s look at why your climbing shoes are too tight.

Bunions. Corns. Nerve or blood vessel compression (which causes that tingling sensation you feel after edging in a pair of tight, new shoes). Hallux valgus (when the big toe becomes angled in). These are just some of the problems associated with wearing overly tight shoes.

A 1998 study published in the Journal of the American Podiatric Medicine Association surveyed 104 rock climbers and discovered that 81% of them suffered acute or chronic pain during or after climbing.  “The authors propose that this morbidity has biomechanical [causes] related to the common practice among rock climbers of wearing climbing shoes that are smaller than their street shoes.”

There are other problems with wearing too-tight footwear. When the toes are bonded into one unit—as they are in tight climbing shoes—it makes it very difficult for the foot and ankle to absorb the impact of a fall. This could easily explain all the boulderers you see out there hobbling around on crutches.

Another concern is how tight-fitting climbing footwear will impact the development of a child’s foot. According to the blog of Tom Bond, a physiotherapist in the U.K., “Any children’s shoes that are too tight or too small will limit the growth of a child’s foot at the key stages of their development. A poorly developed foot will impact a child for the rest of their life.” He cites a study of the German Junior National Team, which found a correlation between incidences of hallux valgus and time spent climbing indoors. In other words, the longer you wear tight-fitting shoes, the more likely your foot is to become deformed.  Bond suggests that climbing footwear for kids should be flexible, not cut into the Achilles tendon, not contain too much cushioning, not be restrictive, and be well ventilated because kids’ feet tend to sweat a lot. And because kids can grow three shoe sizes in a year, shoes should be checked and replaced often.

My theory about the origin of the culture of tight-fitting shoes is that it’s related the fact that early iterations of climbing footwear were so poorly designed, climbers sized their shoes down in order to compensate for what was, essentially, bad fit.

There is actually very little evidence to support the idea that super-tight shoes increase performance. I recently finished reviewing the best new climbing shoes in 2021. At this point, I’ve tested more than half of the climbing shoes on the market. After trying on so many models after so many years, my opinion about what makes a great or high-performance climbing shoe has changed in some ways, and stayed the same in others.

If I had to generalize about what I’ve discovered, I could say that the stiffer the climbing shoe, the more likely it is to be uncomfortable, especially when it’s even slightly too snug. Conversely, the softer the climbing shoe, the more likely it is to be comfortable, even if it is quite snug.  Obviously, craftsmanship plays a huge role in finding that softness/stiffness balance, not to mention the ability to leave zero dead space in the shoe without making it too painful to wear.

What kind of climbing shoe do you need?

Today, when I’m searching for an ideal high-performance gym or bouldering shoe, I want a super soft slipper that fits close enough that there are no dead spaces in the heel or under the arch of my foot.  But when I’m looking for a shoe for all-day trad climbs, I want the support of a slightly stiffer model. Here, I’ll be looking for a shoe that is roomy enough to allow me to wiggle my toes and even wear a lightweight silk sock underneath, but not be so roomy that the shoe rolls over the top of my toes when I’m edging.

Generally, for sport/bouldering/gym shoes, look for a fit where all your toes are touching the front and are slightly curled in your shoes. You need to be able to press with all parts of the foot, not just the big toe. The key is you want it to be snug, not painfully tight. The right shoe allows your toes to gently curl but isn’t painful to wear. If you’re looking for a crack-climbing slipper, your toes need to be flat, but should still be touching the edge of the shoe.

When you’re shopping, also be aware of whether a shoe is lined or unlined. Lined shoes don’t stretch,  unlined shoes stretch a lot. Some people automatically assume that their climbing shoes are going to stretch at least a size, and buy too-small shoes as a result. However, there really are only a few unlined shoes actually still made; most shoes on the market have a lining.

In all cases, a great high-performance design and last, coupled with proper fit, will create an ideal situation in which you can climb your best but not at the expense of your feet. With nearly 150 different shoes on the market today, your odds of finding a shoe that fits your foot are pretty good. That said, of all the shoes I’ve tested, there are only a few that I consider to work for me. As you’re looking for the right climbing shoe, just remember that going for tightness to compensate for a poor-fitting design not only won’t help your climbing but will do lasting damage to your foot for no reason whatsoever.

Go for fit. Above brand. Above reviews. Above what others say. Above what famous athletes wear. And make sure that fit is comfortable. If you’re in pain after one pitch, you should either size up or move on to a different model.

The post Your Climbing Shoes Are Too Tight appeared first on Evening Sends.

The post Divided or Climb United: the Route Name Problem appeared first on Evening Sends.

I spent the weekend perched beneath an outcrop of tasty rock at the edge of a salt flat that stretched out before us over some mind-numbing distance. Islands of rock and rising mountains broke the horizon and provided a sense of perspective. It was a trippy landscape to ponder, especially after a few whacks of whisky and a belly full of red meat.

“Imagine walking across that flat,” I mused to my friend Sam, thinking about the grim prospect of having to hike into a landscape that would provide no sense of progress made or distance yet to be overcome. “You’d lose your mind.”

“There are studies that show that without points of reference, people end up just walking in circles,” Sam said. “You’d be totally fucked.”

This idea immediately captured my imagination. Apparently, it’s true as well. Without any visual reference points, we are unable to walk in a straight line. Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics dubbed the phenomenon “lost-hiker deja vu,” and attribute the phenomenon to how our brains are constantly recalibrating our sense of what’s “straight ahead.” This, combined with small deviations in our steps, has the effect of sending us spiraling.

There’s an obvious existential absurdity to our apparent predicament. Headway can be only a mirage rising above a rippled salt flat. I sometimes wonder if true progress is even possible in our lives, or if we’re always just recalibrating our senses of what constitutes “straight ahead.” There’s no shame in falling short in achieving your goals, of course. I’m just curious about how our clever brains deceive us when we redefine what counts as success, giving us a false sense that we are indeed “moving forward.”

It was a humbling weekend of flailing on the rock for me. I experienced the humiliating trauma of hanging from a jug and pulling up the rope two or three times only to drop it when I found myself at the last moment unable to clip because I was too pumped, before finally just grabbing the damn draw. It’s the kind of embarrassment that makes you feel as if you have to apologize to your belayer for taking in and dishing out slack so many times in a row.

My goals as a person and a climber are very different today than they were five or ten years ago. My former self would probably scoff at the lowering of the bar of my own aspirations. And yet, here I am, recalibrating what it means to move forward, even if I am just deceiving myself by making one large, hopeless circle.

Jonathan Siegrist told me recently he gets messages occasionally from climbers wanting to know how to “get better.” His response, he said, is always the same, “Get better at what?” Climbing, they’ll usually say. “No, that’s not good enough,” he’ll reply. “You need a specific goal.”

Well, the brutal work of getting back some fitness lies ahead. Whatever. It’s the early season still. This fall, with one kid on her way to kindergarten and the other off to pre-school, the prospect of having more time than usual to climb has emerged like a distant peak at the edge of a still and vast plateau. Time to circle a new goal and step straight ahead.

The post Climbing in Circles and Making Progress appeared first on Evening Sends.

If you’re an American who pays attention to what goes on in climbing, you may have heard of a guy named James McHaffie—especially as he is now in the news for having sent every route in Ken Wilson’s classic guidebook Extreme Rock. You may know something about how James McHaffie, or “Caff,” is a badass trad climber from Wales. If you’re Very Online, it’s possible you’ve come across some of his trip reports and musings on his blog, on which some of his surlier rants have appeared. Those articles, along with his general in-person demeanor, which can be that of a foul-mouthed Hamlet, have affectionately earned him the nickname Dark Lord among his U.K. compatriots.

If you’ve gotten that far in your comprehension of Caff, you probably won’t get much further as you will quickly enter the morass of unpronounceable Welsh route names and crags that comprise much of his ticklist. These confusing words, pointlessly laden with consonants (or seemingly so), have the effect of rendering Caff’s curriculum vitae largely inscrutable to the average American climber.

Beyond the unreadable words, there’s also the fact that pictures of these places often don’t do the climbing justice. Slate slabs, jumbled sea cliffs, and squat blocks of Grit don’t electrify the imagination in the same way as, say, El Capitan. Wait, why do you need two ropes just to climb 35 feet of rock? Clogwyn Durr Whaaa? It’s all just confusing to us, We the People of United States, who are as fiercely proud and as savagely dumb as we like, fuck you very much.

Another reason you may be only dimly aware of Caff and his status as one of the best trad climbers in the world is that he doesn’t play the usual pro-climber games. He doesn’t go to the Place Where All the Pros Go, to tick that One Route that all the other pros do—whatever route that happens to be that year. Even within the U.K.’s own climbing pecking order, Caff has demonstrated a preference for logging mileage over the big headline-grabbing ascents. He’s onsighted over 100 E7s, which is more onsights of this grade than all the other top U.K. climbers have amassed together.

His social media “presence” sucks, objectively so. The metrics aren’t even there to justify a chalk bag sponsorship. You’re more likely to find him on the lash in some dingy pub than on a Instagram hashtag.

James McHaffie works. He comes from a humble background. He doesn’t have loads of money or tons of time. He’s a core dirtbag. His climbing, therefore, is necessarily local—a process of scraping together the odd weekend trips when the weather’s decent and he isn’t working as a climbing instructor / guide, or executing his duties for the BMC as their Youth and Equity Officer, which means his job is finding ways to give kids in urban areas more climbing and outdoor opportunities.

For all his dark glowering, he’s also a guy who always removes his sunglasses when speaking to you. He’s polite in that way. He wants to look you on the eye and make that connection. That’s why the people in his life, his friends, the people ruthlessly taking the piss at Caff’s expense, seem to actually love the guy. “He’s a bit of a cunt,” Ben Bransby said. Nothing but respect.

So now that you know who James McHaffie is, let’s discuss what he just did.

In the 1980s, Ken Wilson put out a trilogy of books listing famous routes around the United Kingdom. The books are organized into an elitist hierarchy, divided up by grade and titled Classic Rock, Hard Rock, and Extreme Rock. The latter book really is the one to get, only now you can’t as it’s out of print and anyone who has one would never consider parting with it. It’s that treasured. Only 4,000 copies were printed, and a warehouse fire destroyed the next print run. It’s a cherished heirloom, passed down through generations of climbing groms to fill their hearts with fear and reverence for those climbers who came before them and perhaps inspire them to test themselves against such fearsome routes as Indian Face.

Though Extreme Rock contains 180 routes, spanning the range of E grades (E for Extreme, in the U.K.’s quirky rating system), it isn’t a guidebook, per se. The 50 Classic Climbs of North America by Steve Roper is perhaps our closest equivalent—a list of climbs but more so a historical document. Extreme Rock such a prized tome is that it is filled with the stories of climbing legends and the absurd death-defying games they’ve played in the name of relying on minimal gear and maximal courage while pushing the limits on the U.K.’s scrappy outcrops.

This week, James McHaffie sent Jerry Moffatt’s desperate sport route Revelations (8b) at Raven’s Tor, which marked the last of the 180 routes on the list. Though this route was one of the hardest in terms of technical difficulty, it was actually the Master’s Wall at Clogwyn Du’r Arddu (Cloggy) that was the real breakthrough in Caff’s quest to complete Extreme Rock.

Master’s Wall is adjacent to Indian Face, and is historically considered to be the easier and safer of the two veritable death climbs. As a 19-year-old, Caff nearly died on this route. He reached a place where he was stuck—either unwilling or unable to climb any further into the teeth of horrifying run-out, and also unable to down climb from his position. His belayer left him to run around to the top of the cliff to drop down a rope to save Caff from a deadly fall.

As Adam Wilde, his belayer, scurried up the mountain, Caff became increasingly exhausted hanging on by his fingers. He untied from his ropes and dropped all his gear to save weight, so now he was just perched on a precarious high step, free soloing amid one of the hardest climbs in the U.K.

It felt as if he was there for ages and ages. In fact, he was probably there for two hours. The mental torture of this position defies most imaginations. Caff was beginning to resign himself to just falling and getting it all over with. And just when he could tolerate the torture no more, finally a rope came down the wall. Adam had, at long last, come to the rescue.

Only the rope was just out of reach. Caff stretched his arm, his fingers aching to grab hold. He just couldn’t quite reach it. Please, please, please …

The rope flicked close enough for Caff to grab it, and grab it he did. He slid down the rope, burning his hands to bits and crumpled into a pile at the base of the wall. He found himself sobbing uncontrollably, whether out of pain or relief at being alive, who could say?

He recovered, ultimately, though he lost all his fingernails and toenails from those two hours spent death-gripping the rock. He returned and ticked the more infamous Indian Face without nearly as much drama, but the Master’s Wall was being a real fucking bitch. He tried it again, and again experienced a harrowing escape from a hook, before finally ticking the route in 2018, 18 years after his epic. It was then that he knew he’d gotten through the gauntlet, and could finally complete Ken Wilson’s book.

With his ascent of Revelations this past week, Caff achieved a goal with major significance and meaning to many climbers across the U.K. It would be a shame if we climbers around the world, even us ignoramuses in America, didn’t also understand the incredible effort this required and appreciate the death-defying journey this feat took.

Congrats, Caff. I’ll be downing a pint of bitter in your honor.

The post A Dumb American’s Guide to James McHaffie and What He Just Did appeared first on Evening Sends.

Jonathan Siegrist spent some time out in the west desert of Utah this spring to tick a James Litz route called Peruvian Necktie. I have to admit that I hadn’t even heard that the famously reclusive Litz had established a 5.15b out here, matching Jumbo Love as being one of the hardest sports in the United States. It doesn’t surprise me at all, of course, as I’ve long known that Litz has some of the strongest fingers and tendons ever to touch rock.

I actually got to spend a few days recently with Jonathan Siegrist at this rare and random cliff perched at the edge of the salt flats, as well as a whole crew that included Sam Elias, Matt Segal, Drew Smith, and Leif Gasch. We grilled meat and drank whisky and while I flailed around and got pumped as shit, I watched Jonathan run laps on 5.14b’s and made them look like 5.10. His ability to make really hard climbing look as casual as can be is something to behold.

Jonathan Siegrist’s legacy and career is nothing short of prolific. Check out our interview with Jonathan over at The RunOut podcast, which was one of my favorite episodes. In that conversation I try to push him on how many 5.15s he has done, particularly in the United States, which still has a reputation for being behind Europe in terms of quantity or quality of routes at this level. Jonathan Siegrist is definitely doing more than his fair share of bringing the United States up to that level. This summer, he’ll be back at work on a new cliff outside of Las Vegas that certainly promises to be one of the future centers of hard sport climbing in America.

I really enjoyed this beautifully shot and edited film by Nate Liles (@orographic_visual on Instagram). It was also really cool to meet earlier Nate this year out in Penitente. Definitely follow his work since he’s putting together some sick climbing films and stills.

The post Jonathan Siegrist Styles Peruvian Necktie (5.15b) appeared first on Evening Sends.

I was in college when Chris Sharma did the first ascent of the Biographie extension at Céuse. At the time the internet’s primary function, at least in my crude estimation, was to allow for the acquisition of pirated material. Thus, my hard drive was filled primarily with music copped from Napster and Climb X Media bouldering videos. The video of Sharma sending what was then called Realization and considered the world’s first 5.15 was one of my most cherished files on my computer.

I watched that video before any climbing outing to get hyped up, or anytime I felt like procrastinating coursework. The progression of distinctive Sharma screams, culminating in a big one when he sticks the jug at the end of the crux sequence—cue the reggae—are etched in my memory and still connected to a certain adrenal response.

When I watch this remastered release of Margo Hayes doing the first female ascent of what is arguably the world’s first 5.15, of course I couldn’t help but find myself comparing the two videos. Margo’s groundbreaking ascent in 2017 came 16 years after Sharma’s. (She was only 3 years old at the time he did it.) Watching this video of Margo Hayes, which was featured in a recent REEL ROCK tour, and thinking back to that old Chris Sharma video, I find myself thinking that her ascent completes the story of Biographie in some interesting way.

I’ve long admired Margo Hayes’ climbing style—the epitome of gracefulness and poise. Her posture on the wall is perfect. She stands tall and keeps her hips close to the rock. This video captures her precision and masterful execution of each move. She’s looking for feet in synchronicity to latching handholds. She’s not screaming or flexing but flowing. I grimace at invoking the cliche of dancing up the wall, but if there were ever a climber for whom this analogy is felicitous, it must be Margo Hayes.

Of course not all first female ascents are inherently noteworthy (just as not all first ascents are inherently noteworthy), but some are. This one absolutely is. And that’s what I mean when I say that her ascent completes the story of Biographie.

This video captures an expression of pinnacle feminine climbing prowess. I’m struck by the contrast to Sharma’s paradigmatic masculine display. This duality encompasses everything that’s great about rock climbing. Behold how one route, one sequence etched into a beautiful piece of stone eons ago, becomes this stage upon which men and women can simultaneously achieve equal standing and do so in such strikingly different ways by appealing to their innate and natural strengths.

If this doesn’t get you hyped up, I don’t know what would.

Cheers to the REEL ROCK crew for treating us to this recent spate of remastered releases.

The post Margo Hayes, Chris Sharma, and the Duality of Biographie appeared first on Evening Sends.

My surly buddy and renowned podcasting juggernaut Chris Kalous, who wears around his old-school trad-climbing pedigree like a prize badge, used my new Petzl Grigri+ once (1 time) to belay me and then went out the very next day to buy his own.

Of course, he was upgrading from an old, original Grigri, whose cam was caked in sediment and whose rivet hung as loosely any of the 1930s-era mank you’d find in the Dolomites. But still … his enthusiasm for the latest update to the most widely used assisted-braking belay device in the world—and certainly my own personal favorite—speaks to some of the exciting new features in this latest offering from Petzl.

Specifications

L

Belay device with cam-assisted blocking, designed for the gym and crag

L

Compatible with all 8.5-11mm dynamic ropes

L

200g

L

$129. Available at REI.

(This post contains affiliate links)

Why Consider the Petzl Grigri+

For many tasks, the Petzl Grigri+ operates exactly the same as the still-great Petzl Grigri, yet a few nifty upgrades to the device give it an edge with better safety and greater longevity. Those improvements, however, have also made the Grigri+ heavier than its predecessor, although not by much.

The most notable new feature is the “anti-panic” lever, which intends to prevent a situation in which a belayer, while lowering a climber, pulls back on the lever too hard and lowers the climber out of control and/or drops the climber. In such a situation in which one “panics” and pulls back on the lever as if it were broken slot machine, the internal cam pivots and locks back down on the rope. Thank sweet baby Jesus! Crisis averted! In order to release the cam again, simply let go of the lever, recite a calming mantra to yourself, take a deep breath and/or a sip of herbal tea, and then slowly pull back on the lever again and continue to lower. Namaste.

Other new features include the addition of steel to high-wear areas. There is new a steel edge for lowering, and a steel stopper on the climber-side of the Grigri. The steel accounts for much of the increase in weight in the Grigri+ over the 2, but its addition is really smart and much appreciated, particularly if you’re a person who has burned through other Grigris by gouging out the device’s aluminum lowering edge.

Props to Petzl for having the confidence to buck the trend of introducing increasingly hyper-light equipment each and every season simply for the sake of claiming a lightweight superlative, and instead beefing up the device for performance and safety purposes.

Finally, another interesting addition is the ability to switch between lead-belay mode and toprope-belay mode via a switch located on the backside of the device. This switch adjusts the cam’s tension and makes it slightly easier to feed slack in lead-belay mode, and provides slightly more rope bite in toprope-belay mode.

How It Performs

Feeding slack to a lead climber, and even belaying in a top-rope situation, is virtually identical to the Grigri 2 from a performance perspective—which is great. I noticed no real difference in performance between either device when executing these two tasks.

In terms of the switch on the back of the device, I must admit that I don’t ever use the toprope-belay mode. I keep the device in lead-belay since that is what I most often do. I didn’t notice a significant difference between the two modes anyway, to be honest.

I did notice a huge improvement in performance when lowering a partner off of a route, however. With the Petzl GriGri+, I feel as if I have a significant increase in control. The action of the lever has improved and become much smoother over the Grigri. There’s a lot more give with the lever, which helps prevent the dreaded speed drop. Now I feel more confident lowering my partner, with or without a belay glove.

And that confidence goes both ways. When I’m on the other side of the GriGri+, I feel safer in knowing that my partner is going to lower me smoothly without any of those occasional surprise hiccups in which you get dropped three feet for seemingly no reason.

I was initially concerned that the anti-panic function would engage too easily, and would thus make it an annoyance, like social media, that you just have to deal with. I was happy to discover this was not the case. Although the feature engages every now and then while I’m lowering, for the most part, it’s a non-issue.

The Petzl GriGri+ gets my vote for providing the most control in lowering your partner when compared to every other assisted-breaking device on the market that I’ve tried. Nothing that I’ve tested is as smooth or confidence inspiring. And with the new steel plates, I am positive that I’ll be using this device for years to come.

Bottom Line

If you already own a relatively new Grigri, there’s no real rush to run out and buy a Petzl GriGri+. The Grigri is a fantastic and totally safe belay device. However, I would absolutely consider making the GriGri+ the next one you get because it’s even more fantastic and safer by a significant degree.

And if you’re like my buddy Kalous, and are using an original Grigri or, worse, anything else, then you should definitely add a Petzl Grigri+ to your kit.

The post Do I Need the Petzl Grigri+? appeared first on Evening Sends.

In considering Yosemite’s new Wilderness Climbing Permit (WCP) plan and the issues with crowds that have cropped up on El Capitan, I find myself drawing a parallel to Mount Everest. Suffice to say, no one wants Yosemite or El Cap to turn into the next Everest. Yet Everest and El Cap already have a lot in common.

Both objectives suffer from a concentration of crowding on only two of their myriad routes. El Capitan has over 100 climbs, but the Nose and the Salathé Wall are where you’ll find 99 percent of the people. Likewise, on Everest, it’s just the South Col and North Col routes that are slammed.

Into Thin Air and descriptions of Everest as a fecal snow cone sprinkled with fixed ropes, oxygen canisters, squeezy gels, and dead bodies have done nothing to deter the queue of oxygen-sucking C-suite executives and aspiring motivational speakers from forming in base camp each year. And in Yosemite, the sight of 30 people big-walling up the Nose and just as many free climbers rapping down the Salathé to sport-project the Headwall has made other climbers think, “Hey, maybe I should go up there, too!”

Why is this? At a superficial level, both Everest and El Cap are the kind of bucket list achievements that impress people sitting next to you on an airplane, even if many climbers typically consider these ticks on par with running a marathon, which is to say, a tough achievement but also something that almost anyone can do. Hence, lots of people doing it. These once rarified places have gotten so crowded that you could probably have a richer wilderness experience at your local municipal pool.

Speaking of Wilderness, Yosemite’s Wilderness Climbing Permit plan is a new pilot program asserting that all overnight big-wall climbers must now obtain a permit, in person, 4–15 days in advance of their ascents. This permit only applies to climbers who plan to spend the night on the wall, and doesn’t apply to climbers out for a day, presumably even a “long” one. There’s also no fee and no limits on the number of permits that may be issued.

Yosemite’s justification for enacting the WCP is that they want Park Service rangers to be able to talk to big-wall climbers in person and educate them on Leave No Trace practices prior to their multi-day ascents. They also want to collect data and understand use patterns on El Cap, which could help them better monitor the impacts climbers have.

On its face, the WCP seems reasonable. It’s worth remembering that climbers have historically received special treatment in regards to their ability to “camp”—i.e., sleep on portaledges—in the “Wilderness”—i.e., on El Capitan. All other National Park user groups have always required a permit to camp, and so why should climbers be special just because we happen to sleep on ledges a thousand feet up a cliff?

Besides, is it really such a big deal to get your free permit and shake a ranger’s hand in advance of your ascent?

I guess that all depends on what comes next, and where this leads. Climbers have very good reason to be wary of every new rule that tries to rein in our access to the rock. We’ve seen numerous examples of how rules beget more rules, and can ultimately lead to closures. Is the WCP setting a foundation for an ultimately draconian system that would severely limit our access to El Cap? Though no limits exist on the number of permits that may be issued, you’d be foolish not to realize that a cap on Cap permits is almost certainly on its way.

As reasonable as this pilot program seems at the moment, many climbers are predictably upset. (Tom Evans of the El Cap Report has the best deep dive into this topic that I’ve seen.)

Some of the reasons climbers are pushing back against the WCP include disliking the time constraint of the permit. Climbers are also skeptical of the permit’s justification: that if you want to record the actual number of people who climb El Cap, count the number of people who reach the top, not the number of people who say they want to climb it, since many don’t make it more than a day up the wall. Finally, climbers don’t like the idea of having a face-to-face interaction with rangers each and every time they want to climb, and would prefer an online-based system instead. This might be especially true for Bay-area weekend warriors, for example, who want to sneak in an overnight ascent of El Cap on Saturday, but wouldn’t want to wait around all morning to get a permit in person.

All this makes sense to some degree, though I think that both the justifications for the WCP and the pushback against it are dancing around the main problems on El Cap. In doing so, we are failing to consider real solutions.

First, let’s acknowledge that the only problematic routes on El Cap are the Nose and the Salathé Wall (under which I include the very popular free climbs that branch off it, such as Golden Gate and Free Rider). If basically only two routes are causing all of the problems, does it really make sense to regulate all overnight big-wall climbing in Yosemite?

The other big problem—and the one that rangers are most upset about—concerns the unofficial climber campground established on the summit of El Capitan over the past decade or two. This campground is a result of the fact that more people than ever are trying to free climb El Cap via the Salathé Wall and all its variants. Climbers have been stashing their supplies here, including hundreds of meters of static ropes, water, stoves, sleeping bags and pads, and even food in bear bins. These stashes are technically illegal, though rangers have mostly turned a blind eye to the problem.

That began to change in recent years, beginning with a ranger-led clean up of the summit of El Cap that involved hauling upwards of 15,000 pounds of “trash”—which mostly means many static ropes. Also, rangers have been doing an annual “Nose wipe” since 2006, which removes waste from the ledges and cracks of America’s most famous rock climb.

Twenty to 30 years ago, free climbing El Cap was not only rare, to do so represented the cutting edge of our sport. Free climbing El Cap became possible thanks to the use of sport-climbing tactics: rapping down the wall to top-rope or work the crux pitches before ultimately trying to free the route in a traditional ground-up fashion.

Today, it’s common for some climbers to spend an entire season, or multiple seasons, working their routes. This is all made possible thanks to the fixed-rope infrastructure and the practice of stashing gear on the summit. Again, the parallels here to Everest should give climbers pause.

Given that so many free climbers today are operating at such a high level, I think it’s time for us as a community to rethink whether we should “tolerate” this approach. Just last week, we saw an amazing effort by Amity Warme and Tyler Karow who free climbed Golden Gate ground up. And in working toward his incredible free ascent of the Nose, the teenage Connor Herson often projected the crux pitches by going ground-up with his dad Jim Herson on weekends before heading back to high school on Monday morning (although he also occasionally used the fixed lines to rap in as well). During these sessions of climbing the Nose, Connor often endured (politely) the nuisance of climbing around annoying fixed ropes set by a pro climber, who ended up not even sending the route that season while Connor did.

If a weekend warrior high schooler and a couple of climbers that at least I had never heard of before can do it, so can anyone else. Clearly, free climbing El Cap by going ground up is not only possible, it ought to become more common. This is what “progress” means in climbing—style and tactics improve with the general rise in ability. Top down “El Rapitan” tactics will always have a place in our sport—perhaps especially while pioneering new free climbs—but given all the problems caused by this tactic on the Salathé, should it be time for free climbers to change how they approach their goals on El Capitan?

No fixed ropes on the Salathé would mean fewer to no gear stashes on the summit. It would also mean fewer crowds on the wall. The overall climber impact would be less. The overall experience for climbers might be one of more inconvenience, more work, and ultimately demand more elite abilities—but is any of that bad?

This is the kind of grassroots solution—or at least a partial solution—to an actual problem that we need to be talking about.

One point of pride for climbers is our track record of effectuating changes via grassroots cultural shifts that set new norms of what we tolerate as acceptable behavior. Thirty years ago, climbers used to crap in brown paper bags and throw it off the wall into the talus. Climbers also used to throw their haul bags off the wall instead of carrying them down. These stupid-headed and unsustainable behaviors are now obsolete thanks to how we shifted the culture. We should realize that this grassroots approach to change is preferable to, and likely more effective than, any rule or regulation mandated by authorities.

What else can climbers do? Not leaving trash on the wall should go without saying. Choosing not to crowd climbs could also become a new norm. I know you want to do the Nose, but if you see 30 people on the wall, do you really think it’s wise to become the 31st? A hundred other routes exist on El Cap, probably with no one on them. Maybe do one of those instead.

Peeing into pee bottles and packing out our pee should also become the new norm—not just for El Cap but every multi-pitch. A brown streak of pee on Zodiac is visible from the El Cap meadow. You have to actually pack out the pee, too. Leaving gallon-sized jugs of community piss on ledges is the half-assed climber version of dog walkers who pick up their dog shit, but leave doggie bags on the trail (and don’t worry, they’ll definitely get them on the way down .)

What else? You tell me. Let’s have the conversation now. I’m not sure what “pilot program” means, but it suggests that the WCP is a WIP (work in progress). Can we show rangers that we are serious about addressing the real problems on El Cap by ourselves, without the need for rules, permits, and regulations? If climbers don’t make an effort to change the culture and behavior now, I can promise that we won’t like the new rules made for us.

The post Can Yosemite Climbers Fix El Cap, or is it Already Too Late? appeared first on Evening Sends.

Arc’teryx harnesses haven’t changed all that much in the years since they came out with their technology that spreads the load-bearing strands of a piece of webbing across the latitude of the swami belt and leg loops—something the company calls “Warp Strength Technology.” And that’s ok, because it means that hey have come up with a really good thing. What is there to say about the Arc’teryx C-quence that hasn’t been said about their other harnesses that I’ve raved about in years past?

I guess it’s more of the same—only better. In fact, this is the reason I named the Arc’teryx C-quence one of the best new harnesses that you can buy this year.

Arc’teryx C-quence Specs

L

Warp Strength Technology construction makes this another great Arc’teryx harness: low-profile, comfortable, and suitable to all applications.

L

4 gear loops, and ice clipper slots

L

Wear markers on tie-in points and belay loop

L

13.6 oz

L

$145 | Available at REI

This post contains affiliate links.

Arc’teryx C-quence: Performance and Comfort

The Arc’teryx C-quence is murdered out in all-black, which is my favorite color, of course. As you might imagine, it’s been a tough, well, forever, being in the climbing world where bright, punchy clown colors rule the day. Fortunately, the morose times we live in are becoming more aligned with my natural dark disposition, which makes me happy. Still, I love the little splash of red loops on this harness, which keeps the contrast distinct.

I sized up from my normal medium to fit my grotesquely sexy dad bod, but it was a bit too big, honestly. The leg loops, in particular, were pretty huge. In fact, other reviewers I’ve read have noted the larger-than-average leg loops on this rig, so I’d recommend going with your normal size or even going down a size if this is a concern. The fixed leg loops are built a bit differently than other Arc’teryx harnesses, too—they’re wider and beefier than other harnesses. I felt this was a nice addition, but it was hard to really evaluate the

For the waist belt, the comfort is all there, and nothing short of what I would expect from Arc’teryx. Again, it’s hard to identify where there are any real distinguishing differences in the waist belt between the Arc’teryx C-quence and other Arc’teryx harnesses.

There is also an easy to unclip hook for the elastic leg-loop straps in the rear, making it easy to take a sky-dump or pee. I have yet to use this, of course, since I don’t pee or poo in Wilderness areas.

Bottom Line

If you’ve been a fan of Arc’teryx harnesses, you will likely enjoy this rig. It’s built to do it all, and be comfortable, light, and packable. If you’re new to Arc’teryx harnesses, this is a good one to rip whether you’re a gym climber or big-waller or something in between.

The post Arc’teryx C-Quence appeared first on Evening Sends.

Perfectionism is the bane of all creative pursuits, and climbing is no different. In fact, one reason to be hesitant in classifying climbing as a sport is the number of remarkable parallels it holds to such fields as dancing, music, writing, or art. When you’re climbing well, it feels like your body just knows what to do, the way the artist’s hand can draw a face without trying to draw a face or a musician can improvise on the spot.

There is no thinking. It’s just uninhibited, beautiful self-expression.

In sport climbing, one of the most frustrating things you can witness is the climbers who, when trying to redpoint, accidentally mess up their beta … but haven’t fallen yet either. Instead of trying to do one more move, or come up with a new sequence, or do, well, just something, anything! they resign themselves to slumping onto the rope and saying, “Take!”

The moment dies. The experience is over. The magic of all that could be dissipates. All because of a stifling allegiance to perfectionism—or even a lack of creativity.

We’ve all done it and it sucks. This type of self-schlonging should really have a name. Cue the sad tuba music. Wah-wah. I forgot my beta. Let’s call it a “wah-wah.”

Did you send your proj today?

No, I fucked up my beta and did a wah-wah.

(Shakes head.) Sucks shit, buddy. Try harder next time.

There seems to be a higher incidence of wah-wahs at Rifle than elsewhere. Perhaps we can explain this by the necessary beta refinements required to send many Rifle routes—it can get pretty finicky in Canyon Land. Or maybe the climbers here tend to be particularly fastidious dweebs who are naturally drawn to perfectionism. Or maybe most Rifle climbers are just climbing on routes that are way too difficult. Regardless, I’ve noticed that oopsying yourself into a wah-wah can become a pathology afflicting certain sport climbers, more so than others. They often seem to get stuck in a rut in which the only days they think they can send are the days when literally everything is literally perfect.

Perfection doesn’t come around all that often, unfortunately.

The approach that many sport climbers bring is the mindset of an ambitious and driven child in piano lessons. They are the kids who are talented but also fearful of making a mistake. They practice and practice never to miss a note at the recital. Though this approach is necessary to mastering fundamentals, at some point it can to lead to expressions that feel just … flat. Of course, I’m just as susceptible to this as anyone and probably worse than most.

Nothing is worse than the fear of failure.

On an episode of The RunOut podcast earlier this year, I referenced my feelings of ennui toward the new generation of rap music, and spoke of a rekindled affection for listening to Phish. I felt embarrassed to admit this for some reason, probably because hippies are so empirically and universally annoying.

But as I said on the pod, the reason I’ve been enjoying Phish lately is the improvisational qualities of their live performances. More and more I find myself attracted to exhibitions of raw, improvised creative expression—whether that’s music or art or writing or podcasting or even climbing. I’m also always pursuing it in my own creative work.

For example, I am increasingly finding it utterly tedious to listen to This American Life or Radiolab. They’re awesome shows about interesting things. The production is world class. But they’re also … boring. And by boring I mean predictable. I’d much rather listen to a lower production value conversation in which you don’t know what the speakers will say next, in which they find themselves figuring out their opinions on the spot and end up either arguing themselves into corners or, better still, arriving at a surprising conclusive truth. That process is so much more interesting to me.

The act of creating something novel and interesting out of nothing is remarkable. Musician and researcher Dr. Charles Limb looked at the brains of jazz musicians and rappers during improvisational sessions and discovered that the self-conscious, self-monitoring parts of your brain turned off and your inhibitions dropped. This seems obvious, but it’s interesting nonetheless.

In Tina Fey’s “Bossypants,” she outlines her four rules for improvisation, which are 1) Always Say Yes. 2) Say “Yes, And” 3) Make Mistakes 4) There are No Mistakes, Only Opportunities. In describing the fourth rule, Fey writes:

If I start a scene as what I think is very clearly a cop riding a bicycle, but you think I am a hamster in a hamster wheel, guess what? Now I’m a hamster in a hamster wheel. I’m not going to stop everything to explain that it was really supposed to be a bike.

Sometimes we start our redpoint burn thinking that we’re riding a bike, but we fuck up our beta and it turns out that we’re suddenly hamsters in wheels. That’s fine. But you can’t stop running just because you’re now a rodent.

So next time you fuck up your beta, instead of saying wah-wah, just tell yourself that you’re a hamster.

Here are a few videos for some more improvisational perfectionism

Marc Rebillet: This YouTube phenom creates live loops and music on the spot, and does 2-hour live improv sessions every week.

Harry Mack: I discovered him because he recently appeared with Marc Rebillet, and since then I’ve been blown away by his YouTube feed. He is hands down the best freestyle rapper I’ve ever heard, and definitely an antidote to the ennui I reference above.

“Anatomy of a Jam”: this is a video that I would only recommend to the most committed Phish fans, but it does an interesting dissection of one of Phish’s jams, and even evokes Tina Fey’s aforementioned rules.

Adam Ondra’s uncut onsight of Just Do It. The master, at work. A lot of themes are evoked in this video.

The post Overcome Perfectionism by Saying Yes More in Climbing appeared first on Evening Sends.