Climbing September 2016

CLIMBER Celene Blair ROUTE Rattletale (5.10b) LOCATION Index, Washington Index, an old mining and logging town along the Skykomish River an hour northeast of Seattle, boasts hundreds of steep, fine-grained granite lines. The second pitch of this three-pitch trad route, Rattletale, sports one of the best hand cracks in the area, and the approach involves a short hike along railroad tracks. Index is less crowded than other Pacific Northwest climbing destinations, perhaps due to close proximity to Smith Rock, Oregon, and Squamish, British Columbia, Canada. It could also be because of the weather—the town receives over 100 inches of rain per year, meaning moss and lichen can quickly overtake less-traveled climbs, and sunny days are scarce. CLIMBER Jasmin Caton ROUTE Gram Traverse (5.10d) LOCATION Tuolumne Meadows, California The Gram Traverse is a physical two-pitch route that follows a giant roof, the defining feature of…

[Drew Higgins] Hailing from Connecticut, this writer/climber/runner/baker interviewed the “articulate, interesting, and self-motivated” Melissa Arnot (p.67) and pulled together results from our Women in Climbing survey (p.61) for this issue. “I was struck by how many similar, off-putting, and downright misogynistic experiences women have had…but it’s comforting and inspiring that so many of them push through it and continue to be badass climbers.” [Indigo Johnson] As a recent Stanford University grad, Indigo Johnson earned a degree in environmental science, and was “a fervent ‘I hate writing’ sort of person” until a peer told her she shouldn’t climb if she wanted to be welcomed by the African-American community. “It really shook me,” she said, finding that writing her essay “A Difficult Conversation” on page 72 was “a way to process the emotion.” [Molly Mitchell] When she…

“SHE’S ACTUALLY doing pretty good,” he said. His partner replied, “Yeah, she must be kinda strong.” My cheeks burned with rage as I fumbled to make my #1–size hands fit into the #3–size crack in Indian Creek. The whispered commentary on my climbing coming from below was bad enough, but I was insulted before I even left the ground. A half hour earlier, the two male critics had overlooked me not once, not twice, but three times. “Who is doing this route next?” one asked to nobody in particular, even though I was clipping cams to my harness 10 feet from them, no one else in sight with the next closest route 35 feet away. I shrugged it off and said, “Me.” He explained they might take a bit longer because…

DIVERSE VOICES When you google “diversity in climbing,” you hardly find any articles addressing the topic. Why is this? I appreciate the Women in Climbing survey you put out. [Ed. See the results starting on page 59.] It was nice you recognized the gender divide within the sport, but it sparked a question I have been wrestling with for a few years: Why is everyone white? Of course I don’t mean everyone, but the great majority are white. I recall a day bouldering outside of Flagstaff, Arizona. I came across two Latino men hauling their crashpads out for a session. I noticed them right away. My mind rang out, Hey look! Non-white people! Climbing! It was the first time I’d noticed any minorities in my four years in the sport. I am in…

Meet Becket, our home on wheels. He makes life comfortable year-round, equipped with a wood-burning stove and plenty of storage for all our gear. @THEBUSLIFE I’m an eight-year Navy vet that got out [of the service] to climb, surf, and backpack across the West Coast. Ten months and 27,000 miles later, and I’m never going back. @_ROBMOR_ Moments before sheets of rain fell from the sky. Refuge in the van was crucial. @DREWMAGOO66 Bonnie the bread truck is not the fastest, and she may be a bit of an eyesore, but the inside is roomy and stocked with two couches, climbing gear, and sometimes our dirtbag climber boy band. @THE_MR_SPENCER Look out for this stylish dirtbagmobile cruising around Maui, Hawaii, in search of the best crags to get pumped off of with my crew, the Climbers Association of…

IT’S EASY to assume that psicobloc climbing, also known as deep water soloing, has always been around. It’s so natural—climb above the sea and fall into water, minimal gear required. Actually, it didn’t become popular until the 2000s. Mallorcan climber Miquel Riera was there for the birth of psicobloc in the late 1970s and is widely credited for developing the sport into what it has become today. When did you first begin to develop psicobloc climbing? Psicobloc has been practiced since the first time there was a climber, a sea cliff, and it was hot. I’ve seen old American videos of the Stonemasters playing and fighting over a lake, and even older pictures of French climbers in Marseille doing long traverses over the sea. But it wasn’t until we began to establish…