Lots of discussion of that here and here. Executive summary: yes they do. Why? Lots of reasons according to the different posters and commentators. My short version – they have a longer history of living and climbing in the mountains.
But they don’t have the soaring bluffs of Red Wing or the massive cliffs of TF to hone their mastery of rock. Like we do. (Not to mention VE.) So there - take that Europe.
Tough to try them on in stores when they don’t have your size. Tough for stores to keep every size in stock so you can try them on. There’s a discussion of this here. (As usual the comments go far afield; such as suggesting if we ate less meat and biked more, it’d be easier to find shoes that fit. Or something like that.)
Maybe that’s why so many people stick with one brand once they’ve found a shoe they like. (Or, do what I do; find someone who wears the same size and buy their slightly used shoes. Mike, do you have any shoes you wanna sell?)
Some people love slab climbing, some don’t.
“Is it just me, or does it seem crazy that slabs—the routes that feel least secure to climb, where you might grease off at any moment, and where it's nearly guaranteed that you won't fall cleanly into empty space—are almost always protected with widely spaced bolts? Why aren't slabs better protected?”
“For paragliding Ramon went up to around 7600m and has the new paramotor altitude world record. I flew at 6711m with paramotor and at 6600m on paragliding without oxygen. This flight was very scary because we didn't take oxygen and I suffered the effects of strong hypoxia. I could not see anything... according to the GPS track, I went up from 3000 m to 6600m in 11 minutes in a very strong thermal. It was a pretty bad feeling to be blind and flying in between 7000-meter high mountains. Thankfully, everyone came back in one piece. We have been flying super close to huge glacier and into snowing clouds.”
Flying blind? Big deal. Who hasn’t done that on a late Friday or Saturday night just driving home?
This report is from the women who came in first and second in the 24 hours of climbing at the Horseshoe Ranch. They had a few rules like:
“Looking HOT was another of our tenets, which we took to heart, wearing matching everything: flowered pants, Gandolf approach shoes, yellow Aura harnesses, pink Nano jackets, angel wings brought from a gas station, suspended stone necklaces, red Demon duffels... all the crucial items (which you can admire in the pro photos I snapped while rushing between climbs).
The winner did 123 routes in 24 hours ranging from 5.8 to 5.13a. Ouch!
Like climbing, these critters appear to be inherently dangerous. At least in these photos.
Housefly
Wasp
Way more photos like this here.
I can’t find most of my video I shot in Utah – ahh, that’s a shame! – but I do have some of our hike/climb up Angel’s Landing in Zion and our hike/climb of Peek A Boo and Spooky Canyons outside of Escalante.
I have been looking at the video I shot of our slot canyon tour and, as usual, the youtube videos are better that the ones I did. So here’s a video of two of the canyons we walked thru.
On our way from St George, Utah to Las Vegas, we stopped at the Virgin River Gorge to see what some of the hardest climbs in the US looked like.
Here’s a photo of me looking up at the big overhanging wall:
If you zoon in on this photo, you can see all of the quick draws which are just left attached to the bolts. Don’t know if every route has pre-attached quick draws, but it looked like most of them did.
Below is a video of a climb at the VRG. (We didn’t have time to do the 5.14c, so we just did the 5.14a variation. Maybe next time.)
We explored Gravel Canyon and Fry Canyon last Thursday and Friday. We did rappels into cold water pools – we had wetsuits that kinda fit and kinda helped – and we saw s9me big Anasazi ruins.
Coolest rappel we did:
Into this cathedral (with a cold pool of water we had to swim.)
Last Saturday we hiked through Peek-A-Boo and Spooky Canyons near Escalante Utah. A short video slide show.
(Lisa and I decided it was a good thing Amy wasn’t along because she would’ve been so interested in the geology she never would have left.)
Today we drove to Escalante, Utah and hiked through two slot canyons “Peek-A-Boo” and “Spooky.”
In places, “Spooky” canyon is this narrow and about 100 feet tall.
“Peek-A-Boo” has a short climb up some moqui steps to get into its entrance. 
Once we climbed into the canyon, lots of chambers and arched shapes.
We just got into Hanksville after two days of camping out near Hite Utah which is where we did our canyoneering in the White Canyon.
Some photos of the last 3 days:
Rappelling into the lower narrows of Gravel Canyon.
I learned it’s very important to wear a big, floppy sun hat.
Lisa just about to drop off the rappel rope to enter the water:
Lisa doing another rappel into…
