“Padhega toh kuch banega,” Dorje Morup would often say. “Study, and you’ll make something of yourself” is the translation from Hindi. Three decades later, they’re still the first words his eldest son hears when he thinks of his father.

In 1996, Morup left for Mount Everest and never returned.

For years, an unidentified male body on Everest’s Northeast Ridge was known simply as “Green Boots,” after the neon green Koflach boots he wore. Tucked beneath a limestone overhang, the body—one of an estimated 200-plus corpses lingering on Everest—became one of the mountain’s most recognizable landmarks.

Until about a month ago, the body was believed to belong to climber Tsewang Paljor. Morup and Paljor were both part of the ITBP (Indo-Tibetan Border Police) summit team on Everest in May 1996. Only this year did Indian authorities publicly identify the body as Morup through what they described as a DNA-based verification process. Government documents now outline a plan to recover his remains using a team of six experienced Nepali Sherpas. Why the recovery effort is being undertaken three decades later has not been publicly explained.

The life of Dorje Morup, according to his son

“Ever since people started talking about him again on social media about a month ago, it hurts,” Phunchok Dorjai, Morup’s eldest son, told me. (Unlike in many parts of India, family members in Ladakh do not always share a hereditary surname.) “It brings back memories from 30 years ago. It feels as though everything happened yesterday.”

Over several conversations, Dorjai helps me piece together the life of a man who had long been remembered more for the way he died than the life he lived.

Morup grew up in Skurbuchan, a village of just under 2,000 people in the rugged, high-altitude mountains of western Ladakh. Before joining the ITBP, he worked as a labourer building the roads that would eventually connect villages like his to the rest of the world. Having left school after the third grade, Morup felt determined that his own children go further academically—and they did. Dorjai studied until the sixth or seventh grade before joining the army, while his three younger brothers stayed in school until the tenth grade.

His work in the ITBP and at home in the Ladakh region

Morup’s work with the ITBP kept him away from home for months at a time, posted at remote outposts above 16,000 feet. As a result, Dorjai spent little of his childhood with his father. But he eagerly looked forward to the day he would return—usually without warning. “At that time, there was no phone facility,” Dorjai recalls. “The buses that ran to the village came only once a week, that too with great difficulty. We rarely knew when he was returning.”

Still, Morup’s family could count on one thing: that he typically came home during harvest season, when there was no shortage of work to get done. According to Dorjai, his father rarely rested. The family spent entire days hiking into the mountains to cut fodder for livestock, collect firewood for the winter, and work the grain fields. “There was a lot of work, but also a lot of laughter,” Dorjai recalls. “My mother would excitedly cook for him before he had to leave again.”

Morup in the mountains

Morup had already proved himself on numerous expeditions across Ladakh before he was selected to climb the world’s tallest mountain—a decision his wife, Konchok Yangsket, struggled to come to terms with.

“She didn’t want him to go,” Dorjai says. “He was 48 at the time, and I, too, worried that maybe he shouldn’t go. But who was I to say anything? It was his dream to become an Everester. So I simply shook his hand when he left.” Dorjai, then 21, remembers it as the last time he saw his father. Morup never met Dorjai’s eldest daughter, his first grandchild, who was born in March 1996, shortly before he left for the Tibet side of Everest.

According to Morup’s family, the same determination he exhibited in day-to-day life also defined his time in the mountains. Harbhajan Singh, deputy leader of the ITBP Everest expedition, had climbed with Morup on several expeditions before Everest and fondly remembers him as a “thorough gentleman.”

“He was a silent worker who always kept the group’s morale going,” Singh told me. “There was no adamancy whatsoever. Over so many years of knowing him, I never saw him fight with anyone.”

Singh says Morup embodied what makes Ladakhi climbers exceptional. “He’s been in the mountains even before his birth; in his mother’s womb,” he says with a laugh. “It’s no surprise he was such a great climber.” Growing up and working at high altitudes gave Morup a natural advantage in the mountains, Singh says. He acclimatized quickly, and got on with whatever needed to be done. “Even after reaching the higher camps, he’d make fresh, hot tea for us in extreme conditions,” Singh recalls.

May 10, 1996: Morup’s fateful day on Everest

On May 10, 1996, the morning of the summit push, Singh shared a tent with Morup and the two other Ladakhi climbers. Before setting out, they handed Singh a full glass of sattu, a roasted barley drink that sustained him for much of the day. “At that height, it was a big thing,” Singh says. “After that, I didn’t need to eat anything—maybe just some black tea.”

The team paused near the Second Step, roughly 250 meters (820 feet) below the summit. Dark clouds had begun gathering over Everest. Sensing the weather turning, Singh urged the three of them to abandon the climb. “Today’s not the day,” he remembers telling them. “We shouldn’t take the risk. We must go back. We can always attempt Everest again—it’s not going anywhere.”

But the trio chose to continue towards the summit, while Singh descended. “I think they must have thought, ‘Let’s just try now that we’re this far,'” he says. “It’s hard to think straight at those altitudes. The brain isn’t getting enough oxygen.”

Looking back, Singh says returning safely that day remains one of the greatest achievements of his life. The three Ladakhi climbers went on to reach the summit, but perished in a blizzard while descending, in the mountain’s ill-famed “death zone.” It was the same notorious and fatal storm that Jon Krakauer documented in Into Thin Air. 

Is Dorje Morup really Green Boots?

Singh says he had been telling people for years that “Green Boots” was Morup, not Paljor. “We recognised Dorje… we knew him,” he says, recalling that Morup survived into the morning after the summit push. “We sent a team with oxygen to help him, but by the time they reached him, he was no more.”

Dorjai, however, remains unconvinced by it all. He says he and his brother provided DNA samples but the government never formally informed them of the results. “I’m only going by what I’ve seen on social media and in the news,” he says. “No one has officially told us it’s Abba.”

His doubts are compounded by the fact that, according to him, the proposed recovery mission has been delayed because of unfavourable weather. “If the body hasn’t even been brought down yet, how did they identify it?” he asks. “Humse toh DNA le gaya, par udhar se kaise laaya?” (“They took DNA from us, but how did they get DNA from up there?”) To Dorjai’s credit, the government states that DNA testing led to the identification of Green Boots as Morup, but has not mentioned when or how they collected a DNA sample from the body.

Why Morup’s family remains in limbo

Even so, he says the family would welcome the recovery team if the Indian government eventually recovers and returns Morup’s remains. “If the body comes back and the DNA matches, we’ll receive him with honour,” he says.

As per Dorjai, the unanswered questions—whether Green Boots really is his father, when the recovery mission will take place, and whether it will succeed—have left the family in limbo.

His mother, now in her seventies, still struggles to accept that her husband never returned home. “She says she’ll only believe it’s him when she sees his face,” Dorjai says. “Even now, somewhere in her heart, she thinks one day he might suddenly come back.”

The post The Son of “Green Boots,” Whose Body Has Rested on Everest for 30 Years, Shares His Story appeared first on Climbing.

Jake Whisenant, 30, August 2

Speed climber, first ascensionist, FKT’er, route developer, ski mountaineer, peak bagger, cyclist, surfer, fruit forager, chef, DJ, son, friend, brother, fiancé. Somehow Jake managed to be all of the above.

When the sudden and indifferent tidal wave of cataclysmic loss sweeps over your life, it is all too easy to believe the world has cruelly and unfairly betrayed you as punishment for a crime you did not commit. But Jake never took the easy route. The hard route—the one Jake would have taken—is the one where you choose to linger at the horizon long after the sun sets, basking in the incomprehensible beauty of the magic you were lucky enough to have witnessed. For Jake, I am trying to choose the hard route.

One week ago, just before sunset, I received the call that no one ever wants to get about the love of their life. Jake had fallen to his death while climbing a first ascent in Sequoia Kings Canyon. As dusk turned to night, I was forced to say goodbye to the last day we were both here on Earth.

Jake’s life was cut tragically short. His climbing career, too, was short but filled with adventures and accomplishments that speak for themselves. Matt Cornell, alpinist and a friend of Jake’s, writes: “Jake was quiet about what he did in the mountains. He was understated but highly regarded among our community and his legacy will live on through the routes he’s created.”

Like everything Jake had a passion for, he progressed fast as lightning. His achievements span almost every part of the sport. Not the type to be motivated by ego, he instead sought out objectives that purely inspired him. The combination of creativity, competence, and the drive to challenge himself allowed him to dream big.

The early years of Jake Whisenant

Jake grew up in the suburbs of the Sonoran Desert in Arizona. Over the years, his family and friends have consistently shared with me just how stubbornly he committed himself to becoming an expert in every hobby he undertook. Everyone believed he would succeed at anything he set his mind to.

Jake studied environmental studies at University of California – Santa Barbara. He had a natural curiosity for learning about history and a passion for local agriculture. During college, he worked on campus at the university’s composting program and ran produce buying for Isla Vista Food Coop. We met during this time and would frequently adventure to forage from fig, persimmon, mulberry, and avocado trees and passionfruit vines. His innate connection to the natural world brought him limitless excitement.

I first knew Jake as a great surfer and talented cyclist, but after graduating college, he began deepening his connection with the mountains. He started taking weekend trips to hike in the Sierra, drawn by the challenge of moving at high elevation. Summitting Mt. Whitney catalyzed his first goal in the mountains: Tagging each of California’s 14ers. In order to achieve this goal, he learned the necessary skills to tackle the technical and exposed summit block of Thunderbolt (14,003ft). He spent the next few years obsessively road tripping to sport climb across the Mountain West and explore adventurous Yosemite moderates. From the moment he saw Yosemite Valley, and El Capitan in particular, he was completely and utterly captivated. I knew something big had ignited in him.

Perhaps his biggest champion of all, Jake’s mother shared countless Facetime calls with him from all the summits that he miraculously had cell reception at. He always thought to call her to show her the view. They had a beautiful and supportive bond. He was her whole world. In 2021, she was diagnosed with ALS. For the year that followed, he split his time in half between caring for her in Arizona, then climbing his heart out as a way to process and find his way back to himself.

Giving back to the community through new routes

While exploring one of the only difficult trad routes in Santa Barbara at Cold Springs Dome, we met Shaun Reed. During that time, Shaun was cleaning loose rock and adding protection bolts to an old toprope route. “Jake was curious about developing new rock climbs, so we exchanged phone numbers and started climbing at Cold Springs Dome together,” Shaun remembers.

Impressed by Jake’s quick learning and confidence, Shaun showed him how to install anchor bolts for two long forgotten toprope routes that Jake was interested in restoring. From there, they worked together to develop routes at Cold Springs Dome using modern bolting techniques to allow future climbers to show up at the base and safely lead. They were aligned in the ethics of only adding bolts for safety and ensured that the classic trad route, Makunaima (5.11c), stayed naturally protected. “I ended up with a life-long friend,” says Shaun. Jake loved development as a way to give back to the sport that had given him so much.

Towards the end of 2022, Jake’s mom passed away. In the wake of his loss, he spent many days finding solace at a small sandstone cliff he found, which he later named Hummingbird Rock that overlooks the central coast from the Santa Monicas to Point Conception. As hummingbirds fluttered all around him, he developed three sport routes in dedication to her.

Jake’s speed climbing records and adventures

Countless people have shared with me how much Jake’s drive and creativity in the mountains continually inspired them. He approached climbing with a fresh, passionate eye that is rare and unique. The diversity of accomplishments within the sport—and in a short amount of time—put him into a category of his own.

Brant Hysell, a climbing partner and close friend of Jake’s, reflects: “Jake is the most well-rounded person I know. He can catch waves, sell vegetables at a farmers market, throw down a DJ set, and climb El Cap as fast or faster than anyone. He has a lot of ideas that cross all disciplines.”

Jake’s speed record on Lurking Fear

Amongst many epic shared adventures, Jake and Brant set notable Yosemite speed climbing records including The Prow (5.8 C2 V) on Washington Column (2 hours, 52 minutes, 29 seconds) and Lurking Fear (5.7 C2 VI) on El Capitan (2 hours, 55 minutes, 32 seconds). On their love of Lurking Fear, Brant says, “It could be because it stands 2,000 feet tall and is relatively secluded, but most importantly, every time we climbed it, we always had a blast!”

Jake had a magical ability to make people believe in themselves. Brant reflects that he made him feel like his “wildest goals and dreams were only a couple days of planning and a long training cycle away.” Speed climbing aside, Brant says he revealed things “that nobody else on planet earth knows, because I knew it was safe to share it with him.” Brant and Jake share a connection that few people ever get to experience from spending so much time relying on each other in the mountains.

One epic these partners shared included Jake’s idea to link as many Tuolumne domes in a day as possible. They mapped out a route that efficiently and aesthetically connected the following: Stately Pleasure Dome’s –West Country (5.7), Pywiack Dome’s Aqua Knobby (5.9), Dozier Dome’s Holdless Horror (5.6), Medlicott Dome’s Shagadelic (5.8), Drug Dome’s Crystal Meth (5.8), Mariolumne Dome’s Hobbit Book (5.7), Lamb Dome’s On the Lamb (5.9), Marmot Dome’s Cowboy Marmot (5.8), Fairview Dome’s Fairly Easy (5.4), and Lembert Dome’s Northwest Books (5.9). Jake managed to be both incredibly dialed and ultralight, while still always having something in his kit to repair gear or injury that “would see us through to the finish line,” according to Brant.

Jake’s Double NIAD record

More recently, Jake spent spring and early summer of 2026 dialing in the Nose in a Day with speed climbing partner Noah Fox. Jake and Noah set the speed record for the Double NIAD at 14 hours and 38 minutes. “I deeply admired how thoughtful and analytical he was, and how relentlessly curious he was about getting better,” says Noah. They clicked so quickly, were so on the same page, and went out of their way to help each other over the few months that they knew each other. Noah shares, “Jake was incredibly brave and bold, but he was also deeply kind, thoughtful, and wonderfully silly. In such a short time, he became a mentor, a brother, and one of my closest friends.”

The first ascents and FKTs of Jake Whisenant

In addition to going fast, Jake loved going far. His endurance and passion for remote places lives on in his legacy of first ascents across the Sierra. In 2025, Jake and Leo Franchi established Wonka’s Way on Hershey’s Kiss in Kings Canyon. Leo writes of his late partner: “Jake combined an unparalleled amount of energy for the mountains with endless creativity and a desire to share his love of rock climbing and exploration with others. He took the responsibility of finding new routes and leaving them for others to enjoy seriously, and I was lucky enough to join him on a number of backcountry excursions deep into the Sierra, establishing new routes on walls he had spied previously from one of his many trips into the range.”

Across the Sierra, Jake’s legacy is written if you go looking for it. His other endurance feats include an FKT of Bear Creek Spire’s North Arete (5.8) car-to-car, and the White Mountain Traverse on skis, which was first completed in the `70s on a 16-day expedition. Jake and friends tackled the rugged ridge scrambling, a narrow weather window, and exposure in just over 50 hours. Since moving to the Sierra in 2024, Jake has also taken up skimo racing as a part-time hobby. Competing in races in CA, UT, and CO, he was fanatical about optimizing his gear to be as light as possible. His friends and I thought it was so endearing to hear about his new systems on practically a daily basis.

“A big-hearted mountain goat” with a love for food and spreading joy

Jake brought his love of food into every aspect of his craft. He was tremendously generous and thoughtful, always sharing his concoctions. I look back fondly on the opening party of the cliff he developed in Mammoth Lakes, called Sky Perch. He organized a shishkabob cookout at the base, while we huddled under a tarp during a monsoonal storm. Leo too concurs that you cannot separate adventure with Jake from food. “He was equally as excited to teach me how to fish and cook a meal with what we caught, as he was to venture onto a new route ground-up on a remote peak that has rarely seen human traffic,” Leo recalls.

If I had to guess what kind of objectives made Jake’s heart sing the most, it would be multi-sport linkups. Whether it was ski season or climbing season, he loved working out logistics to combine other methods of human-powered movement alongside an already proud objective. In 2025, Jack Neus and Jake did The Hulk Triathlon in the Sierra, inspired by Colorado’s Longs Peak Tri. He remembers the moment he met Jake on the Zodiac some time prior, remembering his “biceps bulging and blonde hair spilling out of one of his signature visors.” Jack says that Jake “muttered some words of psych and climbed straight through us.”

Through mutual friends, Jack and Jake stayed connected and bonded over a shared love of fast movement and multi-sport adventures. Jake dreamed up an adaptation of the famous Colorado endurance challenge, Longs Peak Tri. He “settled on something that was much bigger,” Jack says. He recalls their outing that day as “the most challenging 18 hours of my life” to this day. They climbed The Hulk door-to-door from the house in Mammoth, which involved 150 miles of human-powered travel in the form of road biking, running, and climbing. Jack says, “I will miss his strength, his courage, his thoughtfulness, and his relentless optimism even in the face of incredible challenges.”

Getting to share life with Jake over the past decade was the honor of a lifetime. He packed special memories into every aspect of our day. Our breathwork and coffee morning routine, his homemade chocolate chip cookies, the carousel of ever more optimized gear that he’d be tinkering with. I will never forget the way he went above and beyond—often in costume—to support the objectives of his friends with equal or perhaps even more psych than he had for his own. The impact of Jake’s joy and vibrancy can not be overstated. But Brant says it well: “My heart goes out to everyone who knew Jake, but even more so for those who never got a chance to meet the silly, extremely motivated, big-hearted mountain goat that lives on forever in our souls.”

Jake is remembered by me and the myriad of friends that time and distance could never separate him from. If he loved you once, he loved you forever.

The post Jake Whisenant Leaves a Legacy in First Ascents and Records Across the Sierra appeared first on Climbing.

Nawang Thindu Sherpa’s lifeless body lay trapped at around 19,000 feet on the lower flanks of Broad Peak, where an avalanche had deposited him days earlier. A few hundred meters below, his friends Pem Dorje Sherpa and “Speed” Dawa Sherpa kicked steps into the steep snow of the broad couloir, fixing a rope behind them that they hoped would eventually help them lower his body back to Base Camp, and from there, on home to his family.

This was their second attempt to reach him on Pakistan’s 26,414-foot peak, the 12th-highest in the world. Earlier in the day, on August 2, the 1,000 feet of rope they had carried between them had run out well short of the body. They descended to borrow another 350 feet of rope from fellow rescuers before retracing their steps back into the steep snow.

“We carried as much rope as we could manage,” Pem Dorje told Outside. “This rescue really needed eight people, but it was only the two of us.”

They ran out of rope a second time at the edge of a yawning crevasse where the slope curved into a steep overhang. There, they built an anchor and rested, trying to decide what to do next. They were still hundreds of feet below their friend’s body.

As they rested, they heard the unmistakable rumble of another powerful avalanche ripping down the couloir above them. They were directly in its path.

Five days earlier, on the morning of July 28, 2026, a group of ten climbers had left Broad Peak Base Camp, at approximately 16,000 feet, and followed fixed ropes up the steep slopes towards Camp I at 18,500 feet.

The ten climbers, who were eventually caught in what would become the deadliest high-alpine mountaineering tragedy in more than a decade, represented the second wave of summit hopefuls on Broad Peak for the 2026 season. They came from four independent expeditions but traveled on similar timelines. As they climbed, fresh snow obscured all traces of an earlier group of climbers who bid for the summit ten days before.

The group of ten had set out on one of the first clear days after a week-long storm blanketed the Karakoram mountain range along the Pakistan-China border with heavy snowfall. Jenjen Lama, a climbing guide and Base Camp manager for the Nepali outfitter Seven Summit Treks, described the conditions as he experienced them on the slopes of 28,251-foot K2, just across the Godwin-Austen glacier from Broad Peak.

“It snowed heavily from the 22nd to the 26th. In the Karakoram, you’re supposed to wait five days for the snow to settle before you climb,” he told Outside. “But the weather windows here are too small. If you wait, it just starts to snow again.”

“If you want to reach the summit,” Lama continued, “you just have to take the risk. It’s do or die. Fifty-fifty. There is no other way to do it.”

As the team made more phone calls, they realized that the trackers of other climbers on the mountain showed the same ominous pattern. Something was very wrong.

Among the climbers on Broad Peak was legendary mountain guide and former 800er speed record-holder Nirmal “Nims” Purja, 43, who was chasing one of the most ambitious objectives of his career: becoming the first person to climb all 14 peaks that rise above 8,000 meters (26,000 feet) without supplemental oxygen—twice. After he summited Broad Peak, only 26,864-foot Cho Oyu in China would stand between him and the accolade.

Purja’s team was outfitted by his expedition company, Elite Exped, one of the largest operators in the industry. Accompanying him were his longtime climbing partner and friend Pur Bahadur Gurung, 37, known by friends as “Yukta,” and another experienced high-altitude worker, Nima Sherpa, 36.

Yukta Gurung was a seasoned mountaineering veteran who had recently completed his IFMGA certification (often described as the “PhD of mountain guiding”) and was looking forward to receiving his official recognition during the globally celebrated International Mountain Day in December. He was a veteran of numerous high-profile expeditions, including a recent documentary film project on Mount Everest for National Geographic, Everest: The Other Side.

Also climbing was a team from Nepali guiding company Seven Summit Treks (SST) in support of 48-year-old Nadhira Al Harthy from Oman. Al Harthy became the first Omani woman to summit Mount Everest in 2019, and continued to knock off 8,000-meter peaks in pursuit of her own 14-peaks record. Fresh off an unsuccessful attempt on nearby 26,362-foot Gasherbrum II, Al Harthy was determined to salvage the season with at least one 8,000-meter summit. Supporting her were experienced guides Gyaljen “Gyalu” Sherpa, 47, and Nawang Thindu Sherpa, 28.

Nawang Thindu Sherpa, 28, was the youngest climber on the mountain. He had five 8,000-meter ascents to his credit. Gyalu, 46, by contrast, was a seasoned veteran with bold winter ascents of Everest and 27,838-foot Makalu under his belt. He was best known for securing an official Guinness World Record for becoming the first person to climb 28,169-foot Kangchenjunga, the third-highest mountain in the world, three times in a single season. The climb on July 28 was to be Gyalu’s second ascent of Broad Peak in the 2026 season, having already led an American client to just a few hundred feet below the summit ten days earlier.

The third climbing team was from Imagine Nepal, another leading Nepali outfitter run by famed climber and IFMGA guide Mingma Gyalge Sherpa, widely known as “Mingma G,” who monitored the expedition by radio from nearby K2, where he was guiding a different team. The Imagine Nepal team on Broad Peak was small and light, with 45-year-old veteran guide Kili Pemba Sherpa, known as “Kilu,” supporting Chinese climber Wang Zhong. Kilu was one of the strongest climbing sherpas working in the Himalaya, who had just completed his own 14-peak record with an ascent of 26,660-foot Nanga Parbat earlier in July. Kilu was a 20-time Everest summiteer and a member of the Nepali team that claimed the first-ever winter ascent of K2 in 2021. Wang Zhong was a longstanding client of Imagine Nepal and was also nearing the completion of his own 14-peak quest.

The fourth team on Broad Peak was a two-person squad led by Pakistani guide Sohail Sakhi, 33, and his client, 39-year-old American climber Sarah Mallory Geis. Sakhi was among Pakistan’s most accomplished young mountaineers, with successful ascents of K2, Nanga Parbat, Gasherbrum I, Gasherbrum II, Manaslu, and Kangchenjunga. He was known as a strong rope-fixer, and many of his 8,000-meter ascents were accomplished without supplemental oxygen. Geis’ expedition was organized through his company, Moving Mountains.

The ten climbers spent the night of July 28 in separate camps in Camp I before moving up the ridge to Camp II the following day. Broad Peak’s standard route is long, steep, and sustained and follows a relatively safe ridge up to Camp II at 20,500 feet before it crosses an exposed avalanche slope on the way to Camp III at 23,000 feet and the summit.

Broad Peak is the 12th-tallest mountain on the planet, reaching 26,414 feet above sea level. While one of the shortest 8,000-meter peaks, the route is known for extreme danger, and avalanches are a constant hazard of the climb.

Napier Fuller, an American climber, was a member of the first wave of summit attempts on July 18 and 19, 2026. He described the climbing as some of the most difficult he’s experienced in his life. “From the very get-go of crampon point, it was firecrackers,” he told Outside.

Fuller climbed with SST guide Gyalu Sherpa, and the team turned away just a few hundred meters below the summit, where the fixed ropes ended. Fuller described numerous close calls during their ascent. “I got hit [by rockfall] a bunch of times,” he said. “One hit me in the head so hard. I mean, it stunned me. My helmet has one little hole in it.”

According to Fuller, Broad Peak makes “Everest look like child’s play comparatively. It was some really tough stuff.”

The massive avalanche that killed the ten climbers roared down Broad Peak on the morning of July 30. But prior to the slide, the day appears to have started off normally for the climbing teams. According to GPS data, all four teams were located at Camp II at 5:33 A.M. By 7:30 A.M., they were making steady progress up the route. Just before 9 A.M., Purja’s GPS tracker checked in at 21,847 feet, the highest point any member of the group would reach.

At around 9 A.M., Jenjen Lama of Seven Summit Treks was climbing towards Camp II on K2 with a group of clients. He looked across the glacial valley and saw a massive avalanche thunder down Broad Peak. Although avalanches on that section of the route are common, this slide was bigger and more destructive than ones Lama had seen before.

Lama switched on his radio and tried to contact Gyalu and Nawang Thindu. There was no response.

“I thought they probably just had their radios switched off to save battery,” Lama said. “So I called down to Base Camp and told them to keep checking in with the team.”

By the time Lama reached Camp II at 16,500 feet that afternoon, the fallout from the avalanche he’d witnessed appeared much more dire. He spoke with Mingma G, who was in the same camp, and realized his Broad Peak climbers were also out of contact. He then called Seven Summit Treks headquarters in Kathmandu and asked them to check the GPS trackers for Nadhira and the rest of the team on Broad Peak. They reported back that the trackers showed a sudden, dramatic descent, with Nadhira having dropped more than 5,000 vertical feet to the foot of the peak far below the climbing route. As the team made more phone calls, they realized that the trackers of other climbers on the mountain showed the same ominous pattern. Something was very wrong.

As night fell, Mingma G, Lama, and other expedition leaders worked in cramped tents at Camp II on K2 trying to coordinate a rescue plan. Throughout the day, each team had assumed its climbers had simply switched off their radios. It quickly became apparent, though, that all four expeditions on Broad Peak had suffered the same fate.

Climbing expeditions in Pakistan’s Karakoram Range are much different than the ultra-connected luxury expeditions common on Mount Everest and other peaks in Nepal. The remoteness of the Karakoram region and lack of private helicopter service limit the staff size of each expedition, and also the communications and transportation. Most importantly, the area lacks reliable cell service or internet. Any telecommunications relies on expensive satellite technology, as the Starlink sets popular on Everest won’t work on Broad Peak and its surrounding mountains. While many climbers transmit their position live from GPS trackers, Base Camp teams can’t access the data without reliable internet. Instead, they rely solely on radio communication to keep in touch with their teams on the mountain.

It didn’t take long for the expedition leaders on K2 to abandon their climbs. They were now unsettled by the avalanche conditions ahead of them, and knew full well that additional manpower would be needed for a major rescue effort on Broad Peak.

The following morning, July 31, Lama descended to K2 Base Camp, where he established a command center focused primarily on rescuing his SST colleagues Gelu and Nawang Thindu and their client, Al Harthy.

That same morning, two Pakistan Army helicopters flew over Broad Peak in search of survivors, while a joint team of Pakistani and Nepali rescuers combed through the avalanche debris. The team recovered the bodies of Al Harthy and Gurung, along with a detached leg that was later identified as belonging to Geis.

As the helicopters searched the avalanche path without success, news of the disaster spread rapidly across social media, fueling widespread speculation and rumor. Screenshots of Purja’s GPS tracker, which showed slight movement from its final location, led some to believe he and others might still be alive. But hope faded when the helicopters returned to the Pakistani town of Skardu without finding any additional survivors, carrying only the three recovered remains.

While the Army searched from the air, Mingma G and other Nepali rescuers carried out a more detailed search using commercial drones borrowed from climbers on K2. That afternoon, they spotted a cluster of five bodies at around 19,350 feet. One figure, wearing a distinctive teal down suit, stood out immediately on the drone controller’s tiny screen; it was unmistakably Purja. High above, another body lay stranded alone on a difficult-to-reach cliff band above 19,600 feet.

The next morning, August 1, Mingma G and senior Pakistani guide Shirbaz Khan assembled a recovery team of nine climbers from several expedition companies. They established a temporary Advanced Base Camp at the foot of the mountain, just below the point where climbers affix crampons and begin ascending the peak on snow and ice.

The rescue teams began climbing the peak that evening, when conditions on the mountain were more stable. By morning, the team had reached the cluster of bodies identified by the drone. They confirmed them as Nims Purja and his Elite Exped teammate Nima Sherpa, Chinese climber Wang Zhong and his guide Kilu Sherpa from Imagine Nepal, and Gyalu Sherpa from SST. The rescuers worked steadily throughout the day to package and recover the bodies from the deep snow.

With five more climbers accounted for, only Pakistani guide Sakhi and SST guide Nawang Thindu Sherpa remained missing. On the first day of searching, rescue teams located Sakhi’s backpack and his GPS tracker at the base of the mountain. This fact, combined with what the teams could see from Mingma G’s drone, meant that the lone body high on the cliff band could only be Nawang Thindu.

“We didn’t want there to be another two bodies on the mountain.”

As the rest of the recovery team continued their work, two experienced SST climbers, “Speed” Dawa Sherpa and Pem Dorje Sherpa, packed 1,000 feet of climbing rope into their backpacks and headed into the steep couloir to recover their colleague.

The pair knew they couldn’t reach Nawang Thindu via the standard route, so they climbed directly up the avalanche path instead. Small spindrift slides swept around them as they climbed.

“That area is so dangerous because avalanches can be triggered from all sides,” Speed Dawa told Outside. “They came at us from every direction. We were right in the middle of it all.”

At one point, they ran out of rope and had to descend to the main group to retrieve another coil.

After climbing for hours, they reached a heavily crevassed section of the couloir that curved sharply upward into a steep overhang. Speed Dawa placed several ice screws for protection and climbed onto the ice before realizing that, yet again, they were out of rope. As he waited, a second avalanche swept over him and Pem Dorje.

“We were completely covered, but we survived,” Speed Dawa told Outside. “We were still at least 450 feet from Nawang Thindu, and we started thinking about our families and our children. ‘We’re out of rope. The dead are gone,’ we thought. ‘We don’t have any option but to turn around.’”

“We didn’t want there to be another two bodies on the mountain,” Pem Dorje added.

Speed Dawa called the SST office by satellite phone to report that they could not continue. Even if they had reached Nawang Thindu, they realized it would have been impossible to lower his body through such steep and overhanging terrain.

The two Sherpas descended to rejoin Mingma G and the rest of the recovery team, helping package the five recovered bodies for the descent. Knowing they wouldn’t make it to camp before nightfall, they secured the bodies at around 18,700 feet before descending to Advanced Base Camp to rest.

At around 5:30 P.M., another massive avalanche barreled down the climbing route, carrying a heavy mass of snow and debris all the way to the base of the peak and blowing a cloud of spindrift across the rescuers’ camp. According to Speed Dawa, they found the remains of Kilu among the debris—which meant that the other four bodies of their fellow climbers were once again lost somewhere on the dangerous face of Broad Peak.

A trekker, identified as @chocolatemilkman27, at Broad Peak Base Camp watched the second avalanche from a distance. “We were the only people camped at Broad Peak Base Camp the evening of August 2,” he wrote to Outside via Instagram message. “We witnessed two sherpa on the valley floor at the base of the avalanche probing. One with a shovel and [the] other with what appeared to be a pole. At this moment, a small avalanche from the same glacier occurred at 4:30 P.M., and the wet slide brought a body in an orange suit to the valley floor. The two sherpa retrieved the body.”

Only then did Speed Dawa fully appreciate how narrowly the rescue team had escaped death.

“If we’d had enough rope to continue climbing, we would have died for certain,” he told Outside. “Mingma G had promised to send more people up to help us package and lower the body once we reached it. There’s no question we would all have died up there together.”

In an Instagram post dated August 1, Mingma G wrote: “My loving brothers Kilu, Wang, and Nims, we will take you back home to see [your] families.” Despite all the danger and the setbacks, this was one promise he intended to keep.

As many members of the recovery team left Base Camp for home the next morning, Mingma G remained behind with a skeleton crew of four: himself, Dipan Gurung, Pemba Chhewang Sherpa, and Pakistani climber Sirbaz Khan. After another brutal 12-hour effort, they recovered the bodies once again and brought them to Base Camp on August 5, where they were finally evacuated by helicopter to Skardu.

With the 2026 Karakoram climbing season drawing to a close and resources now limited, the bodies of Sakhi and Nawang Thindu, as well as any final remains of Mallory Geis, will likely remain on Broad Peak for the foreseeable future.

Despite this, Speed Dawa emphasized that the heroics of the recovery team, and especially Mingma G’s leadership, cannot be overstated.

“People only write about the dead,” he told Outside. “But I want to salute Mingma G and his team. For three or four days, in incredibly difficult terrain—through rocks, crevasses, and steep faces—they found the bodies and brought them home. What could be more important than that?”

“People are going to remember Broad Peak because that’s where Nims died,” he continued. “But they also need to remember the men who brought him down.”

The post What Really Happened on Broad Peak, the Deadliest High-Alpine Avalanche in More than a Decade appeared first on Climbing.

Aside from the holographic line blazing up the route in front of him, it was a rather normal day at the crag for Ben Pearman. Catching a brief weather window in the chilly Rockies spring, he and two friends headed for Kahl Wall (5.10-), a classic trad climb up the steep limestone of Mount Yamnuska in Alberta.

As they approached, Pearman thought back to his first time climbing the mountain—which is notorious for difficult route-finding—via a different route known as the King’s Chimney (5.7 PG13). He and his friend had such a hard time finding the base of the climb that he remembers saying, “Damn dude, in the future, you could probably just wear AR [augmented reality] glasses and see where the start of the route is.”

Now, he was back—with AR goggles—and he could indeed see the route’s start, and so much more.

Heading up the first pitch with Apple Vision Pro goggles strapped to his face, Pearman could see not just the rock in front of him, but a tiny model of the entire route projected off to the side. As he climbed, the goggles’ cameras fed data to an algorithm trained on a miniature 3D model of the cliff, showing him exactly where he was on Kahl Wall.

If he needed beta, Pearman could switch to the immersive guidance mode, where icons floated along a glowing line projected directly onto the rock ahead. If all this visual overlay became annoying, he could whisk it away and switch to chat guidance mode, talking directly to an AI assistant trained to give advice about this specific climb.

“Am I still on the route?” he asks.

“You’re almost at the bolt,” the goggles reply in the voice of one of his friends (you can customize voices in the app). “Keep heading left!”

Augmented reality and 3D topos enter the climbing chat

Pearman was testing out RockXR, an experimental app that he’s developed to make use of augmented reality and spatial data in outdoor climbing. While the day when climbers throw AR goggles into their packs is likely far in the future, the spatial dataset he used is coming to climbing—and fast—as new apps take advantage of leaps in data science.

A graduate student in computer science and an avid climber in Calgary, Pearman has been merging his skillsets for a while. Most of his work focuses on combining data and technology to create apps like Sloper Ice and Mixed, an open-source database for ice climbing in the Rockies, and StraVis, which turns Strava activities into digital art.

While RockXR is a prototype that will likely stay in the lab for now, he recently released another climbing-focused offering: ThreeTopo. This app brings a miniature, 3D model of Red Shirt (5.8+), also in the Yamnuska area, to your phone, annotated with the route info and its important features like bolts, anchors, and even beta for gear placement.

Pearman designed this three-dimensional topo map app to be used with one hand, allowing climbers to easily pull out their phone when they need a bit of beta on route. This 3D topo shows them every detail of the rock, bypassing what Pearman sees as subjective interpretations found in traditional guidebooks. ThreeTopo is currently available only for Red Shirt, but Pearman plans to open source his process, allowing anyone with technical ability and a drone to start building 3D topos for other routes themselves.

“I think that every single route in the world will have a description like this in the future,” he said.

The onset of spatial data apps in climbing

Pearman’s creations aren’t the only apps to leverage spatial data to serve climbers. Rock Garden and Red-Point have mapped thousands of climbs along the contours of 3D models of entire cliff faces. Shadō uses similar 3D models to predict where and when shadows will fall across a crag in the hot desert sun. Inspired by the technology used by plant-identifying apps, RouteGoat can tell which route you are standing in front of from a quick photo of the base of the wall.

Of the maelstrom of climbing apps that barrage the modern climber, most essentially function as advanced spreadsheets, giving you information about climbs or calculating your performance statistics. The latest spatial data apps, however, represent a new generation of climbing information technology. By applying increasingly accessible spatial data and artificial intelligence, they’re revolutionizing route-finding—and we’ve only begun to scratch the surface.

“We’re at a place right now with technology where people can see easier or better solutions to the common problems they have with rock climbing,” said Pearman.

While we tend to think of the major innovations in climbing as improvements in equipment, a parallel advancement in information technology has revolutionized our ability to create and share climbing knowledge—for better or worse.

How topos and beta sharing are evolving

From the first scratches of a topo on a piece of paper, to the development of guidebooks with full-color images of thousands of climbs, our ability to communicate information about a route has progressed dramatically. Through a quick search of online databases, you can now find information on just about any climb on the planet.

Some of these new and forthcoming apps aim to solve for the shortcomings of guidebooks, which, of course, have never been perfect. Authors must squish a complicated, three-dimensional structure onto a two-dimensional page. Flakes get flattened, dihedrals get spread, and climbers often find themselves confused.

Like many other climbers, Berk Frei has more than enough stories of accidental orienteering missions. When he founded Rock Garden, he hoped that applying a 3D format to guidebook info would help climbers visualize their climbs beforehand. His app allows users to step into the route itself, helping them feel more prepared and (hopefully) spend less time faffing around in the lichen off-route.

“Spatial data invites the opportunity to think for yourself,” said Frei. While photography and video are media that we passively consume, spatial data asks you to “look around, explore, and understand your surroundings in a way that no other data set or medium has ever allowed.”

While Frei and his team haven’t updated Rock Garden since 2022, they are busy creating Legend Guide. This new platform gives anyone with a phone and beta the ability to build 3D route models. They plan to release the web app later this summer.

In the last four years, “so much has happened with the tech,” said Frei. “Things have just gotten so much faster and better. I do think this is the moment for spatial data to enhance the storytelling of individuals and groups.”

More time climbing, less time route-finding

Frei isn’t alone in his belief that spatial data can enhance the transmission of information. Hunter Battle, the creator of the RouteGoat app, saw how easily modern phones could identify images of plants.

“If we can do it for plants,” he thought, “we can do it for rocks.”

After spending a year developing the software, Battle is now scouting for data all around the Pacific Northwest, adding hundreds of climbs a week to his database that stretches from Squamish to Phoenix.

Battle’s own frustrating experiences puttering around at the base of the crag searching for routes inspired him to create his app. However, he believes that RouteGoat will most benefit new outdoor sport climbers, fresh out of the gym.

“It’s pretty intimidating, and it definitely makes you feel stupid if you can’t find your route,” he said. “I’m just trying to lower the barrier for those people.”

Pearman too, believes that these new technologies will not only make climbing more accessible, but safer, too. In surveying individuals who had climbed Red Shirt, Pearman found that 15% of the people he talked to had gone off route. Another 35% had almost done so. Of the seven climbers who test-ran his app, none reported straying from the route.

As with all information technology, the goal is to help climbers make better decisions in the situations they face. Yet, more data does not always make for better climbing.

“The point of the tool is to make you more prepared,” said Pearman, but “the more prepared you are, the less of an adventure it is.”

So, does more data mean a better climbing experience?

The debate between thrill and safety is almost as old as climbing itself, but for Bee Carol, a climbing guide in the UK, the introduction of this new technology is about more than just the culture wars that ignite on Mountain Project forums.

“For people who have done a lot of climbing already, I think this kind of app can smooth the process of finding routes,” said Carol. Yet, she adds that “if you are learning to climb at the outset, finding where to go and finding the route and figuring it out is a really big part of the learning process. It’d be detrimental if that’s skipped.”

Already, technology has done a lot of smoothing. GPS and satellites have allowed climbers to think less about navigating to a climb and more about climbing. As we keep leaning on crutches rather than exercising our own abilities, we become more and more dependent on that technology. Andy Genereux, a guidebook author in the Rockies and a climber of over 50 years, believes this over-reliance on technology poses a risk greater than getting lost in the first place.

“When the technology goes dead on you, you don’t have that skill set to figure it out,” Genereux said. “Now [you’re] up the creek without a paddle.”

This may be true for technologies of the past. However, as apps like ThreeTopo come onto the playing field, proponents maintain that the three-dimensional nature of these platforms are more conducive to how human brains process information. This makes these apps far more powerful learning tools than 2D maps, for example.

For Frei, the founder of Rock Garden, these new technologies are not a replacement for navigation or sound judgement. Their purpose is to help people better understand and explore the rocks they climb.

If you “take away that scary demon of the unknown,” Frei reflected, “there’s this whole world of rock, and climbing in particular, that is just waiting to be discovered.”

The post Are 3D Topos and AI Climbing Assistants the Future of Climbing? appeared first on Climbing.

On Columbus Day Weekend, 2004, my father took me to the Eastern Mountain Sports in West Lebanon, New Hampshire, to buy my first pair of climbing shoes. I was 15 years old and was not yet a “real climber.” Having toproped outside once and spent a few hours traversing my school’s wooden wall in my sneakers, I knew I was interested in climbing, but I had never led a route, never set foot in a commercial gym, and had no idea what terms like drop knee or heel hook or crimp meant.

The result? I stood before the shoe rack, perplexed by strange names like “Miura” and “Moccasym” and “Anasazi Velcro.” Aside from simple basics like color, I couldn’t tell the shoes apart and had no idea that some were stiff while others were soft, that some were aggressively downturned while others were flat, and that these different attributes made them excel at different aspects of the sport.

Eventually a lanky young shoe-salesman with blond dreadlocks stepped up and asked me what kind of climbing I wanted to do (“The adventure kind!” I replied), then helped me into a pair of Five Ten Asyms—blue ones, upturned in the front, stiff as boards.

Not knowing any better, I sized my Asyms like sneakers: snug but with enough spare room in the toe that I wouldn’t bruise my toenails when walking downhill and loose enough so that I could wear them with a pair of wool socks when it got cold. I was happy with them. Psyched. But when I returned to school on Monday and proudly showed them to the friend who’d just introduced me to climbing, he shook his head sadly.

“You just wasted a hundred bucks, dude,” he said.

“They’re tens!” I responded defensively. “Same size as my sneakers.”

“Try climbing in them,” my friend said. “You’ll see.”

I tried. They were about six sizes too large and designed for long days on smear-intensive big walls, not bouldering indoors and sport climbing on steep schist. After five or six weeks of grumpy denial, I returned to EMS for my second pair of climbing shoes.

As it turns out, my experience was not unusual. Beginner climbers, like beginner cyclists and beginner backpackers, are often forced to make financial decisions without the kind of background knowledge that helps them make informed purchases. In hopes of saving a few of you from the mistakes that I made, I’ve put together this in-depth primer into climbing shoes. It’ll tell you everything you need to know about the different shapes and functions of climbing shoes, and makes some recommendations for a first-time pair.

The post A Beginner’s Guide to Climbing Shoes appeared first on Climbing.

A certain recent documentary has exposed the general public to Dean Potter’s wild hair and wilder eyes, revealing what we freaky climbers have known for decades: Dirtbags are hot. They’re totally shredded, intimidatingly obsessive, and even their body odor is doing it for you. Maybe that’s because it reminds you of a drunken night in the Valley that left you short a quarter ounce of weed, but rich in memories that are even more X-rated than your average J Tree folly.

Luckily, even the most Luddite dirtbag probably has a smartphone and a dating app profile these days. After you down that hard kombucha and (re)download Hinge, here’s how to maximize your chances of landing the dirtbag climber of your strangest dreams.

1. You can climb—but don’t pass for a climber

At least on Hinge. If your future climber-lover wanted to have an ill-advised, climber-on-climber doomed romance, they’d scratch that itch by misusing the “find a partner” feature on Mountain Project.

Many dirtbags want nothing more than a captive audience to fawn over their climbing achievements with wide-eyed naïveté. For one night only, you can play the part of a plebian who doesn’t know that a soft 5.11 isn’t actually that hard. Then you can pretend to be  super impressed that your dirtbag spotted a size 10 stopper one time to Alex Honnold himself (or someone who looked a lot like him).

2. Show off your assets in your pics—no, not those kinds of assets

Booty shots—and butt shots—are nice. But I’m talking pics that show off the abundant and accessible power outlets on your property. A clean bathroom and high-pressure showerhead (mirror selfie?). And a driveway large enough to park a van for an undisclosed period of time that seems like an upgrade from the parking lot of 24-Hour Fitness. Bonus points if you can find a way to subtly include your—I mean your old roommate’s—sick hangboard.

3. Include that you recently re-read Desert Solitaire somewhere in your profile.

This will signal to their subconscious that you 1) are in the market for a rakish papa who lives life on his own terms without concern for social norms or body odors; 2) like the idea of grimy, desert living in a small space.

4. Make the first move

While solid advice for dating apps in general, it’s especially essential to lead the way here. A dirtbag climber isn’t putting maximum effort into a dating app—or really anything that isn’t related to finger strength. So take the initiative and send that “like.”

Let’s be honest: The risk is way lower than “liking” another member (or worse, setter) at your climbing gym. In this case, rejection might mean months of uncomfortably avoiding eye contact. Worst case scenario, you get ignored, in which case you’ll join an illustrious club whose members include a dirtbag’s parents, their best friends, and the IRS.

5. Increase that radius

Despite the well-intentioned insistence of your friends, you’ve been resistant to location-gap dating, the even trickier cousin of the age-gap relationship. What could someone living in Boulder or Flagstaff possibly have in common with someone living in Denver or Phoenix besides an incestuous dating pool-fueled scarcity mindset?

The rub with dirtbag climbers is that even if their sleep-hollowed eyes meet yours over the bulk bin of dried mango at Natty G’s, they’ll probably be outside of Las Vegas by the time you meet in the digital world. So scoot that Hinge radius setting up to at least 50 miles–I dare you. Or you could, you know, ask for their number in real life. But vulnerability is hard.

6. Give the benefit of the doubt

It’s time to unlearn every lesson about “red flags” that you’ve accumulated in your long, sad history of blowing your dopamine receptors on dating apps. Is smoking cigarettes a dealbreaker? What about a stated political affiliation of “moderate?” Why does it look like Vaseline is smeared on the lens in every picture? Resist the impulse to swipe left.

First of all, the climber in question probably hasn’t thought about their political identity since their libertarian phase in 2013. And their phone lens has been wack since they dropped it from three pitches up while trying to take a sick selfie on a sandbagged Eldo classic.

Fact: Dirtbags operate under the reverse laws of dating app profiles: If most of their pictures are out-of-focus, faraway shots of (presumably) them wedged deep in a crack in the Creek, they are probably super, super hot in real life.

7. Use those prompts

Sure, we all hate the indignity of being forced to answer Hinge’s “prompts.” But you might as well leverage any opportunity to grab a dirtbag’s short attention span before their partner screams at them to put down the phone and get their hand on the brake strand.

Per usual, subtlety is key. For example:

I’m weirdly attracted to: “People that climb a lot and live in a van.”

Dating me is like: “Dating someone who likes people who climb a lot and live in a van.”

I go crazy for: “Little bits of trail mix and dirt in my bedsheets.”

8. Nail that opening line

Again, subtlety is key:

“Nice traps you have there! Would you like to get trapped in an emotionally confusing situationship?”

“Sooo random, but have you happened to read the book from this article? Seems super interesting!” (This may be more of an act of service for their future partner, but we climbers are nothing if not community-minded).

Or: “I see you’re familiar with The Naked Edge… What if we were naked, on the edge of… uh, my bed or something?”

9. Say that you “want children.”

This is pretty obvious: They eat mush, they don’t have jobs, and they have a natural aversion to authority figures. So, they’re basically little kids themselves and therefore feel more comfortable around kids than adulting humans (hence why they may want a couple of their own).  In short, they have mommy/daddy issues. Moving on.

10. Set your “dating intentions” to “long-term relationship.”

At first, this seems counter-intuitive, right? Shouldn’t you be treating this flakey soul like an untamed horse, enticing them with assurances that you’re only looking for a fling lest they get spooked at the idea of being roped into a committed relationship? I’m going to let you in on a secret: There is a small part of every dirtbag’s spirit that yearns for the trappings of a stable, boring life (see episode 4 of documentary referenced at the beginning).

For a brief moment, you can be part of that fantasy.

When they silently slip out of your bed in the wee hours of the morning and compulsively count their trad rack to make sure you haven’t stolen any cams, they’ll take one final look at your blissful sleeping form in the soft, early light.

They’ll wonder, for a moment, if they’re missing out. What if they snuggled you for another hour, stayed for coffee, stayed for 20 years of domestic living and touching rock only as often as you do (i.e., occasionally)? But then they’ll remember that the sandstone in this area gets slippery when wet and rain is in the forecast, so they best be making like the Marshall Tucker Band song they played you post-coitus and be movin’ on. Deep down, you know you wouldn’t want it any other way.

About the (single) author

Gabby Vermeire is a humor writer, the creator of the crunchy Boulder Instagram “Whole Foods Daddy,” and author of the satirical advice column “Dear Whole Foods Daddy.” She has written for The Rooster Magazine, Boulder Weekly, The Caribou Current, and The Comet Magazine. An alleged MFA candidate in Colorado State University’s writing program, she writes about sex, outdoor shenanigans, and the men who won’t text her back. 

A Hinge entanglement with a young dirtbag living in a van in Leavenworth, WA, stays gentle on her mind; he still responds when she sends him essays. She is single, fellas.

About the photographer

Dillon Behling explores the intersection between movement and landscape, people, and place. Through film photography, he aims to document these relationships with honesty and intention, guided by an understanding that storytelling carries both artistic power and ethical responsibility. Follow along @dillon.film.

The post How to Land the Dirtbag of Your Dreams on a Dating App appeared first on Climbing.

I felt an overwhelming urge to go big when I hiked into the Bugaboos’ towering granite spires earlier this summer. Perhaps more than I ever have in my entire life. My motivations were impure, colored with the sharp pencil of angst. The following week marked the beginning of a prolonged and painful new chapter for me: I was confronting a longstanding shoulder pain with surgery. It would be a year before I could climb in my beloved home range again.

My climbing partner Adam and I had stacked our odds that weekend. We marched into the Bugaboos on Friday with a decent forecast, intent on climbing two steep, sunny walls before returning to work. Ambitious, maybe, but I figured I knew the range like a sailor knows his stretch of coastline.

What could possibly go wrong?

***

Bright white flashes of lightning punctuated the first night’s bad sleep. I waffled between pulling my black wool hat over my eyes to darken the tent, or asking Adam if we should head to lower ground. While I mulled over my impending frying, a steady rain began and its pleasant thrum lured me past indecision and into sleep. The rain stopped by the time the sun rose the next morning but a sluggish cloud hung over our camp. Our gold granite towers were streaked gray and black instead.

No problem, I thought. The days are nearly 20 hours long that far north in early July. Nevermind that a thousand-foot 5.12 is pretty dang hard, or that we’re still a few hours walk from the base, or that the wall is soaked and the sky is still cloudy. I thought pleasant thoughts of dry stone and strong shoulders and stooped down to a flat rock to brew my first cup of coffee.

Four hours later, I brought my third coffee to my lips with shaking hands. The cloud still sat above our climb. I suggested hiking a couple hours deeper into the range. We could climb up and over a high glaciated col, then back down to a west-facing spire, where we might catch a glimpse of warm evening sun and be able to climb.

What other choice did I have? It’s not like I could try again next weekend.

We trudged uphill through collapsing snow. A sharp headwind rushed down the glacier, wetting my eyes. Adam spotted a crevasse lurking ahead and I asked to put on the rope; we moved steadily together for a few more hours.

Eventually we’d gone up and over that distant col and dropped down into what felt like warmer climes. Still standing in deep July snow, where a dry rocky campsite otherwise should have been, I noticed that the wind had stopped. With it, the gray clouds overhead had stopped swirling about, and for the moment we were bathed in late afternoon sun.

Were we actually about to go climbing?

We picked a smaller route in the East Creek basin, half the length of our original goal, but still 5.12. Five p.m. is on the later side to begin alpine climbing, but in the grand scheme of my 2026 climbing calendar, I had been in the eleventh hour for weeks.

The route did not start well. Standing on the steep glacier wearing rock shoes, I struggled to access the first pitch. As I finally committed to the wall, spanning wide to wet stone, I accidentally kicked my approach shoe off its perch, deep into the airy moat below. I could see the orange glint of the crampon still attached to the grey boot some 20 feet lower, balanced now on a twisting fin of snow.

“Don’t worry buddy, I’ll grab it,” Adam assured.

I nodded and started jamming the first pitch. I reached a flat sandy ledge too good to pass up and built my belay there. Adam clipped into our rope and descended after my wayward approach shoe, squirming, shimmying, and eventually inverting into the snowy gash to retrieve it. He emerged some 20 minutes later with slush caked around his helmet.

“Ah, not to be dramatic, but that sorta sucked,” said Adam, who is the least dramatic person I know.

“No shit buddy. I owe you one.”

The sun disappeared behind a fresh wave of white clouds as I started up the next pitch. Soft flakes of snow looped around me as I blindly placed a string of micro nuts, promising myself that they were probably good. Self preservation soon took over and I began aiding slowly, watching the tiny wedges of brass squirm under my weight.

Nearly an hour passed before I reached the belay. Adam, having begun to resemble my frozen approach shoe beside him, graciously started climbing without mentioning my pace. By the time he arrived, I was wearing all of our combined wardrobe and the thought of removing even one jacket to climb the next pitch filled me with sadness. As I glanced at Adam shivering, I guessed he probably felt similarly. So we fixed our rope and rappelled back to camp. Surely tomorrow would be better.

***

The next day was less successful. A freak blast of wind flattened our tent and snapped its pole. I fell into a glacial river filling up our water bottles, soaking my other shoe. Then the mercury dropped overnight, far lower than expected. I counted the hours to our alarm slowly, wondering if Adam would mind if I asked to snuggle. Incredibly, shortly after, I was bitten by a tick.

It was 8 a.m. Hm. In less than 48 hours I’d be knocked out and cut open on an operating table, the surgeon living her own version of adventure amidst my “exploratory” surgery. A cold realization settled in.

I rallied with coffee, hot cereal, and an exciting poop—bowel movements should never be “exciting”—when I wandered away from camp on stiff, newly frozen snow and nearly slid into the abyss with my pants around my ankles. (Crampons mandatory for pooping, noted.)

We toprope-soloed our fixed line as the sun crested around the towers, warming the splitters to come. I marveled in the quality of the pitch I’d led yesterday, now free to focus on movement and nothing else, jamming my finger tips in the pods I’d slotted bad gear into before. We rejoined our highpoint and flaked out the rope. Blue skies stretched endlessly to the west. The sun felt warm and encouraging.

I racked up and set off, sprinting past a square-cut roof, wobbling through flaring fingers, then boldly laybacking a potato-chip flake.  The flake ended but crystalline sidepulls beckoned left. I placed a nest of bad cams, stalled for ages, and eventually did it, scared. (Perhaps it was all a bit much for this climber’s trainwreck of a shoulder.) Buoyed by my rising to the occasion, I powered up another roof, cutting feet, then chugged ever onwards.

My cheeks stung and I realized it was again snowing. Regaining worldly awareness after a demanding lead feels a lot like swimming to the surface. Looking around, the world had gone gray and white once more. No wind, this time, but cold, very cold. More snow fell.

Adam gave an encouraging shout from below. He kept on most of his jackets following the pitch while I shivered staring at them. Grape-sized graupel accumulated across the wall and seemed to wash in waves over him. I laughed. The mood was light. Adam lurched through a final roof pull and sank fingers behind a deep flake filled with new snow, marking the highpoint of my rock climbing season.

***

Most climbers don’t know when they are about to be sidelined. We go climbing every day as if there is a tomorrow, a next week, a next month, a next season. We can always try again. My prearranged surgery is an easier pause to accept and plan for than other parallel outcomes that could have transpired that weekend: A broken leg if it was me, not my shoe, that fell unanchored into the moat. Torn tendons if I’d fallen from those bold sidepulls and ripped all my terrible gear. Disappearing forever into the subtle crevasse Adam had spotted.

The surgery forces reflection nonetheless. Good climbing days are fleeting. But if you’re trying hard above the deck with a good buddy, who’s not prone to complaining, or is at least nice enough to not complain for your sake, then that is a fine day of climbing indeed.

The post Everything I Loved About a Hilariously Unsuccessful Climbing Trip appeared first on Climbing.

Last week, young European speed climbers descended on St. Pölten, Austria, for the second World Climbing Europe Youth Series competition this year. But the competition soon gained attention from far beyond speed enthusiasts, with many accusing the male commentator of stereotyping female athletes as lazy and unmotivated.

Since then, many climbers have criticized the sexist commentary, with some women even posting training videos on Instagram with the remarks as audio, highlighting their obvious falsehoods. Climbing spoke with several elite female climbers and interviewed the commentator himself, who apologized and called his remarks a mistake in his non-native language.

Calling weight training a “boy thing”

During the official livestream for the men’s U17 qualification rounds on August 1, Austrian radio host Claudio Sunk and his female co-host began speculating on why young men made up the majority of speed competitors at the event. These comments begin at 39 minutes 19 seconds.

“But is it about the training?” asked Sunk. “Because I think that for women, it’s more like, climbing on the rock and climbing maybe on the lead, for doing it as a hobby, it’s quite fun, and lots of women [are] doing it. But when you go into the world class, you need to go to the gym, you need to train with weights, and all that stuff, and this is more the ‘boy thing,’ right?”

“Well, and also, it’s, as a woman, often times, you can’t live off the sports as well as men,” the co-host said.

“It’s more about sponsors, right?” Sunk asked.

“It’s a lot about sponsors,” his co-host said. “It’s a lot about job perspectives. That’s where a lot of the girls stop competing.”  (Austria, like the U.S., has a well-documented pay gap between athletes on the basis of gender. For example, in its most popular sport, soccer, the majority of the country’s top players will make €500 to 600 monthly if they are women, but more than €10,000 monthly if they are men.)

Sunk replied, “So to all the ladies, all the women out there watching us, let’s go for speed climbing or go for world-class climbing. Not only the leisure, hang-loose thing on the rock somewhere in the forest.” After this remark, he returned to naming the competitors in the current speed round.

The immediate reactions

Julia Fišer, a 29-year-old professional climber, has a regular group chat with a few of her female climbing friends. When one of them messaged a clip from Sunk’s official livestream, Fišer said she sat in front of her phone, her mouth open in shock.

“I listened to it again and again, thinking maybe it would make sense, [or] maybe I missed something,” she told Climbing. “But every time I heard what he said, it just made it worse.”

Fišer has competed internationally in Lead and Boulder since she was 14. In June, she announced her retirement from the World Cup circuit. Outdoors, she has already climbed more than 100 routes graded 8a/5.13b or harder, including Tunnelblick (8c+/5.14c) in Achleiten, Austria.

“Not once did I question if I belonged in a gym or not,” she said. “It was normal for me. But then all of a sudden, having a man claim that training hard, going to the gym and lifting weights are ‘boy things’ made me realize that it’s not normal for everyone to think the way I do.

“I do think the majority of climbers don’t agree with that man’s opinion,” she continued. “But if just one young girl stopped climbing because someone told her she doesn’t belong there, it’s one too many.”

Teresa Corti, a 29-year-old Swiss climber and former broadcast host for World Climbing and Red Bull Dual Ascent, also saw Sunk’s comments. She told Climbing she understood that there is a lot of time to kill during livestreams, but still called Sunk’s remarks a “clear insult” to female climbers who have put countless hours into the gym.

“It’s even more infuriating listening to this on a livestream, especially of U17 to U19,” Corti said. “What kind of motivation is that for young people? It’s a disservice to any woman who has or wants to put time and effort into growing as a climber.”

The same day, Corti posted a video of her various Moonboarding, weight training, and sport climbing sessions together. Her background audio—Sunk’s voice claiming that women see climbing as a hobby and don’t embrace it as a competitive practice—highlighted the irony of his statements. To date, it’s now been viewed more than 80,000 times. The next day, a second elite climber, Valentina Chemiakina of Belarus, posted her own training video to the same audio, opening up a new tongue-in-cheek trend.

 

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The commentator issues a sincere apology

Climbing reached out to Sunk himself to understand why he said what he did. He responded immediately with a sincere apology, characterizing his comments as a miscommunication in his non-native language.

“I am truly, deeply sorry that my words in English came across as so hurtful,” he wrote in an email. “I had major difficulties expressing my question to the expert properly in English. What came out were stereotypical and overly casual remarks that do not reflect what I actually think. They are also not something I would have ever said in German, my native language.” He added that neither the wording nor the message reflected who he is or what he stands for.

Sunk, 48, is a longtime radio host whose production company, The Streamers, filmed the St. Pölten speed event last year, too. He has commentated for a wide variety of sporting events, including the Spartan Race and IRONMAN triathlon series. For the World Climbing Europe Youth Series speed competition, the format was to have him ask questions to the climbing expert—in this case, the female co-host—instead of presenting expert opinions himself.

The question he was trying to ask, he said, was why so many talented female climbers get lost on the pathway from recreational to elite competition. “Just beforehand, my expert had commented that ‘the boys’ were so closely matched that they had to go all out in qualification,” he said. “I think that’s why I carelessly picked up and repeated the phrase ‘boy thing.’ It was an unfortunate attempt to connect to what had just been said, and in hindsight it was clearly the wrong choice of words.”

He also clarified that inclusive and respectful language matters to him, and pointed out his intentional phrasing in the subsequent seven hours of commentary. For example, he made sure to call men’s wall records exactly that instead of dropping the gender tag. (The sexist media habit of dropping the gender tag for only men’s sports is still a widespread practice, as evidenced during the recent men’s soccer World Cup.)

Sunk also made it clear that he does not believe female climbers lack motivation to train for competitions. “I firmly believe that women who compete train just as hard as men, regardless of the sport,” he wrote. “It was never my intention to suggest that women are less dedicated, less ambitious or less willing to work hard. I simply failed to express that distinction clearly in English, and I deeply regret that.”

Going forward, Sunk said he “realistically” will probably not work as a climbing commentator again, but that this experience has changed the way he will prepare for future events in other sports. “Instead of focusing primarily on statistics and participation numbers, I will place much greater emphasis on learning about the personal stories, career paths, and experiences of female athletes before going on air.”

On August 1, Austria Climbing also issued an apology via their Instagram story.

Statement regarding the livestream commentary at the World Climbing Europe Youth Series:

Austria Climbing sincerely apologizes for the inappropriate and sexist remarks made during yesterday’s livestream of the U17/U19 Speed Climbing competition. 

The comments were made by an external commentator and do not reflect the values of Austria Climbing in any way. Nevertheless, they were broadcast on our official livestream, and for that we take full responsibility. We deeply regret that athletes, coaches, families and everyone following the competition were exposed to language that was disrespectful and had no place in the environment we strive to create.

We sincerely apologize to everyone who felt offended, disrespected or excluded by these remarks, particularly our female athletes and all members of our climbing community. 

After becoming aware of the incident, we addressed it directly with the commentator. We are reviewing our procedures for livestream commentary and reinforcing the standards we expect from everyone representing Austria Climbing in any official capacity, to ensure this does not happen again. 

Respect, inclusion and equal treatment are fundamental values of our federation. We remain fully committed to ensuring that every athlete can participate in our sport in an environment that is safe, welcoming and respectful.

The rest of the speed competition

Overall, the Youth Series speed event proceeded with several standout performances.

In the women’s U19 category, Eva-Lina Rymasz of France beat Mariia Shymkova of Ukraine to take gold. Shymkova was the fastest after qualifiers, but in the final, she slipped on the last foothold and finished 1.43 seconds behind Rymasz.

In the men’s U19 category, Gilles Meili of Switzerland beat Léo Grosset of France by just 0.14 seconds. Not done yet, Meili proceeded the next day to the open competition, which has no age limit, and earned silver.

In the women’s U17 field, Lara Haselwanter of Austria, who holds the current Europe Youth title for speed, earned another gold in the women’s final, extending her dominant performance. Elena Pasturel of France, who just began competing last year, took silver.

In the men’s U17 final, Maksymilian Myśliwiec of Poland used an explosive start to beat Giorgio Villa of Italy. The latter slipped on a foothold in the middle of the route and finished 1.18 seconds behind Myśliwiec.

The full results are available on the World Climbing event page. The next World Climbing Europe Youth Series speed event will take place in Imst, Austria, from September 4 to 6.

The post World Climbing Commentator Apologizes for Sexist Comments on Europe Youth Series Livestream appeared first on Climbing.

The list of noteworthy female free solos in history is remarkably short. That’s not entirely surprising since study after study demonstrates that men take more risks than women. While the list of men who have free soloed routes of 5.11 and up is quite long, we could find only three women who have climbed that grade or higher without a rope. Now, a fourth woman has joined the list.

On May 3, Aleksandra “Ola” Taistra made a ropeless ascent of Alfredo Alfredo (7a/5.11d), a limestone line up Monte Oddeu on the island of Sardinia where she lives. Not only is this one of the hardest known free solos by a woman, but it’s also rather committing: 200 meters (656 feet) of climbing over six pitches, which Taistra linked into one long push.

“Whenever I push into a new grade or face an intense challenge, I don’t panic or freak out,” Taistra told Climbing. “Instead, my focus becomes incredibly sharp. In those moments, nothing exists. I accept the next move. Alfredo Alfredo, I would say, was pretty much the same …I completely jumped into it and enjoyed it very much.”

The hardest female free solos on record

In 2017, American climber Brette Harrington free soloed Chiaro di Luna (5.11a, 2,500ft) on the tower Aguja Saint-Exupery (8,400 feet) in Patagonia. Steph Davis is also known for notable free solos, including Pervertical Sanctuary (5.10d/5.11a) on The Diamond in Colorado’s Rocky Mountain National Park. The Moab-based climber also free soloed Coyne Crack (5.11d) and Scarface (5.11) in Indian Creek.

French “rock queen” Catherine Destivelle was well known as a free soloist, in addition to her reputation as a talented competition climber and alpinist. In 1987, while shooting the short film Séo!, Destivelle free soloed an unnamed route in Mali that she said included difficulties up to 5.12a/b. In an email to Climbing, Destivelle wrote of that filmed ascent: “The maximum grade was 7b. It was the traverse under the roof. But it was not so high, 10 meters above the floor.” (For anyone bad at metric conversions, that’s 30 feet above the deck).

Confused on conversions between French grades and the Yosemite Decimal System? Read this. 

But in the nearly 10 years since Harrington’s massive ropeless climb in Patagonia, few notable entries in the list of hardest female free solos have transpired—until now.

Who is Aleksandra Taistra? 

Since Taistra’s May 3 free solo of Alfredo Alfredo, we wanted to learn more about this Polish climber. After all, by grades alone, it would be considered the second or third hardest known female free solo in history. It’s also the most notable female free solo in the past decade, following Harrington’s ropeless Patagonia ascent in 2017.

“Climbing is at the center of everything I do,” Taistra told Climbing from her backyard on a hot day in Sardinia. When she’s not climbing, Taistra works as a climbing instructor, coach, physical therapist, and climbing content creator. She calls teaching her “second great passion.”

Decades ago, Taistra started out as a dedicated sport climber, peaking at the grade of 8+/5.14b. But after an alpinist friend took her multi-pitch climbing in Sardinia, she shifted her purview from performance to adventure. Free soloing began as a way to train her mindset for bold multi-pitch climbs, but it soon became her “whole thing.”

When we asked Taistra how she measured Alfredo Alfredo against other free solos by women, she said, “Every free solo ascent is extraordinarily demanding. I don’t think it’s appropriate to view them as a competition or to establish any sort of ranking.” Though she admitted that she had done some research into other notable women’s free solos to see how she stacked up.

[Editor’s note: Climbing agrees with Taistra’s sentiment that free soloing shouldn’t be competitive or ranked. We stand by the mixed feelings this publication expressed regarding free soloing coverage back in 2017. However, as ropeless climbing continues to occur, leading to accidents, deaths, and, more positively, notable ascents, it’s also an active and indisputable extant pillar of our sport that we feel is important to discuss, in all its nuance and complexity.]

However you feel about this controversial discipline of climbing, our conversation with Taistra was illuminating. We learned more about how she started climbing without a rope in the first place, heard about her experience on Alfredo Alfredo, and gained interesting insights into the mind of a female free soloist.

Our interview with free soloist Aleksandra Taistra

This conversation has been lightly edited for concision and clarity. 

Maya Silver: When did you first start climbing?

Aleksandra “Ola” Taistra: In 2000. So 26 years ago, when I was 17, I discovered climbing through this little climbing camp organized by the Polish Alpine Club. From that moment on, I was completely hooked. Just, you know, falling in love.

Silver: What type of climbing did you do when you first started?

Taistra: After finishing high school, I took a gap year and did nothing but train, sleep, climb. That was pretty sweet. I progressed very quickly in sport climbing. I focused almost exclusively on performance. But everything changed in 2018, when a super strong alpinist brought me here to Sardinia and introduced me to multi-pitch climbing. That experience completely changed my perspective. I found myself drawn into [multi-pitch climbing] completely. That was my world. Being far away from the bottom and just climbing.

Silver: What was the transition like from sport to multi-pitch as your focus?

Taistra: It’s pretty interesting because to go from sport to multi-pitch climbing, you can still feel these desires about grades, about hard climbing. I climb a maximum of 500 to 700 meters. They’re not mountains—it’s still sport. But it went from sport climbing to really sketchy multi-pitch—bolted but dangerous.

Here in Sardinia, they have this scale from S1 to S5. So S1 is climbing in a gym and on S5, you can die. I found myself pretty interested about the quattro, meaning S3, S4. I started climbing smoothly, but there was a lot of stress behind it.

Silver: How did you transition from these higher risk multi-pitch routes to free soloing?

Taistra: Free soloing helped me improve in multi-pitch climbing where I have poor protection. But then it became a project on its own. So at first, the free solo had been training to not be stressed, to not be scared in my multi-pitch projects here in Sardinia, where the runouts are huge. And now here I am. It became the whole thing.

Silver: Do you remember your first free solo? Was it pretty mellow on a grade well below your ability?

Taistra: The first free solo was super short and really easy in the Polish Tatra Mountains. The feeling was really interesting. You don’t give yourself permission to feel any stress. This first free solo means so much to me because it opened my eyes and literally changed me.

Silver: What led you to try that first free solo in the Tatra Mountains?

Taistra: It was by chance, actually. I came back to Poland and I grabbed my best friend and said, “Could you go with me to the mountains to just hike? Maybe we’ll climb a little bit.” Then I saw this wall and I said, “Listen, maybe the next day, we can come back and climb up.”

She said, “Sure.” Then I had this idea. “‘What would you say to support me?’ I will go first to try on toprope, and then I will go to the top without a rope.” And she was like, “Sure, no problem.” But then I felt sorry. I put her in a little trouble because she probably didn’t expect that—such a strong emotional experience.

Silver: How did free soloing transform your perspective on climbing?

Taistra: That time was totally different than right now because I climbed a really easy route. I felt very comfy. When I started free soloing more and more, I prepared myself incredibly well. I’ve just realized that free soloing gives you such strong and different emotions. There is nothing more than this moment—just another move. That didn’t exist before in my sport climbing. You know, somebody speaking loud, heavy quickdraws, or I didn’t poop in the morning—all these thoughts drilling in my head. Free soloing, there is just nothing. Completely nothing.

For such a long time, I couldn’t find myself. I couldn’t be in this peaceful and relaxing situation while climbing. I always had a million thoughts and I was scared to fall. With free soloing, it’s just enjoyment. I don’t feel any stress and fear.

Silver: Is that feeling of extreme focus and being in the present addictive?

Taistra: Obviously, it tastes really good. I will not lie. It tastes very good because you’re being in the present. I never had that before.

Silver: Tell me how you set Alfredo Alfredo as a goal.

Taistra: Alfredo offered a style of climbing I had never tackled before: free-soloing technical crack and corner systems, with short overhanging sections—another barrier to break through. That was precisely what motivated me so strongly.

One of my friends, a climbing partner, said, “This is impossible to free solo. Don’t do that.” I didn’t want to hear that, actually, because I didn’t know what to do with it. Like, why are you telling me that?

Silver: How did you prepare for this climb?

Taistra: Tons of hours in a gym, on a wall, brushing, trying to find solutions. I should say I prepared myself for 26 years to be in this moment, to be ready.

I tried it many times in April. In May, because the conditions were so incredibly different, I didn’t rush myself. When you do the preparation or you feel that this day is coming, you’re not rushing. Sometimes I woke up in the middle of the night feeling like, “Oh God, maybe tomorrow. That’s the day.” I climbed it a lot, practiced it a lot.

I devoted several toprope solo sessions to the route. At the same time, I continued climbing other routes, including a number of much easier free solos. From a methodological standpoint, these climbs progressively opened the door to my planned rope-free ascent of Alfredo Alfredo. So-called “step-backs” are also highly effective mentally, helping to avoid becoming overly obsessed with a single objective. As a result, those easier solo ascents gave me a greater sense of openness and flexibility while preparing for Alfredo.

Silver: Did you just wake up one day and say, “I’m doing it”? Or did you set a date ahead of time?

Taistra: Exactly like that. I woke up one day and my best friend was there, Aneta. During breakfast, I just looked at her and said, “Well, what would you say to support me today as a filmmaker and photographer on Alfredo?” And she was like, “Yeah, okay, okay.”

I knew exactly when the sun went down in this part of the wall, which holds could still be warm, which are not for a warm-up—I knew exactly if I was ready to try it or not.

Silver: What were the trickiest parts of this free solo for you?

Taistra: There was one pitch with a few really reachy moves and super polished rock. That was pretty tricky. But what I find really interesting is that whenever I push into a new grade or face an intense challenge, I don’t panic or freak out. Instead, my focus becomes incredibly sharp. In those moments, nothing exists. I accept the next move.

So Alfredo Alfredo, I would say, was pretty much the same. Even though I knew that the grade was higher. Even though I knew that it’s way more sketchy than the stuff that I climbed before, I completely jumped into it and enjoyed it very much.

Silver: How long did it take?

Taistra: It was quite fast. Maximum four or five hours. My partner needed a bit more time to prepare everything, so I didn’t want to make her stressed because then I would stress myself.

Silver: What did you carry with you on this free solo?

Taistra: In my backpack, there was some water, gel, and a power bank for my phone because I listen to music when I’m climbing, so I needed [an] extra battery. Just in case.

Silver: What were you listening to while climbing?

Taistra: Oh, everything. When I need to calm down and slow down, I just play something super relaxed. And when I need a hit, then I listen to something more intense.

[Editor’s note: You can listen to one of Taistra’s free soloing playlists here.]

Silver: Is there anything else you want to say about your experience on Alfredo Alfredo?

Taistra: Nowadays, on every single free solo, I feel so much peace. In normal climbing, I don’t have it.

Silver: Do you feel at peace with what you’ve accomplished? Or do you feel like you need to try something harder?

Taistra: I hope that my father will not watch it, so I don’t quit free soloing [laughs]. I’ve already started working towards two major routes here in Sardinia that I would really, really love to solo one day. They’re definitely hard. They’re long and intense because every single pitch is spicy and every single pitch, something’s going on. From the beginning ‘til the end, you need this focus.

Last summer, I also spent four months in Poland trying one route that’s 500 meters (1,640 feet), plus a 200m (656ft) scramble over bedrock that’s more like walking than climbing. This is one of the things I really would love to try—maybe next summer. This route is so different than everything that I’ve tried before because the conditions change. Every single day is different. All these pitches where you have cracks that can be humid, or rockfall. That’s why Brette Harrington climbing in the real, crazy mountains is so badass, you know? It’s impossible to compare.

Silver: What’s your philosophy on taking risks as a climber? Where do you draw the line?

Taistra: I believe we should prepare ourselves as well as possible. If we talk about spicy climbing—I don’t want to say danger—there will always be something we cannot control, right? If we never step outside of our comfort zone, then how do we truly grow as a human being? Taking a risk and pushing beyond what feels comfortable is what makes me feel really, truly alive.

But it doesn’t mean that I’m crazy. The words “being crazy” are not nice. If we would be crazy, there would be only one try. We need to be prepared for potential stressful situations. But the focus and what I’m standing behind is so solid. This is not for everyone. And that’s totally okay. But for myself, going out of my comfort zone is literally what makes me feel happy.

Silver: Do you get called “crazy” by your family or friends?

Taistra: I won’t lie that I’ve never had this. Like, “Stop it,” or “Can you change your passion?” or whatever. But I just say, “Don’t put your stress on me.” Telling somebody, “Maybe it’s not the right day, maybe you should wait, maybe you should be better prepared” is fair enough. But telling somebody, “Don’t” is not right.

I really don’t want to hurt anybody and I really don’t want to hurt myself. Let me do what I love.

Silver: How do you feel about encouraging others to try free soloing? And what’s your perspective on sharing stories of your free solos?

Taistra: It’s everybody’s choice. But if you want to do anything that is more challenging or extreme, think twice about what it brings to your life.

I would never ask somebody to free solo with me. I want to mention that a couple days ago, I had a situation with an Italian climber. We planned to go climbing and I said, “What would you say if after leading this route, I free solo it?” He froze. He didn’t respond to me. And I felt so angry. I felt so not okay, because actually, I shouldn’t have even asked him.

It’s not normal for people to watch somebody soloing. This is not fair. I’m going by myself or I’m taking people that are filming me or taking pictures, but only my closest friends and the ones that I know feel comfortable. Because it’s an intimate experience having someone watch you [free solo]. Watching my videos is weird sometimes. When you are there in the process, when you are doing it, it’s totally different.

And I would say even more, don’t do it. Just don’t do it.

The post Polish Climber Pulls Off One of the Hardest Female Free Solos in History appeared first on Climbing.

I was up in the Flatirons, Colorado, recently with my buddy Andy, belaying him on the legendary sport route Slave to the Rhythm (a nod to the Grace Jones album). We chatted between burns about the route’s history, including how the first ascensionist, Dan Michael, gave all the extruded cobbles funny names—e.g., “the Skinhead”—and nailed a piece of wood to a tree to warm up on. Back in 1987, this was visionary stuff: Previously, we had this bizarre idea that you should just show up to your project and give a burn while your muscles were still “fresh,” and so barely warmed up properly.

In that benighted era, training and logistics lagged well behind physical strength; at-home hangboards were sharp, tweaky, and rudimentary; and “portable hangboards” were, apparently, strips of wood nailed to trees.

We’ve come a long way into today’s world of doorjamb-mounters, sculpted resin hangboards, and wooden apparati. For my money, the wood hangboards are the best: versatile and smooth, they’re ideal both to warm up on and at the session’s end, when skin is thin. And they force you, by relying less on friction, to use pure finger strength—which, after all, is the point.

There are lots of wooden options. The five below are my favorites, whether at the crag or in the gym/home during training cycles.

The post Weak Fingers? Check Out Our Favorite Hangboards, Field-Tested. appeared first on Climbing.

From weird fixed horns that climbers commonly mis-rig, to general SERENE violations, to highly questionable toprope setups, we love taking a look at your anchors. Our goal is to provide informed insights about the anchor submissions we receive from which our readers can learn from. We also aim to foster productive conversations around anchors among the climbing community, whether you leave a comment on our story and pose a question on an Instagram post.

Whether it’s an unusual fixed anchor you’ve got questions about, a trad anchor you built and would love feedback on, or someone else’s janky toprope anchor you spied in the wild, you can submit an anchor for analysis here:

Submit an Anchor

We promise: No judgement and no requirement to reveal your name—anonymous submissions are welcome.

Your anchor may be analyzed by Anthony Walsh, the senior editor at Climbing and our resident alpinist and gearhead. He has extensive experience with janky anchors, for better or worse, including while rappelling the East Pillar of Torre Egger, Patagonia, through the night and in a storm. We may also enlist an IFMGA guide, a route developer, or other expert to review anchor submissions.

The post Let’s See That Anchor appeared first on Climbing.

This article was originally published on April 17, 2025. Since then, Parker has created about 100 pairs of Pronks and shipped them to climbers across North America. He currently has a 70-person waitlist and plans to bring it cobbling and sewing help soon to expand his capacity.

In late March 2025, in Salt Lake City, in the same garage where he spent two years training for the hardest offwidth in the world, 34-year-old Danny Parker turns away from his work bench and holds up a hot pink shoe.

I’ve been here before. In fact, Parker and Ashley Cracroft’s garage is something between a tourist attraction and a refuge for crack climbers passing through the Utah capital. After Parker made the first repeat of Century Crack (5.14b) in 2018, his and Cracroft’s “Crack Fortress” became a pilgrimage site for many Century Crack hopefuls, including Japanese offwidth climber Fumiya Nakamura. For months before his send, Nakamura trained in and slept below the crack trainer, just feet from where Parker now stands.

The garage still has the hum of raw potential. Behind me, fluorescent lights smear over a wall of posters autographed by British wide climbing duo Tom Randall and Pete Whittaker. Coiled ropes bloom from the eye-level rafters. Three calendars featuring Cracroft, who invited me to train here for six weeks last year, are pinned permanently to November, April, and December.

But gone are the stack of crashpads that sat near the front entrance in 2024. This year, they’ve been replaced by a workbench, a band saw, an industrial sewing machine, and other accessories to Parker’s latest obsession: shoemaking.

For the past six months, Parker has dedicated himself to building his dream shoe for crack climbing. Among studying YouTube tutorials, taking apart his friends’ old shoes, and talking with professional shoemakers, he’s been steadily churning out handmade iterations of what he brazenly calls the “first real crack shoe.” He claims it’s optimized for all crack sizes from fingers to offwidth. And he’s calling it the Pronk.

I have to ask Parker three times what a pronk is.

“It’s this move, like a prance, that a goat does when it’s trying to show off to a predator,” he says. “It’s just adorable. It’s these animals that are preyed upon, and they intentionally flaunt their strength…” He trails off, handing me the magenta shoe with a shrug. “I just love that it’s a fun word.”

Up close, Parker’s design looks like a high-top Moroccan slipper that stepped into a pool of black liquid, with only the laces staying dry. Free from textured adornments, such as an extra rand looping the heel, the shoe looks oddly unfinished and deflated.

But when I pinch the toe flat between my fingers, I immediately understand what makes the Pronk so valuable to Parker. It’s got the lowest-volume toe box that I’ve ever seen—clearly built to fit into the thinnest cracks.

Then I notice the offwidth details: the high rubber coverage along the top of the shoe, the ankle protection, and the boardlike stiffness along the sole. He’s even sewn the shoe with oversized eyelets and added hockey laces, the most durable laces for roof cracks.

Trying to climb a world-class trad route, even with perfect technique, often depends on matching the right shoe to one’s style—or even going barefoot. Hanging upside-down from offwidth roofs, for example, feels best on shoes with heavy padding and rigidity. But it’s the thin cracks where tiny size differences can be absolutely critical. There’s a reason why the world’s hardest finger cracks—like Magic Line (5.14c), Cobra Crack (5.14a), and Meltdown (5.14c)—are too thin to foot jam. Even the slightest bit of shoe that can fit inside constitutes a massive advantage.

“I’ve been pitching my shoe to whoever will listen for years,” says Parker. “I’ve pitched this to Black Diamond, I’ve pitched it to Butora, and I pitched to Evolv back in the day. Nobody, I feel, has actually made a crack shoe.”

Inspired by Mason Earle

In 2014, when Parker was 24 and had been climbing for just three years, he went over to his friend Mason Earle’s house and saw him taking his shoes out of the oven.

“He had this idea way before I did,” says Parker. Earle showed Parker how he was delaminating the glue from his shoes, taking them apart, and attempting to build his own shoe.

Earle’s goal, Parker recalls, was to try and bring back the 2011 Five Ten SuperMocc, the one shoe that Parker admits was “probably built for crack climbing.” The SuperMocc’s best quality was its lack of a midsole—the stiff, flat layer inside the shoe that gives it structure. Without a midsole, the SuperMocc could jam thinner cracks than its cousin, the Five Ten Moccasym. Over time, however, its superpower turned into its fatal flaw.

“The shoe was so soft and moldable that you could twist and twist and twist on your feet,” says Parker, “and the shoe would continue to go til you had no ankle support. The whole thing would blow out.” The SuperMocc, he says, discontinued so quickly that it never had an opportunity to win over the market. Earle’s plan, says Parker, was to recreate his own, high-top version of the SuperMocc with more structure.

Parker hadn’t ever tried to take apart his climbing shoes. But after watching Earle do it, he went home and promptly put his own Alturas in the oven. Soon this became a regular practice. “I’d rip the soles off,” he recalls. Then he would shave down the shoe’s midsole.

Over the next few years, as Parker made his way through the climbing grades, he also perfected his Altura modifications. On his pinky toe side, he’d reduce the midsole so that the rubber could squish flat, which would let him fit into thinner splitters. But on the big toe side, he mostly left the midsole intact, keeping the edge rigid. He’d end up with an edging profile on the inside, a jamming profile on the outside, and the original, stiff heel. When he glued it all back together, he was ready for any type of crack.

By the end of 2018, Parker had sent his dream route, Century Crack, and was in the best shape of his life. Earle, however, was in a very different place. In May, he developed debilitating ME/CFS symptoms, and his climbing career came to a complete halt. Earle and his wife moved to Reno in July 2019. Before they left, Earle gave Parker his extra rubber and glue.

The Sponsor Steps In … and Out

One day, in summer 2024, Parker got a life-changing email. Butora wasn’t selling enough of the Alturas. They were going to completely redesign the shoe.

And they wanted Parker’s help.

“I had a lot to say,” he admits. After a decade of modifying the original Alturas, Parker knew exactly what he wanted from a crack shoe. “The market has just always made big wall shoes, and people try to adapt them for crack climbing,” he explains. “And big wall shoes have slowly become more and more geared toward sport climbing.”

The La Sportiva TC Pro, according to Parker, is the standard-bearer of this effect. He calls it a face-climbing shoe with ankle protection, with a “super soft heel, super soft shoe, a little bit of downturned aggression in the toe box, and not really a profile that would jam a crack except for like a number one crack.” A true crack shoe, he insists, would still have structural stiffness, but with a much flatter toe box that is actually designed to fit into narrow spaces.

“If you can get inside the crack, then you want [to make the shoe] essentially as stiff as you can,” he says. “If you’re not getting inside the crack, obviously you need something extra soft.” So essentially, for finger cracks, you need a shoe with a flat, soft pinky toe side for tight jams, plus enough stiffness to hold your body weight. But if you extend the leather above the heel to add ankle protection, and wrap the front rubber up toward the instep, you’ve got a shoe that also performs in any style of offwidth.

He pitched Butora his ultimate crack shoe, but after weeks of discussions, they decided to go in a different direction.

“[Butora] ended up saying, ‘No, we’re making a TC Pro,’” says Parker. He’d known, by then, that it was a long shot to convince any brand to sharply diverge from the dominant trad shoe on the market. Butora confirmed that they invited Parker to help redesign the Altura and that ultimately, they decided to go more in the direction of the TC Pro.

The Power of ADHD

Two months later, in the wake of the Altura fiasco, Parker caught up with his friend Noah Kane, whom he’d met tree climbing in Costa Rica.

Both Cracroft and Parker, as well as Kane, loved the adventure element of tree climbing, even if it was often painful. “In tree climbing, there’s this ethic of, you do not wear shoes. You protect the trees,” says Parker. “[Noah and I] were talking about how to find the loophole … because what happens is, your feet get destroyed.”

Kane was preparing for another Costa Rica trip in the fall. “You know what?” Parker said. “I’m going to build you some foot jammies out of leather.”

Parker had plenty of extra suede from a previous side project: making his own crack gloves so he could avoid buying new ones. With his leftover pink suede, he stenciled out toe covers with two slots each: one big toe slot and one slot for all the other toes. “It was essentially a leather version of exactly how I would tape my toes in hard cracks,” says Parker. Just before he gave away the foot jammies to Kane, Parker tried them on and climbed some of the thin cracks in his garage.

That’s when something clicked. “It worked,” he says. In his wooden cracks, the foot jammies felt even better than taped toes. So he set out to “rubberize” them.

Parker pulled out Earle’s old shoemaking materials and got to work. Drawing on his experience with taking apart his Alturas, he slowly recreated the design elements of a high-top. It took him more than a week, but by the end, he was staring at his first handmade climbing shoe: a bright pink, heavily protected monstrosity, with two horrifying lobster claws for toe boxes.

“It was absolute dog shit,” says Parker, deadpan. “Awful. You could not make a worse shoe. So then I built another, ‘cause I was kind of annoyed at how poor it came out.”

For his second attempt, he axed the lobster claw, going back to a traditional slipper shape. Parker didn’t have any shoe molds, or lasts, so he just sewed his pieces together in the air. After another week of work, the front of the shoe came out looking like a duck bill. “It was just flat and terrible,” he says.

But it turned out to be pretty good at jamming. Parker was satisfied with how the second version of the Pronk, compared to his leather toe cutouts, performed in the finger cracks around his garage. He felt that the rubber was way too soft, so he sought out rubber experts at The Gear Room in Salt Lake City.

“I kinda did the ADHD thing where I failed and failed and then I just hyperfocused,” he says. “I just went down a rabbit hole, and people just started coming out of the woodwork to help me.”

The Gear Room resoler, Mark Evans, took Parker under his wing, teaching him basic cobbling techniques and handing him a spare, size-12 cowboy boot last, which he carved down into the shape of his own foot.

A few weeks later, one of Parker’s friends, Coty Mayo, a former Black Diamond employee who now makes dog products for Carhartt, brought him to the basement of Black Diamond’s headquarters. There, he introduced him to “the shoe guys.” Parker walked out of that basement with not only advice on his design, but also free rubber and leather samples. He also acquired a massive prize: a $3,000 industrial sewing machine that Mayo sold him for just $100. “That changed my production from one shoe in a week to three shoes in a day,” he says.

After three months of sewing, cutting, and gluing, in late December 2024, Parker went to his local climbing gym, Momentum Sandy, to test out the Pronks.

He hopped on an old challenge: a steep, 5.12+ finger crack that fluctuated between .4s and .5s. Even with his modified Alturas, Parker hadn’t been able to stick his shoes inside the 15-degree overhang and get a solid enough foot jam to avoid campusing the route. “I’ve only successfully climbed it once before, with taped toes, back in 2016,” he says.

That day, on his very first lap with the Pronks, he sent.

Parker remembers being lowered in a daze. His growing doubts about his shoe’s potential were washed out in a heart-thumping sense of awe.

“It literally changed the grade of the route,” he says.

Show Me the Numbers

Watch this video to see Parker explain his shoe design:

Next to his workbench, Parker holds up a digital caliper and puts the toe end of a Butora Altura, size 9.5, between its teeth. The toe’s exact height measures 34.4mm. “This is just a normal shoe,” he says. “Obviously, that just doesn’t jam a crack.”

What Parker means is that it’s too big to jam any crack smaller than .75s. These are the camming ranges, in millimeters, for three Black Diamond Z4 cams, from smallest (fully cammed) to largest (fully open):

• Green .75 cam: 23.1-44.1mm
• Purple .5 cam: 18.8-33.9mm
• Silver .4 cam: 15.3-27.7mm

(To compare to other types of cams, see UK Climbing’s 2020 microcams sizing test.)

Parker’s favorite trad shoe, with a 34.4mm toe box, still fits well within the range of a green .75 Z4. But the shoe can’t jam a .5 crack.

Parker grabs a different Altura, one he’s modified. “What I would do is take this shoe, open it up, and cut the midsole out so that it would reduce the inside,” he explains, tracing his hand over the bottom of the sole. “Since 2014, this is what I’ve been climbing with. That would get you down to 30 millimeters or so.”

The toe box for the modified Altura is 29.1mm, right in the range of a .5 cam.

Finally, Parker picks up his own invention. “I tried to wrap the rubber around the edge of the toe instead of stacking it underneath, so there’s no stacking of rubber,” he says, pointing to the one-piece rand. “And I’m jamming .4s. I’m standing on my feet and getting purchase inside the crack.”

I’m almost skeptical, but when Parker measures the Pronk’s toe, it clocks in at the thinnest yet: 23.8mm, squarely within the range of a silver .4 Z4 cam. It’s 36% flatter than the normal Altura.

As a crack climber, watching these toe boxes get thinner is like witnessing a gravitational anomaly. It’s far from trivial. Even partially jamming a .4s crack, instead of having to edge or smear, is the difference between a sort-of rest position and a crux—between sending and not sending hundreds of classic routes. For climbers who already have smaller feet, the difference will likely be slimmer, as there’s already less material to remove. But the effect is still significant.

Can I Send 5.14 Cracks Yet?

A big question that may be on many climber’s minds is whether the Pronks are aid.

When I examined the Pronk, I expected to see an extra-hard piece of rubber sticking out its toe like a crampon front point—or some alien tool. Then Parker explained exactly what he was doing: reducing down the bulky layers between his bare toes and the crack. He was removing material, not adding it.

In 2015, before the onset of ME/CFS, Earle put up one of his best-known Moab first ascents: Stranger Than Fiction (5.14b). The 110-foot route has since become a legendary testpiece for finger crack climbers. Part of its magnetic allure originates from the fact that Earle opted to tape his right toes instead of wearing a second shoe. When Lor Sabourin made the second ascent in 2023, they used the same one-shoe tactic.

Pete Whittaker was also projecting Stranger Than Fiction in 2023. However, instead of removing a full shoe, he had Parker modify his Unparallel Up Lace—a slipper similar to the Five Ten Moccasym—to enable it to jam better. “[Parker’s] modifications were removing part of the midsole and sanding down the thickness of the base of the shoe,” Whittaker told Climbing. To date, he’s the only person to send the route with two shoes.

Parker insists that the Pronk represents the most natural anatomy-focused shoe. “If people want to think it’s aid,” he says, “I think I would welcome that conversation.”

He believes that both his modifications and his original Pronk design fall in the middle ground between existing shoes and barefoot climbing. In particular, he predicts that “all the .5 cracks are going to have something coming for them.”

Let’s be clear: a thinner-toed shoe certainly won’t give someone the strength of a 5.13 or 5.14 climber. Even bare toes can’t squeeze into a tips layback—and for such climbs, especially on granite, edging shoes may be preferable.

Ultimately, the Pronk’s greatest impact, if it makes it to market, will likely be on finger crack climbers in the 5.11-5.12 range. Parker guesses that it could open up 30% more climbs by virtue of foot jamming ability alone. To a global corporation, that’s a very small segment of climbers. But to Parker, it’s the average climber in his sandstone-wrangling community.

At the moment, Parker is in talks with shoe manufacturers abroad—and, like many climbing shoe producers, is waiting for the recent U.S. tariffs to settle before he places any orders. In the meantime, he’ll be hard at work in the Crack Fortress, kicking out customs by hand.

The post Danny Parker Says He’s Made the First ‘Real’ Crack Climbing Shoe appeared first on Climbing.