Issue link: https://bluemagazine.uberflip.com/i/25121
Climbers are opinionated about anything having to do climbing. Put ten of them together in a room and��� u'li . get at I�ast twice �hat n�mber of o.pin.ions on ny given subject more If they ve been drinking. Th ;......,. _ I-and the arguments have been going ever si nce. ight make the perceived tightly-knit communit� of climbers peaks by more devious routes, see doing so as the only form ppear more like the impeaching senate, but climbers could probably agree far more readily on what constitutes a "sexual hunks of steep rock ignored by everyone else. I personally think relationship. ' They are actually far more divided about a proper ascent, good style and fair tactics. trying to say is. that climbing is a diverse world; meone interested In the latest 12-foot boulder probl is as desirable a goal as winning a curling match. up your invective. low-altitude but challenging desert peak. If climbing were brothers' free ascents of big walls in Yosemite. Each is a cutting-edge only about standing on the highest points on this planet, then achievement in its own rite for its own home team. the game would have been won in 1953 when Ed Hillary, later called Sir Edmund Hil lary, put his crampons atop Everest. But column for the next 40 issues. I'll let the following climbers explain later climbers, left with a feeling tha � there ha something left to achieve, started breaking mountalneenng down into smaller components: ice climbing, rock climbing, climbing using equipment to progress, climbing using equipment for safety only, climbing for speed, climbing with the protection already in place, et cetera. After years of evolution and refinement, supporters of each sub-category � to be their sports.-Will Gadd . liil�===�?���i�5"�-':�;jii Climbing began when Moses ascended a �elatlvely Jared Ogden's ascent of Shipton Spire in the Himalayas and the Huber . OK, that should about clog the letters-to-the-editor game as they have entirely eliminated the outdoors. . Alpinists, those interested in ascending already-climbed . Ivation. Sport climbers approach Nirvana by climbing ever-S1tee!oer interested in indoor bouldering, or climbing small plastic rocks via heinously difficult routes, have the upper hand in the reductionism ng is my attempt make sense of it all-climbers, warm V14, Chris Sharma's total dominance of sport climbing in the US, Lynn Hill's free ascent of EI Capitan in Yosemite, Mark Synoot's and So what is the "state of the sport' for climbing? The obVIOUS recent achievements include solutions to boulder problems rated up . PHOTOS (LEFT TO RIGHTITOP TO BOTTOM, BOBBY MOOEL. STEPHEN SCOTT GROSS. CAMERON LAWSON BOBBY MODEL DUGALD BREMNER. DUGALD BREMNER. DUGALD BREMNER. MARC TWIGHT MARC TWIGHT 42