24 hours, no-fall zones, and pushing above 8,000m
🔥 For people who’d rather be outside! 🌲
We finally got snow out in Utah!
Now, let’s get off this lift and turn the Stoke dial up a notch!
🧗♂️ 24 hours in Patagonia
📍 Torres del Paine, Chile
The first free ascent of the South African Route (5.12c) on the Central Tower took 13 days. Siebe Vanhee and Tommy Caldwell just did it in 24 hours.
1,200 meters and 30 pitches. And they did it on their third try when they caught a razor-thin window and committed. No portaledge, no long lunches. And most of all, thankfully no storms.
Just a single, continuous push through Patagonian rime, offwidth cracks, and weather that flips moods in minutes. Big walls, big balls. In-a-day is bold anywhere. But in southern Patagonia? That’s different. That’s StokedAF.
🎥 Check out the vid of their 2nd attempt on route by @Siebevanhee
Length: 2 minutes
🎿 One meter wide. No-fall zone.
📍 Julian Alps, Italy
Park tricks meet alpine consequence.
Four European freeski and snowboard riders built a 350-meter line along a knife-edge ridge — one meter wide, rock on one side, 110-meter drop on the other. Every takeoff had to be perfect. Every landing locked in.
This isn’t your local jump line. This is exposure with style.
Also hats off to the build crew! Impressive work.
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Length: 2 minutes
🏔️ Back to K2 for the FKT!
📍 K2, Pakistan
After nearly dying on a failed speed attempt in 2022, Benjamin Védrines went back to K2 in 2024.
Not just for the Fastest Known Time— but to face his ghosts.
Ever since Messner proved you could climb 8,000-meter peaks without oxygen, alpinists have been stripping it down further and further. Faster. Lighter. Riskier.
This one is about unfinished business at 8,000 meters.
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Length: 1 hour
🇪🇸 Siurana state of mind
📍 Siurana, Catalunya, Spain
Every winter, Polish climbers migrate to Siurana like it’s a second home. This film is their love letter to the limestone — sharp pockets, endless endurance, golden sunsets, and that Mediterranean psyche that makes you want “one more burn.”
Good music. Good vibes. Pure sport climbing energy.
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Length: 17 minutes
🇨🇱 Cochamó: More than a climb
📍 Valle de Cochamó, Chile
Giant granite walls rising above ancient forest. Rivers so clear they look filtered. But this film isn’t just about climbing. It’s about what Cochamó was before climbers arrived — and what it is now. Local voices, cultural shifts, stewardship, and the delicate balance between exposure and protection.
Wild places don’t deserve more than traffic. They deserve respect.
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Length: 32 minutes
🎨 White noise
📍 Treble Cone, Wānaka, New Zealand
No soundtrack. No hype edit. Just skis on snow.
Finn Bilous and friends camped high on Treble Cone for three days and hand-built a flowing snake line down Crag’s Shooter. Spring snow. Surf-inspired fishtail skis. Pure expression.
When skiing turns to white noise, that’s when it gets good.
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Length: 2 minutes
⚡ Bonus News ⚡
🎿 Canada’s Mount Deltaform sees its first confirmed ski descent. Elite ski alpinists link turns down the North Glacier — a technical line no one had skied before.
🚵 Colorado resort brings back $99 heli skiing this season. Silverton Mountain’s move reflects growing demand for affordable big-terrain access.
🧗 A 5.15 testpiece in Spain just got another repeat. Tyler Thompson recently redpointed the iconic hard sport climb La Rambla in Siurana — one of the most celebrated 5.15s in the world.
🏔️ An expansive under-ice water world is reshaping science’s view of Antarctica. Researchers recently mapped 85 previously unknown “active” subglacial lakes beneath the ice sheet — a discovery that rewrites how we understand ice flow and hidden water systems.
🚵 Across Andes race sees more women in ultra-cycling. The recent Across Andes event in Chile reported a surge in female riders tackling this brutal ultra-distance route through mountain terrain.
🌊 Blaming beavers for flooding is bad science. New research argues that targeting beavers oversimplifies complex watershed dynamics and ignores the ecosystem benefits these engineers provide.
👁️ A strange one-eyed creature may have helped shape modern vision. Fossil evidence suggests an early marine organism played a key role in the evolutionary path toward the complex eyes we have today.
🎿 Pro skier clocks the fastest known descent of Palisades Tahoe’s most iconic feature. The high-speed top-to-bottom push down one of California’s most recognizable lines resets what’s possible the Fingers.
📚 Long Reads & Watches
🏔️ Super High Stoke, Forever Missed
Do you miss Marc-André Leclerc? Yeah. Same.
This throwback expedition into a remote Patagonian valley is a raw reminder of why his presence still echoes in the mountains. No ego. Just deep commitment in brutal terrain and Leclerc’s signature calm while moving through lines most of us can’t even picture climbing.
“The stoke is super high. Super high,” he says — quietly — while doing something outrageous.
🎥 It’s not just nostalgia!
🎥 Ghost Ladders of Moab
Have you ever wanted to check out that rickety ladder above the Colorado River near Dewey Bridge? Many a river guide tell tourists many a reasons why that ladder hangs there… This Youtuber steps up to go check it out for himself, rapping down from the top!
🚣 From Source to Sea — 100 Miles of Water
What if you followed your drinking water from its birthplace in the mountains all the way to the ocean?
This self-funded documentary tracks a 100-mile kayak journey across Maine — from Songo Pond to Casco Bay — weaving through rivers, lakes, and communities along the way. It’s adventure, yes. But it’s also about watershed connection, Indigenous land, and the people who protect what flows downstream.
Big landscapes. Human scale storytelling.
🎿 Skiing in Texas
No mountains? No problem.
Teton Gravity Research heads to Dallas to explore indoor skiing — climate-controlled snow in a state better known for heat and highways. It’s part novelty, part experiment, part proof that ski culture finds a way anywhere.
Strange? Yes. Kind of awesome? For Texas, sure.
🔗 https://www.tetongravity.com/ski-the-south-tour-chapter-8-shredder-dallas-tx/
🌍 Suffering the FOMO?
(Pssst, this is where you should be right now!)
🌊 Baja California Sur, Mexico
Desert meets swell. Spring swell windows are starting to pulse down the Pacific side, while the Sea of Cortez stays glassy and calm. Paddle remote points in the morning, hike cactus-lined ridges in the afternoon, camp under absurdly clear desert stars.
Surf. Trail. Repeat. Have you heard of Quatro Casas? Check it.
🧗 Chulilla, Spain
Endless tufa pulling season. Cool temps, dry limestone, and 30-meter endurance routes that just keep coming. February into March is prime time in Chulilla — long, pumpy climbs weaving through orange walls above the Turia canyon.
It’s pure sport climbing mileage. Wake up, drink café con leche, tie in, get humbled, repeat. If you’re building fitness for spring objectives, this is the training ground.
💥 Stay Stoked. Stay Wild.
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See you on the next send!
❤️🔥 The StokedAF fam 🤘