Sonnie Trotter provides five tips for getting better at climbing rooted in the following premise:
The worlds most accomplished sport climber and boulderer Adam Ondra has recently completed his first one arm chin up according to Planet Mountain.com. This fact only reinforces what I (and dozens of other climbers and coaches) have said for years, the key to climbing hard is not in the arms at all. It’s mostly in the fingers and core.
Many thanks to the reader who passed along this article from the blog Girls Like Giants in which the writer, who I don’t think is what one would consider a “hardcore” climber, reflects on her impressions of the 2011 Reel Rock Film Tour:
To pretend that there is no race or gender in climbing is naive. And indeed, while I really enjoyed a lot of the films in the 2011 Tour, most of them would reinforce gender stereotypes about the climbing world: nary a woman to be seen, except a few that hang around the camps of the kooky guys…
…snip…
It’s strange, trying to be ideologically savvy while watching Ashima climb in the midst of all these other climbing videos. You don’t want to point out her gender or her race – it seems somehow belittling to do so. She’s just an athlete, I want to say, doing what all climbers do, but better. But the subtext just doesn’t go away. All the while you’re aware that she’s a nine year old girl, she’s urban, she’s Japanese. These things make her even awesomer as a climber, right, because they’re the things she has to fight against. But…you’re not supposed to notice them. Watching this rock climbing film just made me incredibly conscious of how difficult it is to navigate race, gender, and other conditions shaping our lives.
Ty Landman has apparently done a project of his out in Connecticut that could be in the V14 range. Just don’t tell him I posted about it. Please. He hates this stuff:
One of the hardest aspects [of climbing] is dealing with the scene, all the talking about climbing and who’s doing what, you know. I hate that stuff. And that’s why I would never climb professionally again, because I don’t enjoy talking about all the climbs I’ve done. That’s why I respect people at the limit of the sport who don’t feel the need to report everything they do.
More from Alex Honnold regarding his February solo of the 9 pitch 5.12b Monkey Finger in Zion:
Monkey Finger was probably my most anticlimactic “big wall” free solo. I really wanted it to be badass – for it to be something to feel proud of – but it just wasn’t. It was fun, it was good climbing, it’s a great route. But it just didn’t feel rad to me, which makes me worry that I’m getting a bit jaded. Still a good experience to be sure, and the hike off was lonely and beautiful, but just not quite the intensity that I was maybe hoping for.
That’s the number of routes 5.11d or harder that Adam Ondra has logged on his 8a scorecard as of 4/26/2012. That total includes a staggering 358 routes 5.14a or harder with 70 of those coming onsight. As a point of comparison, Dave Graham has 190 5.14a or harder routes registered on his scorecard and he’s not exactly a slouch. All this of course before Ondra has even finished High School.
There’s been a lot of tongue twisting in the climbing news-osphere about Adam Ondra‘s recent FA of Joe-cita (5.14d) in Oliana, Spain. While he did climb that specific line on his first try, he had previously climbed a portion of the link-up while climbing other routes. Granted, he did either onsight or flash the harder parts, but rules are rules. He also came close to onsighting Duele la Realidad 2R (5.14d) but had to settle for a 2nd go send.
Get your bets in now for when 5.14d is going to go down first go…
Adam Ondra is up to his old tricks, onsighting a 5.14c1 and doing the FA of a 5.14d according to this update he put together for PlanetMountain. But what is perhaps most interesting is his revelation in an interview with 8a.nu that he was only recently able to complete his first one arm pull-up. Multiple 5.14c onsights and 5.15b redpoints, repeats of several boulders in the V15-16 range and only now does he have the strength to pull off a one arm.
Narc: There's nothing regular about James Litz...
JMB: I suspect James Litz is the all-time leader in FRJ...
colin: FRJA = first real job ascent.
well done....
Derek Jf: First trip to rumney nh, first time sport climbing...
Andrew: awesome video!...
PocketPumper: I was psyched to hear some actual climbing tips st...
PJ: First problem is the title of the video, complete ...
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