Weekend Whipper: Why Not To Rock Climb In Sneakers
This just in: Turns out the rubber on run-of-the-mill sneakers isn't as sticky as the rubber on climbing shoes.
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Anyway, this one comes to us from Noah Kane, the belayer in this clip. He and his friends Jaidon (climber) and Henry (filmer) awoke from a cold night of camping in southern Vermont and decided to hop on this little 40-foot route. They couldn’t find it in any guidebook or on Mountain Project, but thought it to be about 5.10b.
Noah told Rock and Ice, “Jaidon climbed up and completed the slabby first half of the climb before we all realized he wasn’t even wearing climbing shoes. Not wanting to come down and start over, he decided to push on. I mean who needs climbing shoes to climb hard, right? Three bolts high the route starts to overhang with technical finger crack climbing with small edges for your feet. Even though he had reached the rest jug at the next clip, his crappy sneakers on the tiny footholds gave out leading to an awkward face-first fall onto the slab below. This whipper looks and sounds pretty bad, but Jaidon actually didn’t hit his head as his left arm slapped onto the rock in front of him at the last minute. Good reflexes. Even still, he should have been wearing a helmet.”
Wait…hold on…he didn’t realize he was wearing sneakers and hadn’t put on his climbing shoes?! For real?? Well, that’s a new one ?
Anyway, glad you’re ok Jaidon.
Happy Friday and climb safe this weekend!