Tristan Chen Repeats V14 Nine Months After Cancer Diagnosis
In an attempt to make space for the newsworthy ascents that occur with ever-increasing regularity, we’re launching a new weekly series in which we try to celebrate a few outstanding climbs that for one reason or another caught our attention. We hope you enjoy it.—The editors.
I. Tristan Chen Repeats Esperanza (V14) Nine Months After Cancer Diagnosis
One thing that caught my eye this week was Tristan Chen’s recent re-send of Esperanza, a classic Fred Nicole V14 in Hueco. The climb is notable not because it’s particularly hard for him—he first sent the boulder in 2019 and has done far harder—but because re-climbing it was the goal he set for himself last summer, while undergoing treatment for leukemia.
For those of you who need the introduction, Chen, 26, is a Colorado climber (originally from the Boston area) who spent much of the last five years sending (and often downgrading) America’s hardest boulders. But in May 2022, not long after returning from a very productive trip to Europe, he noticed that he was bruising severely after even minor falls or dry fires. A doctor friend suggested he go to urgent care to get a complete blood count test, which revealed that his platelet count was dangerously low (5,000 rather than 150,000+). His friend, in tears, told him to go to the ER immediately. She also suggested he call his parents.
Chen spent the next 35 days in the hospital and was diagnosed with Acute Myeloid Leukemia, a type of bone marrow cancer. By June, after multiple rounds of chemo, he was in remission—an announcement that was followed by yet more chemo and, in August, a stem-cell/bone marrow transplant. All told, he spent nearly 70 days in the hospital last year and lost some 15% of his body weight. One way to cope with the process, he said, “was setting a concrete goal, and for me that was to repeat Esperanza.”
Why Esperanza?
Chen picked the climb for several reasons. First, it’s fun, and the holds, though small, are relatively friendly. Second, it suits his style. Third, and most importantly, the boulder played a central role in his own climbing history: It was “the first hard climb I did that felt easy from start to finish,” he said on his YouTube. And it marked the start of a significant level up in his climbing. After Esperanza he was able to try—if not send—just about any boulder at any area, regardless of grade, something that he considers the great unsung benefit of getting stronger.
And so, once his doctor’s signed off in mid-autumn, Chen dove into a heavy grind of climbing and, to replace the muscle he’d lost, lifting weights. Now, some 200 days post-transplant, “climbing-wise I feel about the same, if not slightly stronger, than before the diagnosis,” he told Climbing by email. “But strength-wise I’m not where I was before.” He can no longer get to 90-degrees when trying one-armed pull-ups, for instance, and he can’t engage a front lever. The good news? “It seems like that stuff wasn’t that important, considering I’m still able to climb okay.”
Leading up to his trip to Hueco, Chen was worried about the last move, a very powerful huck to the finishing jug. But he’d been feeling strong in the gym and his confidence was underscored when, after trying the moves individually, he stuck the crux move—a long throw to the famous “dog bone” pinch—five times from the ground on his first day, though he still fell later in the climb.
Chen says that success—which came on his first try of his second day of effort—was surprisingly anticlimactic. He was expecting to “freak out,” but he didn’t. And on both YouTube and Instagram, he mentioned that “climbing doesn’t taste the same anymore” post cancer, adding that, though he felt “obligated” to interpret his send as somehow significant, it instead felt hollow.
When I asked him about this, he said that, for better and worse, he was “attaching much less personal significance to climbing or to sending. Whereas before I would get much more wrapped up in a climb, and end up attaching my self worth to how I was climbing… now I don’t do that so much.” He added, however, that “I think being less invested is an overall healthier approach, and I’m actively trying to be more focused on mastery of the sport and just improving myself. The goal is no longer the goal; being able to do the goal is the goal… if that makes sense.”
What are those goals? Well, Chen actually got “fairly close” to doing Desperanza, the low start to Esperanza, which was established by Daniel Woods in 2010 at soft V15. So he plans to head back to Hueco if another window of cooler weather presents itself.
After that? On YouTube he said that retirement was an option. But to me he was a bit rosier:
“I’d like to try to get back into sport climbing,” he said.
—Steven Potter
*
II. Colin Duffy Ticks His First V16
The 19-year-old Olympian sent his first V16 at the end of February with a repeat of Drew Ruana’s Bookkeeping, in Nomad Cave, in Clear Creek Canyon. The 25-move link-up traverses three boulders, Off the Books (V11) into Spidey (V14) into No Way Home (V11), and finishes on a rock stack.
“While Nomad is certainly not the most beautiful and inspiring crag, the quality of movement and the 3D nature of the climbing is quite addicting,” wrote Duffy on Instagram. Previously, he’s sent several V14’s, including Spidey, and two 5.14d’s, including Life of Villains, in the Hurricave.
Last year, during the World Cup season, Duffy managed a double gold at the Innsbruck Lead and Bouldering World Cup. That result was a telling indication for how Duffy was tracking for the new 2024 Olympic format, which combines Lead and Bouldering but leaves Speed as a separate category. While there are many promising competitors on the U.S. team, including Zach Galla, Nathaniel Coleman, Jesse Grupper, and Sean Bailey, Duffy remains a serious Olympic contender.
But because the World Cup season ends every year in the fall, and because comp climbers return home to rest and then start the grueling preparation for the following year, it can feel like they’ve fallen off the map. We don’t hear from them; and that IG reel of the dyno they just did, while totally super sick, doesn’t tell us much about where they’re really at. But every once in a while, like Gollum crawling out from his cave, the comp climbers emerge for day trips outside. And that’s when you realize just how remarkably strong they are. V16 is nothing to shake your head at; but it also seems nowhere near Duffy’s max capacity.
If the 2024 Olympics don’t work out, he’s going to accumulate one helluva ticklist.
—Delaney Miller
*
III. Cameron Hörst Does Three 5.14ds in (roughly) a month
A single 5.14d isn’t really news. But doing three in a month is dang impressive. And while that’s not exactly what Cameron Hörst accomplished between February 5 and March 10, he did manage to knock down three 5.14ds in a 34 day period, which has me interested.
Hörst, now 22, first made headlines in 2012 when he sent three 5.14a’s at age 11. Before February of this year, he’d sent five 5.14ds and Joe Kinder’s Bone Tomahawk, which is considered hard 5.14d or easy 5.15a. He began his sending spree with Smoke Wagon, at Mt. Potosi, in Nevada. The route—bolted by Andy Raether, FA’d by Jonathan Siegrist, repeated by Joe Kinder—“put me through a lot to say the least,” Hörst wrote on 8a.nu. “A complete anti-style (long resistant) route for me coupled with lots of breakage, seeping and bad luck made for a prolonged/memorable experience.”
Exactly 28 days later, in the Red River Gorge, he put down Southern Smoke Direct, which was originally called 5.15a until Adam Ondra flashed and downgraded it. Hörst then capped his spree (and diverged from the smoke theme) by getting the fourth ascent of Zoolander, joining Alex Megos, Daniel Woods, and Yannick Flohé. Speaking to 8a.nu about the thing we’re all interested in (how did he accomplish this latest a level-up), Hörst said that it was the result of “compounding interest” on the training he’d logged over the past few years. If there’s any secret sauce, he added, it might be that he’d spent a lot of time focusing on his weaknesses lately—which, of course, is the last thing that most of us want to hear.
—Steven Potter
The post Tristan Chen Repeats V14 Nine Months After Cancer Diagnosis appeared first on Climbing.