Climbing April 2017

[Sara Aranda] HEIGHT: 5’4” WEIGHT: 116 lbs. AGE: 28 LOCATION: Yosemite, but moving back to Colorado soon BEST CLIMBING MOMENT OF 2016? My own wedding! We climbed the Red Dihedral on the Incredible Hulk and got married on top—wildflowers, snowmelt, and clear skies. It was amazing. Check out the film: tinyurl.com/j57q7ym. [Ben Hoiness] HEIGHT: 5’9” WEIGHT: 145 lbs. AGE: 25 LOCATION: Jackson, WY BEST CLIMBING MOMENT OF 2016? Joining Exum Mountain Guides as a first-year guide. FAVORITE PIECE OF GEAR? Sportiva Trango Ice Cube GTX mountaineering boots. WORST TESTING MOMENT? Getting benighted while testing a very dim headlamp. [Jessica Campbell] HEIGHT: 5’6” WEIGHT: 130 lbs. AGE: 36 LOCATION: Leavenworth, WA BEST CLIMBING MOMENT OF 2016? When some close friends, my brother, and I climbed the south face of Prusik Peak. It’s a classic in my backyard, and I’ve done the route a few times, but this was the first…

UNSOLICITED BETA Cookies or Cams I run the adventure trips program at the University of Georgia. I have been climbing for about 10 years and have been a subscriber to Climbing magazine for nearly the same duration. I love the magazine content and always look forward to reading each month. Recently, my girlfriend (Elise Harvey) and I were making cookies from scratch and we had the idea to shape them like climbers, a cam, and a carabiner. They turned out really well, and I thought it would be a great addition to the magazine. —Tony Blasucci, via email PsicoRoc I was impressed at the coverage of the PsicoRoc competition (http://tinyurl.com/zaa575w), but there are many things about the event that didn’t resonate well with me. I’m relatively local—I live (and climb) in West Virginia and my hometown is…

Currently, my training consists of a massive amount of PT for a SLAP tear in my shoulder while daydreaming about hard training days like the one shown here. —JENNIFER NICELY Maelanie Winsor does weighted hangs on the RV home wall in preparation for the next Bishop climbing season. With a little creativity and dedication, there is always a way to train. —DANIEL WINSOR Training one-arm lockoffs at the Earth Treks gym in Maryland. —TIMOTHY GRYBAUSKAS A steady progression to a front lever from a climbing addict in Quebec. —CALEB GINGRAS Building pinch power with the systems wall at Kiipeilyareena in Helsinki, Finland. —PATRICK THURMAN Coach Gordo instructs his star pupil. —ROSE KENNY I like to do circuits to help increase my powerendurance. I also try to mimic moves from my outdoor projects to keep the muscle memory. —MIKE BOWSHER José Alberto Puente bouldering in…

>WE OFTEN TALK ABOUT the mental side of climbing, like how to overcome fear, visualize success, and be a better overall climber. But there’s another cognitive aspect of climbing that’s grown in recent years: Psychologists are using climbing as treatment for mental health disorders. Younghee Lowry, a crisis worker in Tahoe, California, uses climbing as a type of “mindfulness therapy,” a treatment described by the American Psychological Association (APA) as “paying attention to one’s experience in the present moment, observing thoughts and emotions from moment to moment without judging.” We spoke with Lowry about her experiences with patients learning to climb and how it plays into their mental health treatment plan. What does your full-time job look like as a clinician? I work for El Dorado County_with a team of people that…

I was at the Ouray Ice Park. Our group was topping out a route to finish the day. I was the second-to-last climber. At the top, I switched the anchor to a top hanging belay. Being new to ice, I didn’t think about where I’d left my tools. They were stuck in the snow next to me, and I’d piled excess rope on the edge above. A partner pointed out that if the rope slid, it would dislodge my tools, so I clipped them to my harness instead. All I had for my second tool was a tiny, ultra-light micro-biner. I clipped the tool to it and didn’t think anything of it. Thirty seconds later I heard a noise below and looked down to see my tool rocketing down the…

>WHAT’S THE RIGHT shoe for balancing on miniscule granite nubs in Yosemite? Polished limestone in Rifle? Plastic at your local gym? Every year, Climbing’s gear testers spend hundreds of hours parsing the di_ erences between each rock shoe to find the best kicks for each discipline. But long before our testers crammed their grubby climber toes into the newest shoes, chemists and engineers were developing the rubber compounds that make climbing shoes the one thing they need to be: sticky. “Rubber” refers broadly to a class of tough, elastic materials so ubiquitous it is di_ cult to define. About 40 percent of the rubber we use is latex, made naturally by rubber trees. On an atomic level, latex and other rubbers are made up of long strands of carbon atoms decorated…