Wednesday, March 9, 2011

Dark Side Of Sport Climbing

OK, I might be willing to climb in my underwear so I am lighter and therefore can climb a harder route. But I hope I’d draw the line at ideas like gluing sticky rubber to my legs to make a climb easier or re-texturing smooth rocks with acid or shaping a finger with a file so that it would be thinner to fit inside a mono pocket. If you need more ideas than that, they’re detailed here.

Boulder's Jonathan Siegrist about to make a first-try ascent of Power Windows (5.13d) at Mt. Potosi near Las Vegas, with Heather Robinson at the belay. For this route Siegrist duct-taped sticky rubber kneepads to his thighs for the first time, marking his official entrance into the dark side of sport climbing. Photo: Chris Weidner

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