One of Oz’s strongest, Chris Webb Parsons, goes on a world tour. 

When I first met Chris Webb Parsons, he was just some random climber around a campfire in Australia. It was 2007, and I was camping alone amongst the kangaroos, wallabies, and kookaburras at Stapleton Campground, in the Grampians. Eating sardines in the dark one night, Chris and his mates invited me over to their circle. He and his wife, Teegan, and the others around the fire were unassuming and friendly to a fault. Chris had a shy demeanor, close-cropped blond hair, and the strange ability to align his double-jointed thumb with his other fingers in a crimped position, making a five-finger crimp theoretically possible. (This “skill”, someone hinted, was the secret to Chris’ lofty climbing abilities.) Later that week, at the Hollow Mountain cave, I watched Chirs work Dai Komayada’s proposed V16, Wheel of Life, some of the hardest climbing on the continent (or the world). With each attempt, he got closer and closer to linking the 68-move problem, which squeezes from the back to the front of a cave so constricted it barely allows a horizontal climber to move dab-free.

When it came time for me to head back to Sydney to meet a friend, Chris and Teegan offered up the keys to their house just outside the city. They’d be climbing in the Gramps for another week or so, and said I was free to crash there. I was thrown off by such trust and generosity coming from someone I’d known less than a week. (But I took them up on the offer.) Just after returning to the States, I learned that Chris sent Wheel. At the time, I wondered what a mutant-strong climber like Chris would have to say about climbing in the States. Then, this January, I caught wind of his arrival in Hueco. Within a week, he’d ticked Shaken Not Stirred (V12), flashed Free Willy (V10), and sent Power of Silence (V10) second go. Next he sent Diabolique (V13) and flashed Diaphanous Sea (V12). Capping that with a fourth-burn send of Slashfash (V13), and a ticks of Esperanza (V14) and Barefoot on Sacred Ground (V12). He keeps a blogroll and timely record of his ascents on his site, chriswebbparsons.com.