Weekend Whipper: This Back-slapper Did Everything Right Until the Last Second
Indeed, all is well until it’s not.
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Readers, please send your Weekend Whipper videos, information, and any lessons learned to Anthony Walsh, awalsh@outsideinc.com.
Often, while on the hunt for the next gut-wrenching Weekend Whipper clip, our staff watches hordes of anticlimactic climbing videos and closes their laptops feeling underwhelmed. And that’s a good thing. We don’t need—nor want—a steady stream of climbers slicing their ropes or ripping out most of a pitch of gear. Whippers, in practice, shouldn’t be Weekend Whipper-worthy; they should be fun.
So with that caveat, we will admit that this week’s whipper started off with that same uninspired perspective. He looks so solid, we thought, he’s barely trying—and his rope is where it should be! The ever-clicking finger paused, though, trusting the #whipper hashtag he’d thoughtfully tagged in his post, and waited. Oh shit.
Indeed, all is well until it’s not.
Satoshi Yokogi was climbing Special Lunch (5.13a) at Yoshitsuneiwa, near Hokkaido, Japan. He’s at the crux in this clip: a distant, powerful move to a right-hand jug. “But the jug is too far for me,” Yokogi explains, “so I set my left hand on a bad crimp that probably nobody uses.” Now, with the positive hold within reach, Yokogi hikes his feet up and launches—but his left leg swoops up, as if to prepare for the Tree Pose. “Then the world turned upside down,” he says.
Next time, Yokogi says he’ll take a helmet—something that our scarred-for-life Whipper curators can’t live without.
Happy Friday, and be safe out there this weekend.
Weekend Whipper: Fall of the Century on “Crime of the Century”