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Quebec Crusher Annie Chouinard Sends Pure Imagination 5.14c

The route is one of the hardest routes at Red River Gorge

Quebec crusher Annie Chouinard sent Pure Imagination 5.14c earlier today, one of the test-piece routes at Red River Gorge. “Just sent Pure Imagination this morning at Red River Gorge, my first of the grade,” she wrote on Facebook. “It’s really hard for me to express how I feel right now. I have a hard time believing this is real.” Chouinard was the seventh Canadian woman to send 5.14a.

She talks about her process of sending Pure Imagination in her post below, “My biggest setback while working this route has been to strategically manage the skin of my fingers. I could rarely give the route more than one burn a day and after two days on my fingers were bleeding, which was frustrating. After four weeks of this, it went!”

Chouinard has been one of Canada’s top sport climbers for the past few years. She’s noted in the past that she’s made the first female ascents of a number of hard local Quebec routes, including these at Orford National Park, Scorecard 5.13d, Alpha Zeta 5.13d, Taxe Carbonique 5.13d, Come On 5.14a and Sha Sha 5.14a.

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