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Earlier this month, 28-year-old Dylan Barks sent his first 5.15a with Selecció Anal in Cova Gran, Santa Linya. The longtime climber has previously ticked three 5.14d’s—including Life of Villains in the Hurricave, and, in January this year, Smoke Wagon, on Mount Potosi. Barks has also previously sent one V16—Creature from the Black Lagoon in Rocky Mountain National Park.
Barks began climbing at age 12 in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and he went on to compete in several Youth World Championships and World Cups. If you know Barks, or have watched him from a distance over the years, you’d know what a precise and powerful climber he is. He’s a helluva crimper and he manages to maintain tension on the worst feet. Barks’s progression through grades over the last five or so years has been steady, and his success on Selecció Anal feels like it was a longtime coming.
“It sounds cheesy, but you’ve got to believe in yourself,” says Barks. “And so, I think once I started believing that I could do a route of this difficulty, or take that next step for myself, that’s when I think things kind of came easier.”
Back in 2018, Barks spent some time in Oliana trying Papichulo (5.15a). It felt possible, and ever since, says Barks, the seed had been planted. The last few years saw him through a move to Portland with his fiancé and most of an associates degree in software development from Ivy Tech Community College—he’s slated to finish that off this year. When the opportunity to go to Santa Linya—a steep Catalunya cave that’s home to some of the world’s first 5.15b’s, including Chris Sharma’s Stoking the Fire and Neanderthal— and connect with a few friends arose, he jumped at the chance.
Established in 2013 by Ramon Julian Puigblanque, Selecció Anal is a link up between Selecció Natural and Analogica. It has seen repeats by the likes of Sachi Amma, Edu Marín, Magnus Midtbø, and Jonathan Siegrist. The power-endurance test piece culminates in V10 crux on small crimps. Barks, to his surprise, was able to to one hang the route—falling at the redpoint crux—within a matter of days.
“I would just get to this jug, think that I’d recovered, and then I’d grab the first two crimps and I’d just be off,” he says. “I was like what the heck?! At first, I wasn’t sure if I could climb into that section pumped, but I slowly learned the subtleties.”
All told, Barks only needed about eight sessions to clip the chains. He described the send go itself as having a “hyperfocus, tunnel vision-type feeling.”
Barks’s progression is especially noteworthy when you consider the two-year hiatus he took from climbing beginning at age 19. After struggling with an eating disorder for a number of years, he was hospitalized and then in and out of therapy. He described it as the darkest period in his life.
“I had fallen down this path of equating too many things in climbing to exactly how much I weighed. That was a very hard thing to uncouple from my climbing. I had to work on myself first, and then I was able to slowly introduce climbing back into my life.”
Barks remembers starting back up again—he went to a friend’s woody and enjoyed a beer while bouldering, which was a stark contrast to what climbing sessions looked like to him as a kid. “I would go into the gym and just do four-by-fours and this and that,” he says. “That was my entire childhood—just being obsessed with climbing.” Instead of obsessing over workouts, Barks focused on enjoying movement, and, he adds, he collected evidence that (a) he was taking care of his body, and (b) that this translated to better climbing. A year or two later, he got his categorical proof: Barks sent Southern Smoke Direct (5.14d), in the Red River Gorge.
“That was the big Aha, OK moment,” he says. “I remember trying that route when I was sick and not doing well, and I couldn’t do it. I remember just not having the strength to get myself up the thing.
“The whole experience is one that I would never wish upon anyone, and I wish I could unwish it upon myself, but I can’t, and these are the life lessons that I’ve been dealt. I do think it has made me a stronger person for having to go through that. I learned a lot about myself and how to be mindful about things… I think that if someone’s dealing with the same experience, they should know there’s always a way through it, too.”
Barks is looking forward to returning to the West Coast to try out more hard sport lines in Smith Rock and Squamish.