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Readers, please send your Weekend Whipper videos, information, and any lessons learned to Anthony Walsh, awalsh@outsideinc.com.
No gigantic whippers this week, folks. Just someone pushing their grade at one of the best sport climbing venues in the country. We think that’s worth celebrating.
Jessica Buchanan had picked the Red River Gorge’s A Brief History of Climb (5.10b) as her first outdoor route of the grade. The 75-foot pitch is classic RRG: a few crimpy moves followed by outrageously steep, juggy climbing at a moderate grade.
“I was on my flash attempt,” Buchanan told Climbing, “when the lead fear and pump took over [just] before the anchors. The last bolt is a little more spaced out than the previous bolts, and I was pumping too hard to feel ok with clipping, so I took an announced fall.”
Buchanan says her belayer smartly took in extra slack to keep her off a mid-route ledge. It was the biggest ride she’d yet taken on lead. Her reward? “A knot that took 20 minutes of several people working to get off!”
(Hint: that’s why you want to pre-tighten your knot.)
Happy Friday, and be safe out there this weekend.