Your carbon footprint: The bigger it is, the worse you are as a human being. (If you’ve ever flown on a plane, you may as well get a tattoo that says “I HATE THE EARTH” on your forehead.) Happy Earth Day, you utter villain. (Just kidding.) Most of us know that the concept of a “carbon footprint” was invented in 2004 by a PR firm hired by British Petroleum to shift the burden of responsibility off of corporations and onto individuals. Your biggest impact on the climate crisis comes from how you use your voice: the candidates you vote for, the petitions you sign, the protests you attend, the no ..read more

In the interest of transparency, I’ll say that I am not sponsored, and never have been sponsored, but that some gear is sent to me for free, and other gear I purchase. I like most of the gear I use and have used, and almost all of it is great compared to even state-of-the-art equipment of just a decade or two ago. Shoe rubber is better. Ropes are lighter, helmets are no longer big eggshells, carabiners are easier to clip and weigh less. You get the picture. I can’t really single out one thing as the worst piece of climbing gear ever invented, because there have been so many flops, but I have ..read more

Sam Watson, 18, broke the world record twice at the Wujiang World Cup this past week. During his first run in the qualification round, he clocked 4.85 seconds, beating the previous record of 4.90 set by Indonesia’s Veddriq Leonardo. During his second run of the day he established yet another record, running up the 50-foot wall in a mind-boggling 4.79 seconds. Watson, from Texas, qualified for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games after winning the Pan-American Games last October. Watson began climbing at age 5. He joined Team Texas and began participating in lead, bouldering, and speed competitions un ..read more

Basics The Julbo Ultimate Cover is a super light, super protective pair of sunglasses intended for harsh mountain environments. The Ultimate Cover has an easily removable nose guard and side shields, a cord attachment to secure the glasses in exposed terrain, and large vents to prevent fogging when you’re working hard on the uphill. Our thoughts I have never been a fan of superheroes or their ridiculous costumes, but I will happily overlook the Batman-vibes of Julbo’s new Ultimate Cover sunglasses. They are light and flexible and stow in a jacket’s breast pocket without any fuss. The frame can ..read more

Michaela Kiersch has sent her second 5.15a, Víctima Perfecta, at the Raco de la Finestra crag in Margalef, Spain. She also made her first 5.14a onsight with Crimptonite, in Oliana. Víctima Perfecta, a link-up connecting Victimes del Passat (5.14c) into Gancho Perfecto (5.14d/15a), was established by Spanish phenom (and notorious sandbagger) Ramón Julián Puigblanqué, who initially graded it 5.14c. Subsequent ascensionists Jorge Díaz-Rullo and Tom Bolger, however, have suggested 5.15a, and it would not be the first time one of Julián’s routes have seen a double upgrade; he suggested La Bongada ..read more

My first vest was a stroke of brilliance. I was at home on a rest day, supremely bored, and scheming the ways I could carry less weight while alpine climbing. Then it hit me. Sleeves! What useless dead weight. I sprang from the couch, grabbing scissors, needle, and thread, and sheared the loathsome tubes from my most offwidth-abused midlayer. My genius was immediately apparent: a few hundred grams gone and a full range of motion received. I cut off the jacket’s hood too, then the collar, maybe a bit too low. I threaded my needle first go, a real pro move, and bludgeoned the remaining fabric ..read more

Royal Arches, Yosemite. Kor-Ingalls Route, Castleton Tower. Durrance Route, Devil’s Tower. What do these super-classic moderates have in common? They each have a physically demanding chimney. This term refers to any fissure that your body fits inside, ranging from a squeeze chimney (one to two feet wide) to much wider, where you must stem the gap with a foot and hand on each side. Each width requires its own set of unique movements, so we talked with wide-crack wizard Rob Pizem (who points out that this was one of the earliest climbing techniques) to break it down into a step-by-step process ..read more

No matter how experienced a climber you are, one day, you will find yourself in a precarious situation. It could be a stuck rope, a dropped rappel device, ropes that won’t reach the next rappel, an injured leader, or any number of problematic situations. Elite climber Ian Nicholson has written Climbing Self-Rescue with this in mind, offering technical systems that follow patterns that are easy to remember and that can be applied to solve a wide range of problems. This lavishly illustrated guide teaches the skills a climbing team needs to execute a successful technical rescue on its ..read more

Climbers often pontificate on the “ultimate road trip,” and these musings have become ever more common with the rise of #vanlife. Much has been said about how to plan a long-term road trip, and plenty of routes have been thrown out there, but many of these over-represent one region of the country and under-represent others. If you’re a Tennessee-based climber, your “ultimate climbing road trip” probably won’t bother with much of the South. If you live in Oregon, the Pacific Northwest may not rank high on your list. So with this “Ultimate Climbing Road Trip,” my goal was to be completely unbia ..read more

Our thoughts about Ocun’s Sigma I’ve been on a soft-shoe kick lately, largely because brands are leaping to release new indoor-focused shoes in time for the Paris Olympics. These shoes—notably La Sportiva’s new Ondra Comp and Scarpa’s Veloce L—served me well on the steep, south-facing basalt sport caves where I spent my winter. But with spring’s arrival, I traded the hot caves for some desperately thin, dead-vertical 5.13s at my local shoulder-season crag, and it immediately became clear to me that those soft shoes weren’t going to cut it. So I pulled Ocun’s Sigma out of their winter retiremen ..read more