Extreme sports videos are fantastic internet fodder to share across social media. People love sharing Red Bull videos of athletes doing seemingly impossible activities in their respective sports. Climbing has earned its place in the extreme sports arena—think Free Solo with Alex Honnold. Despite that, it doesn’t have the same wide reception as, say, skateboarding and surfing.
Setters on the Loose
Any person—sports aficionado or couch potato—can watch big skateboard vert tricks and think it is sorcery. Anybody can watch someone surfing through the barrel of big waves and be blown away. While climbing videos still impress, to inspire awe, you need an audience that knows the technical skill involved to send a problem or at least, someone who is interested in the sport.
Climbing can sometimes be limiting in that regard, especially indoor climbing. That’s because climbers always have to keep safety at the forefront. Thus, we have ever-growing rooms full of gear: crash pads, shoes, cams and nuts, helmets, belay devices, and harnesses. Indoor climbing is somewhat controlled, and that’s expected. However, we fight the predictable by having the best route setters who keep our walls challenging and never dull.
We decided to let our route setters extraordinaire, Director of Routesetting Jeremy Hardin (L5 certified setter) and Head Routesetter, Stephen Meinhold (L4 certified setter), loose to design the route of their dreams, no holds barred.
What was the result? They created a route with amazingly dynamic, physics-defying, jaw-dropping climbing with dyno after dyno and even an iron cross at the end. Their best guess is that it rated around 5.13b.
We have the video to prove it. Check it out above and then come in to try out some of the killer problems and routes these guys set each week.