Squamish Gets Hard New Stem Corner and V14 Sends
Jesse Huey completed a multi-year project which is now one of Squamish's more difficult stem corner trad climbs
Photo by: Brandon Pullan
There have been several hard sends over the past few weeks in Squamiish. As summer tapered out and autumn rolled in, several projects went down.
American all-rounder Jesse Huey sent his multi-year project on The Chief. It climbs a stem-corner that features a thin crack. After climbing the line, he met with Squamish Nations Chief Blair Williams to discuss what an appropriate name would be. They settled on Stélmexw, which means Human Being.
Huey has yet to grade the climb, but talked about the journey to redpoint it: “I can say since starting this route in 2019 I have thought about it every day since. One hanging it twice before the rain started in Sḵwx̱wú7mesh that year I left feeling like this could be the route I could one hang a thousand times. At first it felt like every move was at least as hard as the crux of The Shadow, and yet with hundreds and hundreds of small foot and hand moves it was impossible to remember and rely on sequences that worked with fresh legs and shoulders after a hang. How do you rate a climb that is so insecure and requires such a meditative state to climb without falling?”
Also in Squamish, a steep problem below the Grand Wall called Deadlift was climbed by Ethan Salvo and Lucas Uchida. Salvo attempted the problem earlier in the year but injured a finger – he returned to it after climbing The Reckoning V14. Uchida also climbed several hard lines in Squamish this summer, including Dreamcatcher 5.14d and The Singularity V14.
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