Even most non-climbers can understand the “crux” of a climb. It’s simply the hardest part of a route, where a climber must use strength, technique, and grit to overcome a crux’s particular difficulties. When climbers attempt a crux at their limit, it’s often a slow, tense, but magnetic battle as they fight desperately to escape gravity’s clutches.
Few recent videos have captured that moment of anxious transcendence quite like Amity Warme’s hail-Mary send of a notoriously difficult pitch of Yosemite stem climbing. As she ventures up Book of Hate, a 150-foot pitch that follows a progressively steep corner, Warme hits the crux. First ascended by Randy Leavitt, this 5.13d testpiece would challenge many elite climbers.
“SCARPA Athlete Amity Warme dug deep and put together an impressive send despite climbing with what she later found out to be a fully ruptured A2 pulley in her middle finger!” reads the video description from her sponsor.
As she grunts, cries out, almost falls, struggles back into position, and finally sends the damn thing: You can’t help but be pulled in with her.
This is what climbing is all about, people.
Runtime: 8 minutes
