First ascent

And in this conversation here, we really dive into a couple of her most recent hard sport ascents.

A first ascent that she put up, I believe it's the hardest first ascent put up by a woman in North America.

An incredibly beautiful climb called Madlib in the northeast of the United States here, which is a 514D or 9A climb.

And then we also look at her ascent of Dolby Surround, a 515A or 9A plus in Austria, Berlin.

Both of those climbs, incredibly hard.

And in fact, I don't think Madlib has seen a repeat.

She's got the first ascent and I believe the only ascent of that climb.

And then Dolby Surround has only had a handful of sends in decades since it was originally put up and recently became even harder than it was originally put up because a key hold broke.

So that's good.

Have you, I know you've done lots of like mountain first ascents and like bigger objective stuff versus, have you done much in the way of like single pitch sport climbing FAs?

No, not, I mean, not really.

Like I had like a handful of, I bolted and sent like, I guess I fed some things out in Red Lodge area with some friends.

And I think it also kind of like highlights some sort of verbiage that I would love to see the climbing community move away from and just be like first ascent.

Sick.

And maybe by only having the first ascent, like it pushes the females to go get some more first ascents in a way that like is different than maybe they would approach the first female ascent.

I don't know.

Welcome to the Cutting Edge Podcast, back in the ice, rock, and snow of Alaska for this month's episode in the Kachatna Mountains, a western satellite of the Alaska Range, where two young American climbers have put up a first ascent on Kachatna Spire over the course of four days and four nights with almost no sleep, which is why they named the route the Hologram Wall after the out-of-body exhaustion that they experienced on the climb and descent.

We're joined by the climbers themselves, Eli Spitolnik and Michael Telstad, as well as legendary alpinist Conrad Anker and and American Alpine Journal editor, Dougald McDonald.

Before we get started, this episode is sponsored by Feathered Friends.

We're going back to the well this month for a proper Alpine adventure, plunging into sleep deprivation and Alpine psychosis to reach the top of the Kachatna Spire by way of its massive, unclimbed south face.

Believe it or not, this will be our first ever episode about the Kachatnas on this show, which is long overdue.

This new climb, which they've named the Hologram Wall, follows 60 years of fascinating history, leading up to the adventurous first ascent in July of 2026, when Eli Spitolnik and Michael Telstad made it to the summit and back over a four-day alpine-style push with only seven total hours of sleep, requiring endurance and resolve through a tight weather window on one of the last great unclimbed faces in the country.

We'll dig into the infamous hoax from the 1960s when a group of climbers submitted a photo of the Kachatnas to Summit Magazine under a false name and location to spoof the climbing community, which went on to inspire the first expedition to the zone in 1965 by a collection of climbers from the Gunks.

We'll hear from two of the climbers on that first 1965 expedition, Al DiMaria and Peter Geiser, with more insights on this wacky chapter in climbing history.

Can you tell me a little bit about some of the others?

Yeah, so the first one we did in 2016 was reenacting the first ascent of Bugaboo Spire, which is located in Bugaboo Provincial Park in BC.

At the time in 1916, when Conrad Cain led a party of three other Alpine Club of Canada members up the mountain, it was considered the most... awe-inspiring rock climb ever done in Canada up until the advent of modern climbing gear in the 1940s.

So we wanted to tell that story and we made a short film of it called Hobnails and Hemp Rope, which is 25 minutes long.

They were never as prolific as someone like Fred Becky, but their commitment to the sport was every bit as influential.

In the years following World War II, the Conns dropped out of mainstream society, moved into their car, and started establishing bold first ascents across the country.

In a way, they were the original van-lifers.

They made some of the first climbing films.

Falling, I'm falling, I'm falling.

From a great high up in the sky.

They established early first ascents at Cannon Cliff, the Santa Catalina Mountains, Monument Valley, and Zion National Park.

They climbed in tennis shoes.