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Brittany Goris Sends East Coast Fist Bump 5.14a Trad

She joins a list of some of the world's most legendary female climbers who've sent the trad grade

Brittany Goris has sent East Coast Fist Bump 5.14a trad in Sedona, Arizona, after working on the technical gear line throughout the winter. The first ascent of East Coast First Bump was in 2015 by Joel Unema.

Goris joins an elite group of strong women who’ve ticked the grade on gear climbs, including Canadian Em Pellerin, Lynn Hill, Beth Rodden, Barbara Zangerl, Heather Weidner, Nadine Wallner, Maddy Cope, Molly Mitchell and Hazel Findlay.

Over the past few years, Goris has sent 5.13+ trad lines with City Park 5.13d and Stingray 5.13d. In her social media post about the send, Goris quoted the great Todd Skinner: “Everything you ever wanted to do is still possible. It’s only you who says it can’t be done. If there is something you want to do in life you’d better get on it; time waits for no one.”

Goris is one of many climbers who’ve returned to using blogs. In her story about the climb, she said: I had emotionally prepared myself to spend the next month falling off this climb and instead I had just done it on a day that I hadn’t even planed to lead it. It felt anticlimactic in a way, because I had been so ready to deal with a dramatic Stingray-style epic involving dozens of one-hangs, a desperate search for partners, gobis and split tips, bad weather, and all the emotional self-doubt that comes with a hard project…. After all this time my crazy dream to climb a 5.14 all on gear was that no longer. It turned out Skinner was right all along: it was only ever me that thought it couldn’t be done.

Goris grew up in Fort Collins, Colorado, and began climbing at age nine when her mother, Lorraine, took her to Inner Strength climbing gym. In 2010, Goris moved to Bellingham, Washington, to study recreation management and Spanish at Western Washington University. She sthen podiumed at a number of comps, including a Canadian Tour de Bloc.

In 2011, she took a bad indoor fall and injured her knee and elbow. Five years later, she began pushing herself outdoors with a focus on hard trad. Watch Goris on Joshua Tree’s Stringray 5.13d below.

Stingray 5.13d

 

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