Let’s get this out of the way: runner Jane Maus avoided all shortcuts, cutoffs, and trail bypasses while breaking the speed record on Wyoming’s 13,775-foot Grand Teton on August 22.

When Maus, 30, reached the closed trail two-thirds of the way down the mountain—yes, the same one that got ultrarunner Michelino Sunseri into hot water with the National Park Service—she ran right past it without thinking twice.

“I looked at it and was just like oh wow, there’s it is!” Maus told 国产吃瓜黑料. “It didn’t even cross my mind to take the shortcut after all of the things that popped up over that situation.”

Maus in 3:45:34. Her time shaved 21 minutes from the previous fastest time, which was set just three days prior by a Canadian runner named Jazmine Lowther. (FKT), the body that scrutinizes record attempts, accepted Maus’ ascent as legitimate, making her the new record holder on the route, which is now called the Grand Teton Modern Route. (Fastest Known Time is owned by 国产吃瓜黑料’s parent company 国产吃瓜黑料 Inc.)

So, what was the allure of chasing the speed record on the peak? Maus pointed to the beauty of the mountain, the camaraderie and competition of chasing the record alongside Lowther, the peak’s relative lack of speed record attempts by women.

And yeah, then there’s the Grand Teton’s recent prominence in the national news cycle. Sunseri’s attempt, which Fastest Known Time rejected due to his shortcut, generated a glut of media attention, and the coverage swelled after the action against him. He embarked on a social media blitz throughout much of 2025, hoping to clear his name, only to be found guilty in September.

The impressive tonnage of news stories, Instagram videos, and Internet hot takes generated more interest than ever in the dusty trail zigzagging up the peak.

“It’s a prominent mountain but hasn’t really been gone after as a popular FKT,” Maus said. “And then Michelino gave it all of that press.”

A Decision to Go for Speed

If you don’t recognize the name Jane Maus, you’re not alone—2025 marks her first season as a sponsored professional athlete. She hails from Salt Lake City but lives in Boulder, Colorado, where she trains and also works as a dietician.

Maus excels at races and personal challenges that require lots of running uphill. In October 2024, she set a new speed record for Colorado’s , a grueling 26.5-mile circuit in the Indian Peaks Wilderness. She also dabbles in rock climbing, and spends many afternoons scrambling along Boulder’s Flatirons.

“My coach told me I could be good at the Grand Teton FKT because it suits my combination of running and climbing,” she said. “I’d done some other objectives that were comparable and it boosted my confidence. Yeah, I can be OK in this terrain.”

Earlier in 2025 Maus learned that Lowther was also targeting the Grand Teton speed record, and the two met at California’s Broken Arrow Skyrace to talk about their ascents.

“If I was the only one going for it, it wouldn’t mean as much,” Maus said. “But since there was another woman doing it, it made it fun because we’d be competing against each other.”

The history of speed records on the Grand Teton for both men and women is rife with unofficial attempts, or attempts that record keepers have discredited by flagging. That’s because runners have frequently taken shortcuts and deviations that cut the swooping switchbacks near the peak’s base.

The best women’s unsupported time, set by Jen Day Denton in 2022, was listed at 4:15:27. Swede Emelie Forsberg completed the route in 3:51 in 2012 while being paced by her partner, ultrarunning star Killian Jornet, who made his own solo attempt in 2012. FKT flagged all three ascents, since Denton, Forsberg, and Jornet all took shortcuts from the main trail.

Fastest Known Time recently retired the records page for the route, called Grand Teton (Historic-inactive), and replaced it with the Grand Teton (Modern) route, which requires athletes to complete the four switchbacks near the peak’s base. On its website, FKT explains the change: The Jenny Lake Rangers now prefer that runners stick to designated and maintained trails (where available), which aligns with this Modern Route. FastestKnownTime indicated it will not accept future submissions using the Historical Route, though it remains an integral part of the mountain’s history and lore.

The men’s record for both routes continues to be held by Andy Anderson, whose in 2012 completed the route in 2:53:02 while doing all of the switchbacks.

“It seemed like no matter what time one of us ran, that would be the FKT because it hadn’t been chased before,” Maus said.

Scouting the Sketchy Route

Prior to her attempt, Maus studied the Grand Teton route online and watched videos of climbers completing the technical sections at the top. She also received advice from Sunseri.

“He told me I needed to find my line after the trail peters out at the top,” Maus said. “He told me I needed to save some energy for the climb past the meadows.”

Maus arrived in Jackson on August 1 and made her first reconnaissance ascent of the peak the next day. She jogged and hiked the peak alongside a friend, taking her time on the tricky and treacherous rocky sections just below the summit. After descending, she stopped her clock at the trailhead. It read just over 7 hours.

“I was pretty defeated,” she said. “I was exhausted and I thought: I have to cut three hours off of what I just did.”

A week later, she returned, this time running the entire route with several friends. She didn’t push her body to its limit and completed the journey in 5 hours, 30 minutes. On the rocky, exposed terrain, she could feel herself tensing up and slowing down.

“I got really spooked,” she said. “There was way more rock climbing than I remembered from the first ascent.”

For her next two ascents, Maus went solo, pushing the pace on the running sections and then moving quickly across the rock. Her third attempt ended up at 4 hours 30 minutes, and her fourth was 4 hours 27 minutes.

And then, just three days before she was set for her fifth ascent, Lowther made her rapid ascent. Earlier in August, Lowther had completed the ascent in 3:51:12, but she did the top section of the peak alongside Sunseri, who is her partner. Fastest Known Time listed the time as the fastest “supported” effort.

On August 19, Lowther completed the trip solo in 4 hours 6 minutes 58 seconds. She sped across all of the switchbacks, following the new agreed-upon route.

“Our main goal was to stick on the modern route and stick to the designated trail where possible and to set the standard for the future,” The Jackson Hole News & Guide.?

Maus saw Lowther’s time, and her jaw dropped.

“I was like, I ran pretty hard and did 4:27, and now I have to shave off 21 minutes?” she said. “I gave up.”

Fifth Time’s a Charm

Everything seemed to go right for Maus on her fifth attempt. Her partner dropped her off at the trailhead just before 8 A.M., and she started up the trail a short time later. After completing the lower portion of the peak, Maus realized that she was far ahead of her previous times. The upper portions of the peak were busy with climbers, she said, but the groups allowed her to pass.

“People were cheering me on,” she said. “I was moving a lot quicker than I had the previous times.”

But the top was still sketchy—ice had formed on some of the exposed rock. Maus took her time descending the Belly Roll, Sergeant’s Chimney, and other sheer sections.

“I was still cautious,” Maus said. “If I would have gone as fast as I could have on that part it would have been too risky.”

But Maus increased her speed once the technical rock gave way to trail. She motored down the trail, past the shortcut, through the switchbacks and back to Lupine Meadows. When she glanced at her watch, even she was surprised.

“I didn’t tell very many people I was going for this,” she said. “When I did it, I realized I should have told more. I kind of wanted it to be my own thing.”

Maus has now completed the Grand Teton five times, and she owns the speed record. I asked her what she thought of the shortcut, Sunseri’s trial, and the national intrigue around the peak.

“Because everyone before had cut the switchbacks, and it’s the way he did it, I don’t blame Michelino. I think he has the FKT,” she said. “But moving forward, we don’t cut the switchbacks.”

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On July 8, nine-year-old Veronica Aimee Chik became the youngest person ever to send 5.14b (8c) with her ascent of Fish Eye in Oliana, Spain. She dethroned the , French climber Théo Blass, by one year.

“I believe in myself! I can top the route!” Chik repeated to herself as she worked the sustained overhanging wall. More than the crux moves themselves, the route’s length of 50 meters (164 feet)—her longest climb to date—proved the biggest challenge. “Endurance was a critical issue for me,” she says. “During my trials, my coaches and I realized that I would be exhausted after climbing 35 to 40 meters.” Time management became a top priority as she tried to limit resting to avoid burning out.

Originally in 2009, Fish Eye also required Chik to make up her own beta, given her 4’7” height, wingspan, and gripping power, which varied dramatically from previous ascensionists like Sharma, , and . “She had to be creative,” her father Alan Chik told Climbing. “There are some moves that were quite tricky and difficult.”

In Spain, the Chik family enlisted the help of two coaches—Toni Arbones and David Gambús—to belay and provide guidance. To practice her self-styled beta, her coaches had Chik repeat the moves four or five times per burn to commit each sequence to memory. All in all, she spent 14 days practicing the route, with one or two burns each day, before her successful redpoint.

When she arrived in Spain in June, Chik didn’t have her sights set on a specific route. “She tried nine routes in five days, including Fish Eye,” her father says. “We believed that Fish Eye seemed to be the one Veronica could possibly send due to her height and arm span.”

Each day, before hopping on Fish Eye, Chik warmed up with about an hour of stretching. Then, according to her dad, she would tell herself to be “calm, focused, and try her best” before tying in. During her rest time, Chik watched videos her father had recorded of her trying the route. While watching this footage, she observed that the shorter her rest times, the better her performance. She ended up topped out in 25 minutes, five minutes faster than her coaches had predicted. As she was sending, Arbones, one of her coaches, commented on how effortless she looked cruising up Fish Eye. “She is literally walking up the wall!” Arbones cried.

In October 2024, Chik that she was overcoming a fear of falling. But when Climbing asked her if she struggled with this fear on Fish Eye, she responded, “Not at all. I am already used to it, so I have no fear of falling anymore.” Chik made it clear that she feels pretty fearless while sport climbing at the moment. “I fear no challenges, no heights, and no falls,” she told Climbing. “Nothing on this earth can deter my progress.” Needless to say, we believe her.

After sending Fish Eye and celebrating with a dinner with her dad, coaches, and a couple friends who watched her send, she spent a few more days trying hard routes in Spain. She has a climbing trip planned to the Red River Gorge with her dad later this summer, then she’s headed back to Hong Kong for school in fall. She prefers in-person schooling over homeschooling because she really likes her classmates. So her parents plan out her training schedule and climbing trips around her academics.

Although Chik’s dad is not a climber, he is now learning to belay so he can support her on future climbs. Chik got her first introduction to climbing thanks to her godfather, who runs six climbing gyms in Hong Kong. “I started to take climbing lessons when I was five-and-a-half years old,” she says. “I love this sport so much, so I’ve stuck with it ever since.”

While her parents still don’t climb—nor does her 13-year-old brother—her little sister happens to be a budding climber. According to Veronica, her three-and-a-half-year-old sister can lap their gym’s 30-foot autobelay six times in under 20 minutes. “She told me she likes climbing very much,” Veronica says. “I’m sure she is going to be a very good climber in the future.”

Already, Chik says she is “ready for the next challenge”: an 8c+ (5.14c) route. Perhaps in Spain, over Christmas, when her father plans to take her back to Oliana. Eventually, she dreams of competing in the Boulder and Lead disciplines in the Olympics. But she won’t be old enough for the 2028 Games—she’ll have to wait until the 2032 Summer Games in Brisbane, Australia, to conquer that particular dream.

Chik is excited to take on more competitive climbing in China this year, along with trips to the Red River Gorge and back to Spain. (Photo: Toni Mas Buchaca / Siurana Today)

Watch Chik send ‘Fish Eye’ in this short film by Spanish filmmaker César Garcia:

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You could traipse all over the country looking for great riding, hiking, rock climbing, zip lining, and stargazing. Or you can park yourself in this Ozarks paradise and do it all in one place. And these are only a few reasons to check out Horseshoe Canyon Ranch in Arkansas—where adventure never ends.

The Arkansas Department of Parks, Heritage, and Tourism protects and promotes the state’s natural, cultural, and historic assets, contributing to a thriving economy and high quality of life. The Division of Arkansas Tourism strives to expand the economic impact of travel and tourism in the state and enhance the quality of life for all Arkansans. The division manages 14 Arkansas Welcome Centers and employs more than 60 staff members across the Natural State. Learn more at?.

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I. Every Second Counts

It’s 10:15 P.M. when the white van rolls into El Capitan Meadow in Yosemite National Park. A nearly full moon illuminates the 3,000-foot monolith against the ink-blue sky. Twenty people cluster by the fences, the June night too warm for jackets. As the van’s headlights dim, two colors inside become visible—pink leggings for climbers Kate Kelleghan, red for Laura Pineau. The crowd begins to shriek in a charged-up wave.

Former Yosemite Search and Rescue (YOSAR) member Jack Keane steps out, all business: “They’re going to rack up first. Then we can cheer them on.”

The crowd falls silent. Kelleghan and Pineau jump from the van and start clipping cams to their gear loops with the frantic velocity of two people trying to win a carnival race. Pineau looks exhausted, but has time for one joke.

“Just one more wall!” she says, then corrects herself: “Two more walls!” She shakes her head as if the thought is too heavy, and switches her focus back to the gear.

The duo has just returned from climbing the South Face of Mount Watkins. For most climbers, Watkins is a multi-day adventure in its own right, but for Kelleghan and Pineau, it’s the first of three routes in the Yosemite Triple Crown: a legendary, one-day linkup of Yosemite’s three largest formations.

Pineau, a crack climber, has never done more than one of those formations in a day, but Kelleghan, a former YOSAR member and speed veteran, has linked the other two: the Regular Northwest Face of Half Dome and the Nose on El Cap. Only ten pairs of men—plus Alex Honnold alone—have completed the Triple Crown in the 24 years since Dean Potter and Timmy O’Neill first established it.

Tonight, even though they’ve shaved 40 minutes from their personal best on Watkins, Kelleghan and Pineau have zero minutes to spare in their pursuit of becoming the first women to achieve a Triple Crown. When Kelleghan’s head snaps up from arranging her harness, her former YOSAR teammate Katy Stockton wordlessly steps forward and opens her empty backpack. Both Pineau and Kelleghan stuff their harnesses into it and pull it closed.

Finally, Kelleghan flexes her fists toward the ground, takes a breath, and releases a single power scream. Twenty voices multiply it, adding yodels and monkey noises, the sheer volume making up for the pep talks the crowd doesn’t have time to give. By the time the cheer subsides, the two women and their volunteer porters are power-walking into the redwoods, barely holding themselves back from running.

Fifteen minutes later, two bright pinpricks appear on the bottom of El Capitan. For the past two weeks, Pineau has rehearsed the four-pitch sequence of the Nose in her head, move by move, every night before she went to sleep. But she’s never tried the sequence after another wall, let alone one as big as Mount Watkins. From the Meadow, the first little light can be seen beginning to wobble upward.

II. The Yosemite Triple Crown: 2001 to Present

The Yosemite Triple Crown is nearly as famous as its roster of victors. Before 2021, the list included Dean Potter and Timmy O’Neill, and Alex Honnold and Tommy Caldwell—who, incredibly, freed all 71 pitches. Just weeks after his free ascent with Caldwell, Honnold upped the ante by rope-soloing the Triple, which no climber has done since. The pre-2021 list also includes Dave Allfrey and Cheyne Lempe, as well as Brad Gobright and Jim Reynolds, who set the Triple speed record in 2018 of 18 hours 45 minutes.

As a 7,000-foot vertical test involving 18 miles of hiking in between formations, the Triple represents more than just an ultra-style event. It’s also a mental challenge that requires accepting the risk of massive falls under sleep-deprived conditions. Pitches in Yosemite average about 100 feet each; the average trad climber places 12-18 pieces of protection per pitch. Pineau estimates that, to save time, she leaves just two, which would leave regular trad climbers wide-eyed with shock.

From 2021 to 2023, the climbing community bagged a Triple a year, largely by the YOSAR team: Jordan Cannon and Scott Bennett in 2021; Danford Jooste and Nick Ehman in 2022; and Tyler Karow and Miles Fullman in 2023. In an Instagram post after his final topout, Fullman called it the “final exam for a Yosemite speed climber and a lifetime achievement,” adding that five of the eight Triple triumphs (including Honnold’s solo) had included a YOSAR member.

But in the last two years, the speed game has increased in popularity. For some, it’s become almost casual. Two noteworthy partnerships rocked the Valley in 2024. In late June, Ima Amundarain and Cedar Christensen biked between the three formations for a “human-powered Triple,” bringing along canteens of red wine for extra fun. Then, last October, Tanner Wanish and Michael Vaill at 17 hours 55 minutes, returning one week later to add a fourth wall, the South Face of the Washington Column. They .

This spring, a record three teams converged on the Valley with hopes of completing the Triple. Jacob Cook, who became the seventh person to send the route Golden Gate in a day last fall, teamed up with Brant Hysell, who holds the rope solo and team speed records on a route named Lurking Fear. Hans Beuttler and Noah Fox, who last year completed the Double—El Cap, plus Half Dome—in 22 hours and 49 minutes, also joined Kelleghan and Pineau in their single-minded quest. The 2025 Triple hopefuls formed a group chat called “Triple Triple Threat.”

“Honestly, the group chat was my favorite part of the season,” Beuttler told me earlier this week. “All three teams were just all so supportive of each other.” Throughout April and May, every time one of the teams did a training lap on a formation, they would text in their times, or “splits,” to the group chat, building off each other’s momentum.

According to Kelleghan, most prior Triple teams have made their attempt within three days of the summer solstice in late June, enduring oppressive heat in exchange for maximizing daylight. However, this year’s teams decided that late May and early June was hot enough. Last week, Beuttler and Fox’s attempt ended halfway through their second formation, the Nose, when Beuttler accidentally pulled out a #4 cam and took a 20-foot fall, spraining his ankle. Two days before, Cook and Hysell pulled off a 22-hour ascent that Cook noted was harder than he expected.

But with stormy weather on the horizon, Kelleghan and Pineau kept pushing off their ascent, hoping to avoid getting caught in a thunderstorm on Half Dome and Mount Watkins. Even a speed climber’s frugal rack contains enough metal to attract lightning. Finally, they set a start date and time when the weather looked clear: 4 P.M. on Saturday, June 7, 2025.

III. The Elusive Search for a Female Partner

Kelleghan has been meticulously plotting for this one 24-hour window for the past three years. In fact, ever since June 16, 2022, when she topped out Half Dome on the Double, Kelleghan—now 32 years old—has been scouting for a female partner that could match her speed, stoke, and risk tolerance.

But in June 2022, that partner didn’t yet exist. Laura Pineau, then 22, was sleeping at Miguel’s Pizza in the Red River Gorge, Kentucky, and didn’t consider herself a trad climber. She’d gotten spooked on Yosemite’s Munginella (5.6) two years prior and sworn off trad. Then, in September, Pineau met Brittany Goris at a climbing festival and spent the next two months learning crack technique from her in Indian Creek. By the end of the season, Goris recommended that Pineau aim for Freerider on El Cap.

In 2023, both Kelleghan and Pineau spent extensive time in Yosemite, but they never crossed paths. Keeping her eyes out for a solid Triple partner, Kelleghan dialed her Nose beta in the spring by climbing the route multiple times, hitting her personal best at eight hours and 38 minutes with Danford Jooste.

At the same time, on El Cap, Pineau backed off Freerider, taught herself how to big wall, and attempted the Nose, bailing at the Great Roof due to weather. That summer, Pineau went to Squamish and launched an intensive training program to get in better free climbing shape. In August, Kelleghan got the call to fill an empty YOSAR roster spot. The two didn’t cross paths in the fall, either, but Pineau sent Freerider and started looking for a new goal.

Finally, in April 2024, Pineau fell into Kelleghan’s speed climbing world. Pineau was chilling in a van in Camp 4 with her then-boyfriend Michael Vaill and his speed partner Tanner Wanish—the same duo that would (and ) six months later. Wanish mentioned offhand that a female YOSAR member was looking for a female speed climbing partner. Pineau got curious and asked for her name.

“When Laura messaged me, she was super nice,” says Kelleghan. “I told her, yes, I’d like to climb, but I’m only climbing three routes.” She knew Pineau had climbed Freerider, but had never speed climbed—not even the Nose in a day (NIAD).

But Kelleghan was running out of options. “If I can’t find a woman next year who wants to train for the Triple, I’m just going to do it with a guy,” she said at the time. “I’d rather do that than not do the Triple at all.”

A few days later, Pineau went for her first Nose in a day with Vaill, completing it in 12 hours, 42 minutes. Kelleghan still wasn’t entirely convinced. “When Laura said she hadn’t led the first four pitches and had given up the lead at the wide crack, part of my brain was like, she’s not risky enough,” she says. “But at least she was a personality fit.” By this, Kelleghan meant that Pineau could at least be goofy—a must-have attribute in a partner for a 24-hour suffer fest.

In October 2024, Pineau finished up her hardest trad project, Greenspit, in Switzerland, then flew to Yosemite to meet Kelleghan. They warmed up on the North Face of the Rostrum, where Pineau sent the Alien Finish, then switched into speed climbing on the first eight pitches of the Nose to Dolt Tower, also known as a “Dolt run.” Kelleghan carefully evaluated Pineau’s ability. “I was kind of metering her against my times to Dolt,” said Kelleghan, who estimates someone’s “Dolt time” to be one-fourth of their expected NIAD time. “We were both at Dolt in two hours and 30 minutes. That’s decently fast, and it was only her third time leading it.”

Kelleghan realized that Pineau, as the stronger free climber, could lead the first block of the Nose. “She’s fast enough, and it’s November,” she remembers thinking. Spring, the ideal time to send the Triple, was just a few short months away. She finally had a partner who could dedicate all her time to this goal. “If we’re going to do it, the commitment time is now.”

IV. “Get That 24”

At 7:15 A.M. on June 8, Kelleghan and Pineau sprinted into the El Cap picnic area and dropped their harnesses outside the parked van. The gray light was slowly sharpening, but this time, there were only a handful of friends, rather than crowds. Both Pineau’s red leggings and Kelleghan’s pink ones were smeared with black dirt. With tousled braids and solemn faces, they knelt on the ground and tossed gear back and forth into piles. It was the start of their second and final transition.

They’d spent the entire night climbing the Nose. “The spiders in the Great Roof were horrendous,” Kelleghan said later. “You shine your headlamp up to see where to place your piece, and you see their eyes.” Pineau raged through the first four pitches, but still, each climber had added 10 minutes to her block. The extra 40 minutes they’d earned from Watkins was now just 20. They were on track to finish before 24 hours, but only if they didn’t bonk.

Kelleghan looked openly worried. Pineau had stopped smiling, but hadn’t changed her tone. “Yeah, girl, we’re going to get that 24 [hours],” she said, throwing her newly racked harness back into the van. There was zero doubt in her voice, but the time pressure was palpable. Pineau passed Kelleghan, who was carefully putting in contacts, and shot her a reminder: “Five minutes. We’ve got to get going.”

V. Like an Ultramarathon

The week before her Triple attempt, Kelleghan sits on a checkered kitchen table in her friend’s house near Yosemite Village. She hands me a spiral notebook full of topo drawings in ballpoint pen. Her notes could rival a private detective’s. One page, which summarizes her and Pineau’s second training lap on Mount Watkins, lists seven data points about the weather, four remarks on clothing, and 12 additional conclusions, including: Only black totem on pitch three: fix rope over bush, Put oval carabiner on higher 11b bolt with tat, and Extend pitons on pitch five.

Compared to other Triple teams, Kelleghan says that she and Pineau are much more data-obsessed. From tracking their sleep quality with COROS watches to measuring out their electrolyte calories, they wanted to use any small optimization they could to be faster.

When the team arrived in the Valley around April 12, they had exactly two months to prepare for the Triple.? “We’re training for it like an ultramarathon,” Kelleghan said, explaining that ultramarathon runners, apparently, don’t practice for ultras by running regular marathons, but instead prepare with shorter laps. Their favorite ultrarunner is Courtney Dauwalter, whose film they watched at the No Man’s Land Festival. “Courtney says, every minute you spend in the pain cave, you’re making it more comfortable,” Kelleghan observed. “We’re joking that we’re adding couches to the pain cave.”

The plan was to practice each formation until they could get their Watkins time to five hours, Nose time down to seven hours, and Half Dome time to six hours. Then, they’d take a full week of rest and go for all three at once. They’d skip the Double, opting to save energy and rely on the support of friends and family to keep energy levels high.

But it wasn’t only the encroaching summer weather constricting their timeline. Kelleghan had recently developed turf toe: a sprain of the main joint in the big toe, in her right foot. “It’s getting worse every day because we’re not taking breaks,” she said. “Climbing chimneys on Half Dome and hiking down are antagonizing it.” If they couldn’t get ready for the Triple quickly, each extra week of training would hurt Kelleghan more.

The first few weeks were brutal. They started with the Nose, which Kelleghan had the most dialed from years of NIADs. “I think I burned 1,000 calories just telling Laura Nose beta,” says Kelleghan. Their first April 19 attempt took 12 hours 53 minutes and was freezing cold. Five days later, they got their time down to under nine hours, but Pineau got emotional trying to work a slippery groove on pitch three. Then, on April 30, Pineau got food poisoning for a full week.

By April 30, they’d only done two Nose runs together in one month, and were nowhere near ready for the Triple. “Compared to the boys, they’ve been hitting their goal times on the first and second attempt, and we haven’t,” said Pineau. On May 5, with heavy winds and a not-quite-recovered Pineau, the duo hit seven hours 39 minutes on the Nose—closer, but still not goal time.

They switched over to , heading up on May 8, Pineau’s birthday. After a nine-hour, three-minute scouting sesh, Kelleghan surprised Pineau by sneaking up a candle, which she stuck in a mini Scratch bar on the summit. After the second Watkins lap—five hours 57 minutes—Kelleghan and Pineau celebrated being three hours faster, but realized they needed to try it again to get more dialed. A third attempt on May 15 resulted in Pineau’s first whipper: a 10-foot fall onto a black Totem cam that protected another 60 feet of airtime.

“I screamed a lot,” said Pineau. “It made this day really shaky to me. My mindset is to never fall.” Kelleghan explains that Watkins is particularly slippery and glassy. Pineau fell at one of the safest places possible, but still whipped 10 feet with rope stretch. “I knew it was bad because she took the whip and then the next pitch, a 5.10, she usually frees,” says Kelleghan. “But this pitch, she was yelling curse words in French and not freeing it.” But their time was still faster: five hours, 15 minutes, nearly within range.

Finally, the team tried Half Dome. The first lap on May 19 was “just sussing” the moves, according to Kelleghan. They came in at nine hours, four minutes, but weren’t worried; it was a practice run. The second lap presented the real speed test. Pineau took a “daisy whip,” where she fell onto her own adjustable tethers before the rope caught her, after a .1/.2 offset cam popped out. Even so, the day was a success: the women climbed Half Dome in six hours, five minutes, just five minutes past their goal time. It was the closest they’d gotten to their target number on any formation yet.

To reduce their times on the Nose and Watkins, Kelleghan and Pineau took one more practice lap on each, eventually landing at seven hours, five minutes for the Nose (acceptable), and four hours, 47 minutes for Watkins (better than acceptable). Though they still hoped to shave off a bit more time on Watkins to get a buffer early in the 24-hour push. After the final Watkins practice lap, their COROS watches showed both women at 4 percent recovery. Kelleghan based her recovery schedule around those numbers. By the time they started their Triple attempt, she wanted the watch to show 100%.

Some Triple teams take 30-minute breaks between formations; others head up knowing they’ll have plenty of time to spare. But if Kelleghan and Pineau could repeat their best performances on each formation in a single push, it would still barely be enough. “We’re right at 24 hours if we have our current times and the transitions go perfectly with no rests,” said Kelleghan. Both clarified that their main goal was to do the Triple in a single push, and getting sub-24 would be a secondary goal. But the idea of barely missing the 24-hour standard set by the speed climbers before them was too uncomfortable to dwell on.

VI. A Little Rain Won’t Stop Us

Thunder rolled through Yosemite as Kelleghan and Pineau had made their way up Mount Watkins. They had started at 3:58 p.m. on June 7, which meant that their 24-hour cut-off time would be 3:58 p.m. on June 8. The 28 members of the Triple Queens Support Team group chat wondered if thunder meant they’d bail, but a selfie from Pineau resolved all questions. “A little rain won’t stop us,” she messaged, then shut off her phone. By the summit, they’d beaten their personal best by 40 minutes, winning a critical buffer for the next two walls.

The thunder disappeared for the nighttime Nose ascent, but returned for Half Dome. By the time the team had made it up Half Dome’s Death Slabs approach, which took just one hour, 30 minutes, they’d each hiked nearly 18 miles and climbed 5,200 vertical feet.

Kelleghan was feeling beat—and panicked. “It was my worst nightmare,” she said. “We’re going to be really close to 24.” Technically, it was only 9:40 a.m., and they still had six hours to summit Half Dome. They’d previously done it in six hours, five minutes, but that was when they were fresh, not after two consecutive walls and no sleep.

Kelleghan still felt nervous as they simul-climbed through the first block, but when she got through her section of aid pitches, Pineau told her, “That was the fastest you’ve ever done them.”

“Sweet! Cool!” shouted Kelleghan, revitalized.

Later, Pineau admitted that she lied. “I was definitely pumping [her] up a little bit,” she says. “I wasn’t actually tracking [her] time.”

At the base of the next Half Dome checkpoint—the chimneys—Pineau told Kelleghan, “If you do your block in one and a half hours, and I do mine in one and a half hours, we’ll make it.” Kelleghan gave herself a stern pep talk: “I was like, ‘Any energy I have left now goes to the chimneys.’” She channeled her focus, ignored her burning feet, and blazed up the rock.

When Pineau began to lead her final block to the summit, she asked Kelleghan to give her regular time checks at each pitch. By the last pitch, they had 30 minutes left, and Kelleghan realized something she hadn’t considered before: They were actually going to do it.

The giddiness set in. Lightning was flashing around her, but there was nothing she could do—mentally or physically—except jug the final fixed line to her three-year dream.

When Kelleghan caught Pineau at the final anchor, Pineau pressed her stopwatch, and the timer froze at 23 hours and 36 minutes. The two collapsed into a hug, still tied in. Kelleghan found tears streaming down her face. They had made history together.

“It doesn’t feel real yet,” said Kelleghan that night, back in Yosemite Village. She was lying cross-legged on a carpeted floor, while Pineau smiled at her from across the room. “It’s been so many years in the making.”

And the pain cave? She laughed. “It’s like a mansion now.”

The post Kate Kelleghan and Laura Pineau Became the First Women to Complete the Yosemite Triple Crown appeared first on 国产吃瓜黑料 Online.

For Canadian professional climber Allison Vest, objects of obsession aren’t exclusively found within the realm of rock. She finds them in quiet moments at home between climbing trips, sitting at her sewing machine and losing track of time making her own clothes. Vest climbs in many of her handmade creations: , , a gingham button- up shirt , and that she inked for 100 hours.

Vest learned to sew from her grandmother, who taught her how to work a sewing machine when she was a teenager. Now, mornings pass into nights as Vest emerges bleary-eyed from sewing sessions that often last longer than her bouldering sessions. It’s become a bit of an occupational hazard, as well. Vest recently noticed that after she’d hunch over her sewing desk with her head down for hours, a thumb tendon injury she got last year would flare up. Her physical therapist connected her neck position all the way to her worsening tendon injury—it was a full nervous system issue. To alleviate it, Vest had to start setting alarms to take breaks and raise her tools.

But to her, the craft of sewing is worth a little risk. Vest loves the hobby’s flow state, creativity, goal-setting, and embrace of imperfection. Sewing taps into some of the same states of mind that have led to her success in climbing. Vest is the first Canadian woman to boulder V13, she sent (V14) in 2022, and she’s won multiple national titles in bouldering and lead climbing.

Vest sat down with Climbing to share her tips on getting started in sewing, exploring upcycling, and making climbing pants. Here’s Vest’s story, in her own words.

A Common Thread Between Climbing and Sewing: Projects

I tend to have a little bit of an obsessive personality about projects. I’m always trying to think about the next day or the next session. It’s nice to have something else to obsess over when I sew, so I can stop thinking about climbing. It’s a similar vibe: there’s a process, you have to go through the process, and you have to find enjoyment in the little bits and pieces of the process, because it’s a lot of trial and error.

For example, with a pair of pants I made, I worked on them for seven or eight months. I had to make all these different iterations of them and they weren’t working. I had to try something new, switch this and that, take some measurements out of the waist, add space in the hips. I think that’s similar to climbing, too. When you’re trying to figure out the beta for a boulder, it’s just trial and error. You try one thing, it doesn’t work. You try something else. And then you slowly figure out what the best way is.

All the little bits and pieces eventually add up to sending the boulder, or the end result. In a similar way, it’s important to be focused on the process.

Getting Started Without Getting “Sewverwhelmed”

I’m potentially skewed, because I did have some very basic sewing skills from when I was a kid. But to start, it’s always helpful to have a small goal or something to work on. You could try to practice sewing skills and learn super simple stitches or seams, but I usually decide I want to make something, and then I go backwards and figure out how it’s done.

I look up YouTube videos and figure out what the process is to make that thing. If you do that, you end up being a lot more inspired and driven to finish it. Back when I was starting, I relied heavily on YouTube tutorials that would show you exactly how to sew a pattern [a clothing template, with pieces to guide fabric cutting], exactly how to do a hem—exactly how to do every single step. A lot of the high-level pattern makers will make detailed, helpful YouTube videos to sew along to.

There’s a climber in California named , for example, who was really helpful for me. She’s helped create a couple of climbing pant patterns. Social media has so many problems in terms of toxicity, but one thing it’s really great for is getting fast, easy information. So I’ve found a couple people on Instagram that’ll give you sewing tips or tricks, and then people like Jess, who release really cool, high-quality patterns that come with full, detailed YouTube tutorials.

Starting out, you have to let go of trying to make everything perfect. I’m a perfectionist, so I’m always trying to make things exactly perfect. But at the end of the day, things that are handmade are handmade. As a tailor or seamstress, you get to a point where it’s high level and everything is exactly perfect, but when you’re first starting out or trying to get better, that is not the case.

Climbing Pants: a Sewist’s Dilemma

I’ve always been inspired by the outfits that people wear more in dance than in climbing. It feels a lot more feminine, but also interesting in the way that movement looks on the wall, which obviously in dance is important. That’s the point: that the movement looks a certain way. Whereas in climbing, you don’t necessarily get points for aesthetics. When you’re climbing, it’s just about getting to the top. But I do think it’s interesting, the way that dancers dress to enhance the way movement looks, but also to make sure they have the full range of motion.

A lot of the trendy climbing pants don’t give you that full range of motion. The heavy-duty, canvas vibe of pant that is super common, I find a little restrictive sometimes. I think climbing has moved into a very interesting fashion niche. It feels a little bit like skate culture right now. I’m not a skateboarder—so skateboarders don’t come at me—but there’s a higher mobility requirement for climbing, just in terms of the positions you put your body in. That is an interesting dilemma in terms of creating clothing.

People always say: you look good, you climb good. People want to look good when they’re climbing, but at the same time, you don’t want to be restricted by your clothes in the pursuit of looking good. The goal with the was to have something that looks super fashionable and cute, but can also allow a full range of motion. I’ve liked playing with different fabrics.

How I Like My Bouldering Pants

As far as athletic pants go, there are a lot of brands out there that I really like, but things circulate pretty quickly. There are all these North Face pants from a year or so ago that I like, so I’ve liked being able to measure those pants, make my own pattern, and try to recreate them.

I definitely like the baggier, oversized look, but I also want them to fit well on my waist, hips, and butt. I don’t want it to be so baggy that there’s no shape to it. So I guess baggy with some shape is what I’m going for right now. I try to keep the pocket styles simple. Climbing—and bouldering in particular—with things in your pockets is sort of dangerous. When I’m bouldering, I don’t have anything in my pocket, so I usually undercook the pockets. I used to really like a cinched ankle, and I’ve done that a little bit, but now I like an open, loose ankle. They sit a little bit higher above the ankle bone, so you’re not stepping on them.

One of the biggest superpowers of sewing is: No sizing is ever going to be perfect. You can only make so many sizes as a brand. So what’s been nice is having the power to make things that fit my body specifically. People are going to always have different opinions or preferences about the way that apparel fits. I also like buying slightly bigger sizes and then taking things in at the waist. I’m not 100% sure of the science behind why that’s exactly what I like, but that’s been my best go-to—getting things that fit a little big and taking them in at the waist.

The Added Appeal of Upcycling

It’s really cool to see brands moving toward circular, sustainable practices. The North Face is really pushing for that. They have a few circular clothing projects. They also have a renewed and remade site on their website, where they take things from people with holes in them, fix them, and resell them. That’s one of the reasons I got into sewing, just because I think upcycling is really cool. I watched a documentary on HBO about clothing waste, where even when you donate clothing to a thrift store, most of it ends up getting shipped to Africa and into these massive piles of fast fashion clothing dumps.

To find and use fabric from other things rather than buying fabric new, I peruse thrift stores. I really like using stuff with an interesting pattern. I’ve made two bolero sets with old North Face hoodies. I got The North Face part on eBay, because that’s the of the outfit—something that has a cool pattern or a cool color. But one sweatshirt is usually not enough to make a full set with pants. I’m always shocked at how much material pants take to make.

Then I’ll go to the thrift store and try to color match with that one piece, using maybe one or two other sweatshirts to make the full outfit. I like intentionally sourcing one thing from somewhere that is eye-catching for one reason or another. All of the extra material I need, I usually get from our local Savers.

A Final Thought for Sewing-Curious Climbers

It’s just really fun. I hope more people will do it. It’s a super good side gig to climbing.

The post Pro Climber Allison Vest Thinks Climbing Pants Can Be Better. So She Makes Her Own. appeared first on 国产吃瓜黑料 Online.

On January 4, 2025, President Biden signed the bipartisan into U.S. law, ending a year-long panic over a in national parks. The new legislation evoked a – celebration by the American climbing community.

One of the lesser-known changes to the law, however, was Section 125, the Federal Interior Land Media (“FILM”) Act, which the North American Nature Photography Association and several other photography organizations lobbied for two years to include. This section wipes out the existing film and photography permit requirements in national parks and replaces them with significantly more lenient rules.

“This is going to make a huge difference for creatives, filmmakers, independent contractors, photographers, and athletes,” says , a professional climber who has starred in two films in Canyonlands National Park. “It’s going to open up a lot of different opportunities for people to share their stories and do creative projects.”

Prior to January 4, required permit applications for any footage or photos that advertised a product and any film taken “with the intent of generating income.” These guidelines were initially created to prevent film sets from taking over national parks. But until this year, it also applied to professional athletes. This included climbers, who might, for example, tag their sponsor in climbing footage that features the sponsor’s product. It also applied to casual climbers, who might post a route recap vlog on their monetized YouTube channel. Under the old rules, both actions required permits. A violation could result in fines or even jail time.

In my experience as a Yosemite Climber Steward, most climbers didn’t know about the rules. Last year, I saw many inexperienced photographers ignore the permit requirements—sometimes because they couldn’t afford to pay $200-$300 in non-refundable application fees. More often, however, they simply didn’t know they were supposed to acquire a permit. But more established filmmakers and athletes were careful to observe the rules, even if it meant shooting less climbing content.

Now that the EXPLORE Act has passed, the new requirements for photography and filmmaking in national parks are much simpler. For now, climbers who want to film their own adventures can breathe a sigh of relief.

The New National Park Rules for Photography and Filmmaking

Starting in January 2025, permits are no longer required if the filming or photography:

• Involves a maximum of five people,
• Takes place in a location where the public is allowed,
• Doesn’t require exclusive use of the area,
• Doesn’t take place in federally-designated wilderness,
• Doesn’t use any staging equipment beyond a tripod or handheld lighting equipment, and
• Doesn’t take place in an area typically crowded with visitors.

This covers the vast majority of climbing photography and film, which often involves just one or two people behind the camera and one or two climbers. If you’re directing a larger movie, for example, and absolutely need that sixth crew member, you may need to apply for a free “de minimis use authorization” (similar to a permit) for crews of six to eight people—but some national parks, such as Yosemite, have chosen to waive permits for these groups up to eight people.

Any film or photography project that doesn’t fulfill the above requirements will have to apply for a regular permit and will be assessed the same fees that existed pre-EXPLORE Act.

Small Changes, Big Impacts for Climbing Filmmakers

Previously, dealing with national park permits could be a time-intensive and costly affair for filmmakers. Jon Glassberg, owner of adventure production company Louder Than Eleven and director of dozens of climbing documentaries, says that he’s paid thousands of dollars in NPS film permit fees for past projects. He usually reserves four to five weeks of lead time to get permits and estimates that he’s cancelled shoots up to 5% of the time because of permit issues. Now that the EXPLORE Act has revamped the permit system, Glassberg says he would likely “be okay” with not having a permit for small, non-commercial shoots in national parks—but will still err on the side of caution.

“Even if it was five people or less, I think I would still get a permit or go through the channels to at least try,” Glassberg says. According to the new law, filmmakers and photographers who don’t need a permit can still request one at no charge. “Nobody’s tested the EXPLORE Act. If, for some reason, whoever is currently running the back of house [at the NPS] litigating these permits decides their interpretation of the EXPLORE Act is different than mine, they might want to take me to court over it.”

He adds that he’s eager to see a filmmaker test the new system—but he doesn’t want to be that person. “I’m going to keep shooting in national parks, keep making movies, and keep working in this industry forever,” he explains. “If I have a strike against me in a national park, it’s just not worth it.”

More Opportunities for Professional Climbers

Smaller independent filmmakers and climbers who frequent national parks will likely benefit most from the EXPLORE Act’s new permit rules.

In 2022 and 2023, professional climber Mary Eden made back-to-back first female ascents of Necronomicon (5.13d/5.14a) and (5.14b), which are both .

“Initially, when I reached out about filming Necronomicon, the Park Service told me no, and to not hold my breath,” says Eden. But she kept asking questions, and eventually the Park Service was willing to work with her.

To get film permits, Eden spent up to eight months for each film negotiating with the Park Service. “I had the advantage of being local and having volunteered with the NPS for a year in 2015, so the process was easier for me to navigate,” she says. “It would be a lot harder for other people coming from out of town or who had not interacted with the Park Service before.” Ultimately, Eden paid $300 for film permits for Necronomicon and $500 for Black Mamba.

Just before the EXPLORE Act became law, Eden once again asked the Park Service for a film permit to record her attempts on another Canyonlands roof crack: (5.14b). This time, the Park Service told her that she’d have to pay several thousand dollars for a Nature Impact study before her permit application would be considered. “Even if I managed to raise the money, I was told straight-up that it was not likely I’d get the permit,” she says. Faced with this scenario, Eden decided against posting any photos or videos about her project.

Once the EXPLORE Act passed, however, Eden was thrilled. Now, she can take photos on the route and post about it on social media without needing a permit. “It gives me a lot more peace of mind that I’m allowed to share my experience without doing anything illegal,” she says. “I think it’s going to be better in the long run for small filmmakers.”

Eden still plans to let the Park Service know about her Century Crack project to seek their input on best practices and communicate them to other climbers. “We can work together to share the love of a place and preserve the wilderness while also being reasonable,” she says. “Somebody with a camera is a lot different than a 20-person film crew.”

The post Filming in National Parks Just Got Easier—Expect More Climbing Content appeared first on 国产吃瓜黑料 Online.

Update: On May 27, 2025, the Supreme Court denied Apache Stronghold’s appeal, allowing the land transfer to proceed as scheduled.?This is a developing story and will be updated as more details are announced.

When Jack Colavita, a high school English teacher in Scottsdale, Arizona, gets out of school at 3 p.m., he typically heads straight for the boulders.

Specifically, he drives 65 miles east to Queen Creek Canyon, drags his crashpads out to classic Oak Flat problems such as?Scatterbrain?(V6-7) or?Evolution?(V7-), and works powerful moves on the volcanic, pocketed rock that Tommy Caldwell??to “the mouths of tiny piranhas.”

Oak Flat, a sub-area of Queen Creek Canyon, is a world-class climbing area with more than 2,500 routes and boulders within easy access of the fifth-largest American city. From 1989 to 2004, it hosted the??(PBC, eventually renamed the Phoenix Boulder Blast), which attracted up to 600 competitors each year, including teenage prodigies Caldwell, Beth Rodden, Katie Brown, and Chris Sharma.

Erik Murdock, PhD, who now works as the deputy director of policy and government affairs for Access Fund, remembers one particularly exciting PBC in 1996: “I spotted Chris Sharma on a warm up. Then, he spent the entire comp trying the open project because if he sent it, he won.” That afternoon, Sharma, who was 14 years old at the time, sent the problem and took first place.

Today, Oak Flat is still a go-to spot for Phoenix locals looking to squeeze in a few hours of climbing after school or work. “For a local area less than two hours away, Oak Flat is the only place where you can really spend a day and not break a hold,” says Colavita, who leads climbing trips through his school’s outdoors program. “It’s the place where kids are able to go for a day with parents’ permission.”

However, after a two-decade-long legal battle, Arizona climbers are steeling themselves for the potential destruction of most of the boulders and hundreds of routes in Oak Flat area.

On April 17, the U.S. Forest Service released a 60-day advance??of its publication of the Final Environmental Impact Statement for Oak Flat—a document that will trigger the transfer of 2,422 acres of the Oak Flat area to Resolution Copper,??by the British-Australian company Rio Tinto and Australian company BHP. While Resolution Copper currently operates around many Oak Flat crags, if this land transfer occurs, it intends to expand its mining operation to include “panel caving” which would eventually result in a ground crater up to 1.8 miles wide and 1,115 feet deep, according to the?. This mining technique is considered a cost-effective way to access targeted copper reserves, but it will cause,?, the “largest-ever loss of climbing on America’s public lands.” One 2017??concluded that 1,114 boulders—more than 97% of the boulders in the greater Queen Creek area—as well as 149 sport routes and 38 trad routes will be affected by permanent closures in three crags: Euro Dog Valley, The Mine, and Oak Flat itself.

Climbers have long been engaged in the??over Oak Flat, but the growing immediacy of the Forest Service’s land transfer has hit hard.

“The litigation has looked pretty pessimistic since about two years ago,” says Colavita. “It’s a weird vibe. People are pulling out their investments with their time and their energy in the area. We can always see the mine looming above us like the Eye of Sauron or something.”

A Two-Decade Battle Comes to a Head

This 60-day warning from the federal government represents the culmination of a long, well-documented legal and public relations battle for control of Oak Flat.

For nearly 20 years, Resolution Copper has sought permission to mine an estimated 40 billion pounds of copper beneath Queen Creek Canyon, which sits squarely within Arizona’s “Copper Triangle” east of Phoenix.

Starting in 2005, U.S. Senators for Arizona John McCain and Jeff Flake, who supported the copper mine’s expansion, attempted to pass a land swap that would give 2,422 acres of Tonto National Forest land, including the entire Oak Flat area, to Resolution Copper. In exchange, the U.S. Forest Service would receive 5,459 acres of the mining company’s private land in Arizona. McCain predicted that the mining project would create as many as 4,000 jobs and contribute “tens of billions of dollars” in economic activity over the life of the mine.

For centuries, the San Carlos Apache tribe, which calls the area Chi’chil Bi?dagoteel, has used it as a sacred site for conducting religious rituals, such as coming-of-age ceremonies, as well as gathering water and medicinal plants. A former historic preservation officer for the neighboring White Mountain Apache Tribe,? John Welch, has called the area “the best set of Apache archaeological sites ever documented, full stop,” and in 2016 it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places. “I’ve been out there [to climb] and driven around the corner and seen an Indigenous ceremony happening,” says Colavita. “Even without any of the copper mine stuff going on, there would still be a deference: This is sacred Indigenous land before this is climbing land.”

After trying and failing for years to pass the land swap as its own bill, in December 2014, McCain and Flake performed a legislative sleight of hand that, while common in Congress, was widely criticized as undemocratic. In a last-minute “midnight rider,” the pair slipped the??into a 1,600-page, must-pass?defense spending authorization bill?that President Obama signed that month. The new federal law required the U.S. Forest Service to perform a three-step process: (1) publishing a Draft Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for the land transfer, (2) collecting public comments to incorporate the final version, and (3) officially handing the land titles to Resolution Copper within 60 days of publishing the Final EIS, whatever it may contain.

The first step occurred in August 2019, when the Forest Service released a 1,400-page?. The following 90-day public comment period—step two—ultimately received more than 29,000 comments by hand, mail, email, web form, or verbally at public meetings. On January 15, 2021, five days before an administration turnover, the Forest Service triggered the third step by releasing the?. But on March 1, the Biden administration ordered the Forest Service to withdraw its statement on the grounds that more time was needed to understand the concerns raised by the Apache tribe and other stakeholders.

In an explicit change of policy, on March 20, 2025, the Trump administration released an??titled “Immediate Measures to Increase American Mineral Production” that directed all heads of agencies involved in mineral production to expedite approvals for projects awaiting permits. Shortly afterward, on April 17, the Forest Service announced their intention to re-publish the Final Resolution Copper EIS—the new step three—as early as June 16. When that happens, unless an organization such as Access Fund??the Final EIS for inadequately addressing concerns with the Draft EIS, Oak Flat would officially belong to Resolution Copper within two months. After the land transfer, everyday Arizonans would only have access to the area until the mining company deems it unsafe for the public.

On May 9, a federal district judge in Phoenix halted the land transfer until the Supreme Court made a decision on whether to take on?Apache Stronghold v. United States, which challenged the Forest Service’s right to destroy sacred land in Oak Flat.??is a nonprofit advocacy organization that represents the San Carlos Apache. However, on May 27, the Supreme Court??Apache Stronghold’s appeal, with Justices Gorsuch and Thomas?.

Without further legal challenges, the Final EIS will be released as early as June 16. The land swap will occur within two months after its release.

Oak Flat: Turning Comp Climbers Into Outdoor Crushers

If the land swap proceeds, Phoenix’s growing climbing community will have hundreds fewer routes and boulders to help indoor climbers transition to the outdoors.

Before Sierra Blair was a Team USA climber, a World Cup competitor, or a Pan American Bouldering Champion, she was a nine-year-old kid who followed her climbing coach and teammates to Oak Flat. It was there, in the desert riparian hills just an hour-and-a-half drive from her gym, that Blair learned how to lead climb. “I remember walking by?The Hulk?as a kid,” she says, referencing the V11 boulder. “That thing looked crazy. The holds were so small, but it was somehow in my head on a list of boulders I wanted to do at some point.”

After focusing on indoor competition climbing for 14 years, Blair decided in 2023 to switch up her focus to the outdoors. At Oak Flat, she stumbled into another classic,?Pyramid?(V10), and nearly flashed it. “At the time, I was recovering from an injury and didn’t know how hard I could climb, so it was this cool confidence boost for me,” she said. Next on her list:?The Hulk, from her childhood tick list, which she put down in two quick weekends.

Over the next two years, Blair’s interest in climbing the volcanic rock formations would connect her directly to the legacy of the Phoenix Bouldering Contest. During the 2002 or 2003 competition, Chris Sharma first sent a 14-foot overhang called?Captain Hook?(V12), but since then, a crucial hold had broken off. In spite of the broken hold, Blair made the second ascent in March 2024, opting to keep the original grade. “I thought it was impossible, especially with the break, and I was excited to get the boulder done in a few sessions,” she told?. “It’s definitely a very proud line at Oak Flat.”

Watch Blair send Double D Low, another V12 at Oak Flat:

Sharp pockets and comp-style moves make Oak Flat “a moonboarder’s dream,” says Blair. “The grades are a little sandbagged, but you get used to the sandbag and then your skin just becomes indestructible anywhere else,” she says. “After I’ve been climbing all season [at Oak Flat], you could stab me in the skin and nothing would happen. My skin could take it.” She says that she’s done the majority of her outdoor climbing there and emphasizes that Oak Flat has something for all ability levels.

Colavita thinks that Oak Flat has the potential to turn even more indoor competition climbers into outdoor crushers. “I’ve seen firsthand how these kids can go out there and crush, especially in a place like Oak Flat, which has savage but straightforward movement,” says the schoolteacher.

He adds that he’s seen many kids in Phoenix getting into climbing through indoor competition, and doesn’t want them to lose out on the beauty of the outdoors. “If Oak Flat doesn’t exist and it keeps getting hotter in this city, it’s going to go from being a great outdoor climbing location to one where it’s nearly impossible.”

Protecting the popular gym-to-crag area from the mine, he argues, is “how you keep the tradition of [Phoenix] climbing about being outside—about respect and reverence for the planet.”

The post Will Oak Flat Soon Become a 1,000-Foot-Deep Crater? appeared first on 国产吃瓜黑料 Online.

Every few minutes the helicopters whirred overhead, back and forth, bringing loads of water to quench the wildfire that burned in Colorado’s Clear Creek Canyon. I was cat-sitting for my friend whose apartment sat right at the mouth of the canyon, separated from the Goltra Fire only by a highway and a river. By all reports, the wildfire was smoldering, not raging, along the south-facing hillsides that flanked the canyon’s mouth, but I knew wildfires could flare up in an instant. Topher, the cat, seemed unphased despite my constant nervous glances out the window. I knew the crags Skinny Legs, Bumbling Stock, and Stumbling Block were in the burn zone, and as the buzz of the helicopters went on incessantly, I couldn’t help but wonder: Once we stop the flames, then what? What happens to crags after a wildfire?

Ultimately, the Clear Creek crags would only flirt with the wildfire. No lives lost, no evacuations or threats to human structures, and these crags only remained closed for a few months. As I dug into the scattered history of wildfires impacting crags—something that is becoming ever more common in the U.S. and around the world—I found that the Goltra Fire hardly registered as significant. But as I talked to land managers and developers, one thing remained true regardless of a fire’s size—the climbing community and public land managers often don’t really know what to do in their aftermath. But ask the right people, and dig through decades of Mountain Project forums, and the scattered community knowledge starts to piece together.

***

In the last 25 years, fires have left their mark on both iconic crags and beloved neighborhood zones. Some fire-affected crags quickly became climbable after cleaning spalling rock with a pry bar, including at the Ghost Town Crag and Sinks Canyon, both near Lander, Wyoming, and the local sandstone crags near Santa Barbara, California. Other crags have suffered from extensive closures after their natural landscapes were laid to waste, including Ten Sleep, Granite Mountain, Washington Pass, the South Platte, Queen Creek Canyon, Lover’s Leap, Poudre Canyon, and Echo Cliffs. Other crags—like Elephant Knob in the Sierras, and parts of Cochiti Mesa, New Mexico—are permanently unclimbable, even decades after the fires ravaged the area. But this isn’t just happening in the West. Rumbling Bald burned in 2016 and the north gorge of the Red River Gorge closed in 2020 due to fires. And, of course, one particular fire shook the international climbing world when in 2022. That fire wasn’t just flirting when it brushed up against the crag that housed La Dura Dura (5.15c), one of climbing’s hardest testpieces.

After the 2024 Goltra Fire in Clear Creek, I talked to a land manager at Jefferson County Open Space (JCOS) about how they evaluate and rehabilitate crags after a fire. Like most land management agencies, JCOS does not take on liability related to climbing—it’s up to the individual to survey our hardware, and any risk is our own. But as climbing areas get busier and busier, land managers have begun partnering with climbers to share expertise and coordinate resources. JCOS in particular has proven to be one of the most progressive organizations in this space, yet even they do not have a formal framework for addressing wildfire impacts on crags. However, Eric Krause, visitor education and relations interim manager at JCOS, says that no matter how wide the burn area, or how hot the fire, there are three areas of concern for crags: natural hazards, rock integrity, and hardware integrity.

Natural Hazards

The most common impact of wildfires is the natural hazards they leave behind. One stand-out example is the Caldor Fire that ravaged Lover’s Leap in 2021. The fire burned for 69 days before it was fully contained, covering 221,835 acres and destroying 1,003 structures. The rock in Lover’s Leap was largely unaffected due to the absence of large trees beneath the walls. However, the rock quality isn’t the only thing that impacts any given climbing day. First you have to get there—and in Lover’s Leap, the approaches were now a mess.

Petch Pietrolungo, owner of Lover’s Leap Guides and local living in Strawberry, California, since 1993, was one of the main community members leading the post-fire recovery. Bushes had been razed from the earth, and fallen trees blocked paths in all directions. The Forest Service had begun to clean up official trails—but climbing approaches weren’t considered part of that domain and they were stretched for funding anyway. Pietrolungo and other locals took it upon themselves to rebuild the approaches, removing debris and lining them with rocks to discourage social trails.

But the fire’s effects still linger. Pietrolungo says that, now, the major hazard at Lover’s Leap is falling old growth trees. During strong winds, these massive tree trunks are snapping 20 feet up. Pietrolungo estimates these trees could be a hazard for the next five to 10 years.

Wildfires can also cause significant rock fall, erosion, and even landslides. While land management agencies have the expertise and experience to address natural hazards—and indeed are required to on official trails—due to staffing and funding limitations, natural hazard mitigation can result in extended closure periods.

And then there is the intangible. Wildfires can result in what New Mexico climber Josh Smith calls a barren “moonscape.” Not only is the plant life gone, but so too are the animals who depended on it. More than safety concerns of falling rock or crisped corpses of trees, the barrenness can lend itself to a certain existential horror.

Rock Integrity

In 2022, the world-famous climbing in Oliana, Spain, suffered one of the worst fires our community has ever seen: the wall of sculpted, featured warm-ups were reduced to flaky choss, and classic testpieces like Crimptonite (8b+), T1 Full Equip (8b+), and Mishi (8b) were all so damaged developers didn’t know if they could ever return to their original brilliance. Oliana’s destruction was due to thermal spalling—the limestone had gotten so hot that weak features of rock (which are generally the protrusions that make for the best handholds and feet) had flaked off.

A study published in 2023 by Pablo Yeste-Lizán and fellow researchers compared the fire impacts in Oliana to another 2019 fire in Spain that damaged a granite crag near Madrid called Cadalso de los Vidrios. The extreme level of spalling that happened in Oliana, and indeed how high up on the routes this mechanical change to the rock was found, was very unique. According to the study, “The climbing walls [in Oliana] are located on the top of a steep slope with upward winds. This generated a “chimney” effect during the fire, which projected a hot stream toward the upper parts of the wall, so the effects of thermal spalling appear higher in the wall, up to 30 to 40 meters high.”

Despite how dire it seemed at first, climbers can be extremely resourceful. After I heard of Michaela Kiersch’s impressive onsight of Crimptonite in 2024, I had to check back in with Chris Frick, one of the climbers leading the recovery effort at Oliana. Was Crimptonite climbable again?

Frick reported that the original line isn’t possible anymore, at least not at 8b+/14a. Jorg Verhoeven bolted a variation by using the bouldery start of T1 Full Equip (miraculously unaffected) and traversing into Crimptonite. Kiersch onsighted this variation. The original start has had its hardware replaced, but due to missing holds it is considered “an ugly project at a very high level.” No one has cleaned or re-bolted the warm-ups, and they remain unclimbable.

The extensive level of rock damage is also related to the very nature of the rock. Yeste-Lizán’s study notes that “limestone may be more impacted by fire due to the conversion of aragonite to calcite, the thermal degradation of organics, and the expulsion of water.” In other words, limestone quickly heats up, loses water, and flakes off.

But other rock types can be affected by high temperatures caused by wildfires as well. According to the same study, while granite can be more resistant to fire, it too can lose strength, change in color, and peel or crack. And during the Las Conchas Fire that swept through Cochiti Mesa, New Mexico, in 2011, various desert face climbs, composed of a soft stone called Bandelier Tuff, were made utterly unclimbable. Local climber Mike Tritt went on a scouting mission after the fire, and reported on Mountain Project: “The fire was hot enough to separate the layers of patina from the rock. Without the patina I doubt there is anything solid enough to climb.”

Hardware Integrity

How wildfires can and do impact hardware integrity is the trickiest and most specialized consideration after a wildfire—and the knowledge out there is sparse at best.

For Bobby Hutton at , a gear retailer known for its extensive break-testing videos, his main concern with bolts, of any kind, that have been through a wildfire is not how high heats might impact the bolt’s strength, but rather how such heats could obliterate corrosion resistance properties—making fire impacts a long term problem for hardware, rather than an immediate risk. Hutton has experienced the dire impacts of wildfires himself: “The Caldor fire in 2021 burned my home and many of the crags I love. Of the 15 or so crags [where] I’ve done development or rebolting, 12 have been affected by wildfire.”

After his home burned, he recovered several brand new hangers that had been exposed to heats estimated at above 1763 degrees Fahrenheit. When he tested these rusted hangers, they performed well under pull tests, breaking at forces well above what they were originally rated to fail at. But he still had concerns about the long term corrosion resistance of the bolts. What good was the strength of the hanger now, if it would rapidly corrode in a few years?

In the real-life example of Oliana, when Yeste-Lizán and fellow researchers anchor-tested bolts on various parts of the affected wall, the results showed the bolts’ strength to be in good condition, despite oxidation. Of greater concern was how rock spalling and weakness interacted with hardware integrity. In several instances, rock immediately around or behind the bolt had chipped and spalled off, leaving some of the bolt itself exposed, and the hanger no longer flush with the rock.

Watch route developers in Oliana assess the flaky, burnt stone with wall hammers. Video courtesy of Chris Frick.

Frick certainly noticed these concerns, and his rebolting effort was comprehensive. Though he prioritized oxidized hangers and any bolts with spalling nearby, he also took no chances: “If you start to rebolt, you do the whole line.”

The question of whether glue-in bolts can melt at high temperatures is also not fully settled. Hutton reports that some types of adhesive used by climbers are rated to deal with fire. Others don’t have that rating. Until fully tested, and when the type of glue used is unknown when inspecting a wildfire-affected glue-in, it is better to be safe rather than sorry. As Hutton says, “In bolt replacement there has been a long term theory that you could use a torch to soften the adhesive and remove the bolt. We have tested it and it is possible with certain types of glue, but far from practical—we saw lots of damage to the rocks before the heat penetrated deep enough to weaken the glue. So wildfire damage to glue-ins is possible but I would expect to see rock damage first.”

With the 2011 Las Conchas fire at Cochiti Mesa and surrounding areas, another consideration was the fire damage to traditional anchors, like trees and existing webbing. After the Lover’s Leap fire, Pietrolungo found a handful of gear that had been dropped from climbs into the now nonexistent bushes, all burnt to a crisp, and evidence that fixed or stuck gear would also dramatically change in character after a fire.

In the relatively minor case of the Clear Creek crags in the burn zone of the Goltra Fire, the JCOS team asked an anonymous local route developer to do an unofficial evaluation of the hardware at the affected crags. While the generous volunteer did not see any damage obvious to the naked eye—likely meaning that the fire did not get hot enough to oxidize any of the hangers or cause spalling of rock—with no standardized process, the evaluation was inherently limited and informal. Perhaps it’s time for more than that.

***

Wildfires are an increasing risk to gateway communities and the crags we love. One 2016 study found that fire burn area in the US has doubled in the last half century, in large part due to climate change and legacies of fire suppression. While fire mitigation strategies have been extensively discussed elsewhere, fire recovery processes in the specific context of climbing and safety have not. Because climbing causes so many tricky liability questions for land managers and climbing communities, there is also frequently a division or confusion about who is responsible for evaluating crags after a wildfire. While most climbers I talked to about this topic had positive relationships with rangers and land managers, they weren’t interested in giving already underfunded land agencies any further burdens in exchange for a more regulated fire recovery process. But then these other elements of crag safety are left to the climbing community to address on a volunteer basis. As with Oliana, the recovery of specific climbs might be left to the whims of volunteers. And what if no volunteer rises from the ashes?

It left me wondering: with scraps of knowledge buried in the brains of our generous developers, gear testers, and the local crag rat, what would it take to formalize a framework, conduct more comprehensive testing, collect scattered knowledge, and better equip our communities?

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The International Olympic Committee Board announced this week that it plans to split up the lead and boulder climbing disciplines in the 2028 Summer Games in Los Angeles. Compared to Paris 2024, the 2028 Olympics will admit nearly 12% more climbing athletes—76, instead of 68—and offer three additional climbing medals.

Sport climbing’s Olympic presence has come a long way since its 2021 debut. In the Tokyo Olympics, the three disciplines of lead, boulder, and speed were awkwardly combined into one super discipline that required athletes to compete across all disciplines. The combined format proved a massive challenge for some specialized climbers. For example, in Tokyo, Adam Ondra took second in lead, but placed fourth in speed and sixth in boulder. For a moment, it looked like Ondra would win gold, but was such that Alberto Ginés López took the gold by placing first in speed, seventh in boulder, and fourth in lead. (Scores were determined by multiplying the scoring results of each discipline.)

In 2024, things improved: the IOC separated the hyper-specialized discipline of speed climbing, but kept lead and boulder lumped together. The climbing community——still felt that none of these disciplines ought to be grouped together.

According to the , the International Olympic Committee (IOC) explained that specific athlete quotas for the 2028 Games across the three events will “be finalized in the Olympic Qualification System.” This will also clarify whether climbers can compete in multiple events.

“I’m really excited about the news that all three disciplines will be separate at the 2028 Summer Olympics,” says Natalia Grossman, who competed in the lead/boulder event in 2024. “From the very beginning, the community has been pushing for three sets of medals—and now we’ve finally got them!”

Jesse Grupper, who also competed in lead/boulder in the 2024 Games, felt similarly. “Since climbing first became a discipline in the Olympics, this event has always pushed athletes to conform to the disciplines decided on by the Olympics,” says Grupper. “This marks a new era where the core disciplines of climbing are determining what happens at the Olympics and not the other way round. As an athlete with a focus in lead, I’m over the moon to have an opportunity to vie for a spot to do what I love on the biggest stage in the world.”

Another exciting development in Olympic climbing is the at the 2028 Games. Significant groundwork has already been laid in establishing classifications for the rollout of paralympic climbing in Los Angeles.

In addition to its announcement regarding the new climbing format on Wednesday, the IOC revealed a number of other changes for the LA 2028 Games. of these changes is to achieve better gender parity. For example, the number of women’s football (soccer) teams increased to 16, while the quota for men’s soccer teams decreased to 12, swinging the gender imbalance in the other direction. The IOC also announced a new weight class for women boxers, and added five new sports, including cricket, flag football, and lacrosse.

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On April 8, just a day before her 24th birthday, American rock climber Brooke Raboutou made history by climbing one of the hardest routes in the world.

Called?Excalibur,?the 40-foot route in Northern Italy is steep and notorious for its difficulty. Over the years this pitch has defied some of rock climbing’s strongest athletes. But Raboutou’s climb wasn’t just a big deal because the route was hard. Within the world of rock climbing, Excalibur is graded 9b+/5.15c. Raboutou has now become the first woman, ever, to ascend a climb at that grade.

“From the start, I was drawn to you,” Raboutou . “Some days felt like effortless harmony; on others, we fought, our voices raised … You forced me to confront my fears, detach from expectation, and feed every flicker of belief I could find. You taught me to argue with doubt until it began to doubt itself. You asked for everything, but gave me even more in return.”

Here’s what to know about her historic feat:

Who Is Brooke Raboutou?

Raboutou hails from climbing royalty. Her parents, French climber Didier Raboutou and American Robyn Erbesfield, were both world champion competitive climbers. Her older brother, Shawn, is one of the world’s strongest boulderers—a subset of climbing focused on short, powerful moves close to the ground.

With her?superhuman family, Brooke Raboutou has been making waves in the world of hard climbing since she was a child. She climbed a boulder graded V10 when she was just nine years old, and at age ten and then 11, became the youngest women to climb routes graded 5.13d and 5.14b, respectively. Long story short: Even before she hit high school, Raboutou was stronger than 99 percent of climbers on the planet.

Raboutou has also had an illustrious competitive career. She attended both the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and the 2024 Paris Olympics. In Paris, she earned a silver medal, becoming the first American woman to medal in Olympic sport climbing. I interviewed Brooke right before her Olympic success.

What Does the Grade 5.15c Mean?

In the United States, roped rock climbs are graded on a scale called the Yosemite Decimal System (YDS), which used to run from 5.0 to 5.10, with the latter rating reserved for the toughest routes. In recent decades, as climbs have become harder, new levels (5.11, 5.12, etc.) have been introduced, with letters (a, b, c, d) tacked onto the end of the number to denote different arrays of difficulty within each number grade.

Today, 5.15c is the second-highest grade thus far.?The first-ever 5.15c was ascended by Czech climber Adam Ondra 2012—the route, called Change, is in a cave in Flatanger,?Norway. In the 13 years since then, only ten people (Raboutou included) have climbed routes at that grade. Less than a dozen routes graded 5.15c exist in the world.

But not all 5.15 routes are alike—the rating does not specify a rock’s angle or hold-size. Some 5.15c routes, like Excalibur, are short and steep, and require a climber to pinch microscopic holds up an essentially blank wall. Others 5.15c routes, like La Dura Dura in Spain, are four times as long, but require a climber to perform dynamic movements and diverse techniques to get to the top—a climbing style that favorites endurance over raw power.

One higher level (5.15d) technically exists, but there are only three routes in the world that have been proposed?to be that grade, and none has been repeated. This is noteworthy because climbing routes receive their grades by consensus. For example: if I am the first person to climb a route, I will tell everyone how hard I think it is, but then other climbers who climb the same route will?chime in with their respective opinions, and so-on. As time goes on, a general opinion within the climbing community emerges about the route’s grade. Perhaps my initial grading wasn’t entirely accurate—the climbers who repeat my route will set the story straight.

Of course, this means that assigning grades to the hardest routes is difficult, since only the very best climbers can complete them and then offer their respective opinions. The fewer climbers who are actually able to climb a route, the more weight each individual opinion carries.?For routes like Excalibur, which are among hardest in the world, this number is slim. Only two other climbers—Stefano Ghisolf?and Will Bosi—have been able to complete the route.

So, while 5.15c is technically the second-hardest grade in the world, it’s the hardest grade that multiple climbers have been able to complete and then verify.

What Do We Know About?Excalibur?

I’ve reported on Excalibur by Ghisolfi, who hails from the town Arco where the route is located, in 2023. The route—which is named for a sculpture of a sword-in-an-anvil placed near its base—is shorter than most other 5.15c climbs. However, it is steeper, and as a result, each move is individually harder.

The wall Excalibur ascends is overhanging at an angle of 40 degrees. Imagine climbing up a pyramid, but from the inside. The route is only 40 feet long and entails approximately 18 individual movements. To the layperson, this wall would appear essentially blank and completely devoid of hand or footholds. In truth, there are holds, but they are scarcely bigger than the cracks in the surface of?a brick wall.?Climbers have ascended?Excalibur using tiny pinches and “crimps”—credit card-like edges in the rock that are sometimes only a few millimeters deep—and shallow pockets, which can be grabbed using only a couple of fingers.

To get an idea of what Excalibur entails, I suggest of Ghisolfi making the first ascent.

In outdoor climbing, Raboutou has specialized in bouldering, like her brother Shawn, which also makes her ascent of Excalibur noteworthy. She has never climbed a route in the 5.15 zone, so her jump to a 5.15c is extremely impressive.?Excalibur, although it is a roped climb, is right up Raboutou’s alley.

What Did Brooke Raboutou Have to Say?

Raboutou said her ascent of?Excalibur?was different from those of the men who have previous ascended it. Raboutou is just 5 foot 3 inches tall.

“I knew a lot of the general beta used by Stefano and others when I first started trying?Excalibur, but I had to find my own methods and strategies that fit me,” she said. “My dimensions and climbing style are very different from theirs.”

Raboutout also said the climb required patience. Early in her attempts on the rock she made quick progress and she felt strong. But the variables that come with outdoor climbing—and not in a rock gym—made the going slow. “When I first started trying this climmb I felt really good on it really fast and kind of surprised myself. With that came an expectation that I could come it and fast,” she said. “That wasn’t the case. I had to detach from that expectation and be patient for things to line up: good weather, my skin to heal, my muscles to recover, and work toward a mental state that allowed me to execute physically.”

All of that focus didn’t prevent Raboutou from having some fun with the sword sculpture at?Excalibur’s base.

Where?Excalibur Places Brooke Raboutou in Climbing History

In 1993, American climber Lynn Hill made the first free ascent of The Nose on El Capitan in Yosemite. This 3,300-foot route, graded 5.14a, is the world’s most famous rock climb. Prior to Hill, it had never been climbed by anyone, male or female, without using artificial aids to get around some of the more difficult, blank sections.

Throughout much of rock climbing’s early decades, the sport was male-dominated. In recent years, that has changed. In 2024, Austrian climber Barbara “Babsi” Zangerl to “flash” a route on El Capitan—this means she climbed the route on her first try, without a single fall.

The first woman to ascend a route rated 5.15 was , who scaled a 5.15a route in Spain called La Rambla in 2017. The same year, Austrian climber Angela “Angy” Eiter became the first woman to climb 5.15b by ascending a route in Spain called La Planta de Shiva.

In the eight years since then, other women have climbed routes graded 5.15a and 5.15b, but none have completed a 5.15c. With her Olympic medal last year, Raboutou proved herself one of the world’s leading indoor climbers. With Excalibur, she now stands at the pinnacle of outdoor climbing as well.

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