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You’ve repeated Todd’s climb, but there’s still twenty feet of crack that’s Alan hauled up the hammer and pitons with one hand, pulling an arm’s length of rope up and holding it in his teeth, then pulling up another arm’s length of rope, and so on, until he could untie the gear and clip it to his harness. Alan whacked in a piton at the ledge, then free climbed a couple of moves above the ledge, whacked in another pin while hanging off a finger jam, clipped it, did a move, fell, hung, tried the move again, then lowered to the stance, shook out both hands, and climbed through to the end of the crack like it was nothing—a yo-yo ascent on the last bit, sure, and some shenanigans pulling up gear, no doubt, but still a complete free ascent of the entire crack. I tied a long sling to the fixed rope and Alan pulled it up, pulled himself up the fixed rope to the anchor, tied the sling to the bolt, then lowered himself back onto the lead rope.

During his tour, he damn near onsighted the Salathé Wall, then went to Smith Rock where he actually did onsight one of his goals with Just Do It Perhaps one of Ondra’s most important contributions to climbing—beyond his superlative strength and skill—is his ability to transcribe the climbing experience and articulate, in a dispassionate, almost clinical way, what it is that makes a climb hard, a move difficult, movement efficient … etc. And yet … this grainy, shaky footage shot from afar has to be one of the best climbing films of 2018 insofar as core climbers will find it inspiring and useful. What makes this one unique is that Ondra annotates his 20-minute ascent, dishing up useful bits of wisdom and tips for how to onsight a route at your limit.

Back in Sharma’s dreadlock phase, he ferreted out a pretty sick line through a rando cave in stumblemook Arkansas: Over the years, it was rarely repeated, first by Fred Nicole t later by Daniel Woods. Ultimately, Jimmy Webb broke the crux hold and effectively put an end to any future efforts on this roof proj for the ages. Taskmaster burst the bionic zit-splitter Breakneck speed we drown ten pints of bitter

Having known him since my early climbing years, Nick was a catalyst to my climbing and the only person to actively encourage me to climb Indian Face despite the risk. Despite being one of Britain’s top climbers, Emma had dismissed the idea of ever climbing Indian Face herself when she watched Calum Muskett go for it. As Emma stared back at me, concerned that I was seriously considering Indian Face, I had felt the shame of being an insolent little punk, evoking the reputation of a route that was too bold for some of Britain’s best and trying to match myself to it. and it was beckoning, but those that didn’t think it was a bad idea either didn’t know the route or didn’t know me.