Connor Herson returns to the show, a few years older, a few inches taller, and more than a few impressive ticks under his belt. One of his latest ascents is “Empath” on gear—potentially one of the harder gear leads ever recorded. Carlo Traversi first climbed Empath and proposed 5.15a. After quickly sending the route as a sport climb, Connor had the idea of trying it on gear. In this episode he shares his experience with that process, his thoughts about the difficulty of the route, and his vision for what’s next (hint: it’s not climbing).

First, your friendly and utterly relatable hosts pay homage to a kind of trad climbing that most of y’all will be more familiar with—the everyday, everyperson experience of going up on a 5.10 or 5.11 with a rack of gear and trying to onsight your way to the top. Could this be any different from, say, the ego-fluff of Ten Sleep?

Finally, Jeremy Fullerton gives us the first-person account of one of the most epic days in Rocky Mountain National Park, when the mountains moved.

Show Notes

Connor Herson on Instagram.

Does Connor’s ascent of Empath on gear count as the hardest trad ascent?

Rocky Mountain National Park Closes Chaos Canyon Area Due to Rockslide

Watch Will Mondragon’s footy of the rockslide.

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