Greetings everyone, from a splitter hand crack in the warm-wintering Moab, where, although it is February, we are looking for shade to climb!
Did you know that Moab has its own Super Crack? Get on it, it deserves some love!!!
So this week Alex Honnold went on Kimmel to talk about climbing, and full-on Macho Man Jason Momoa dropped into Theo Von’s podcast to talk about… climbing.
Strange world, right? Or maybe not. How did our favorite, slightly unhinged sport suddenly become so loved? We think we know why.
Hope you enjoy this week’s send. Save some gas for the weekend — it’s looking sunny and very sendy out there!!
Peace and love,
Nico from Moab 🌞⛰️
🪁 POV or it didn’t happen
📍 Oman Desert
Pure vert, zero margin. Stig Hoefnagel drops us straight into his head with a wild POV of his biggest kite tow-up ever: 135 meters straight up in the desert of Oman. This isn’t just hanging on and praying—Stig is actively flying the kite the entire time, micro-adjusting for wind strength, line tension, and kite position to keep lift clean and controlled.
🎥 Watch:
Length: 3 minutes
🚵 No course. No ramps. Just Valpo.
📍 Valparaíso, Chile
No Red Bull tape. No sculpted features. Just bikes, friends, and the chaotic streets above the Pacific. Chilean rider Felipe Vergara and crew roll through sunny Valparaíso the way riding started: improvised, playful, and fully alive. This is mountain biking stripped back to its roots—finding flow where the city gives you none.
🎥 Watch:
Length: 3 minutes
🎿 Goggles gone, commitment intact
📍 Andorra, Pyrenees
Mid-run chaos is part of the game, but losing your goggles at speed takes things to another level. Kai Jones doesn’t flinch—he just keeps charging. Vision blurred, line still dialed, instincts fully in control. It’s a short clip, but it perfectly captures that razor-thin line between freestyle fun and full-send consequences.
🎥 Watch:
Length: 1 minute
🧗 The clumsy caterpillar
📍 Blue Mountains, Australia
Hidden five minutes from the car, the Big Top boulder sits quietly in the bush — until you try the Clumsy Caterpillar. First climbed by Lee Cossey in 2003, this improbable line blends balance with power. Delicate footwork at the bottom gives way to a dynamic, heart-in-throat finish. Tom O’Halloran called it one of the scariest hard sport routes in the Blue Mountains… which is exactly why it steals the show.
🎥 Watch:
Length: 7 minutes
🏔️ Dent du Géant — A One-Day Question Mark
📍 Mont Blanc Massif, France
Arthur Poindefert and friends point it toward the northwest face of the Dent du Géant with a single-day mindset. 500m+ of mixed terrain, shifting weather, and creeping doubt test more than just fitness. With friendship under pressure (and an ankle taking a hit), this is a story about trust and movement.
🎥 Watch:
Length: 22 minutes
🧠 The Kyrgyzstan project — climbing through trauma
📍 Kyrgyzstan, Central Asia
This isn’t a victory lap — it’s unfinished business. Matt Segal, Eric Decaria, and John Dickey return to Kyrgyzstan carrying the weight of a previous near-fatal kidnapping and recent loss. The unclimbed rock is only part of the challenge. This film looks at how mountains become places to process fear, grief, and the things climbers never fully leave behind.
🎥 Watch:
Length: 20 minutes
⚡ Bonus News
🐊 Ocean-crossing giants. Long before humans showed up, saltwater crocodiles swam thousands of kilometers across the Indian Ocean to reach the Seychelles—only to be wiped out after we arrived.
🚵 Hardline goes harder. Red Bull Hardline Tasmania 2026 is here this weekend, raising the bar with new features, bigger gaps and race speeds pushing 80 km/h. Here’s what to expect!
🏺 A tomb reopens history. Archaeologists uncovered a remarkably preserved Zapotec tomb in southern Mexico, offering rare insight into ritual, power, and life before colonial borders existed.
🧗 Breaking the 5.15d ceiling in the US. American climber Sean Bailey reports the first ascent of Duality of Man in Arizona, proposing 9c—only the fourth route at this grade worldwide, and the first in the U.S.
🥾 Still walking forward. An 80-year-old became the oldest woman to hike the entire Appalachian Trail. Here she reflects on patience, persistence, and why curiosity doesn’t expire with age.
💦 Rivers are alive. Over four decades, Amazonian rivers have shifted their banks, carved new channels, and reshaped the cities built along them—quietly reminding us that urban life in the rainforest is always provisional. Check it out!
📚 Long Reads & Watches
🌊 Greatest Whitewater Descents Of The Century (So Far)
Every generation of whitewater paddlers redraws the map of what’s possible. This long read traces the most consequential whitewater descents of the century—runs that shifted the sport’s collective imagination and permanently raised the bar for skill, risk tolerance, and decision-making.🎿 Winter on the edge of nowhere: a ski trip in Mongolia. This 45-minute ski film trades chairlifts and powder panic for silence, wind, and space. Set deep in the Altair mountains, it’s a reminder of what it takes to get way out there. There’s no rush here, no scoreboard. Just cold air, open terrain, and the rare sensation of moving through a winter that still feels untouched.
🤖 Is it time to take exoskeletons seriously?
For years, exoskeletons have lived in the margins of outdoor sports—too heavy, too gimmicky, too far removed from the ethic of earning your turns. But that line is starting to blur. In this grounded review, ski mountaineer and backcountry guide Dave Searle puts the Hypershell X Pro to a real test in the mountains, asking the question many of us are quietly circling: where do assisted legs belong in human-powered travel? The comparison to e-bikes is unavoidable—and intentional.At roughly 2 kg, with enough battery for about 30 km or 1,000 vertical meters, and a claimed 30% reduction in physical exertion, this isn’t about replacing effort so much as redefining how fatigue, access, and choice shape backcountry days.
🌍 Suffering the FOMO?
(Pssst, this is where you should be right now!)
🥾 Waterfalls, swims, and endless trails
📍 Blue Mountains, Australia
What started as an Instagram account called @bluemtns_explore has quietly become one of the best ways to learn and experience Australia’s famous Blue Mountains without loving them to death. Lost Mountains creates beautifully researched guidebooks that point hikers toward hidden swimming holes, lesser-known canyons, and big days out—while putting respect for fragile landscapes front and center. February is prime time: waterfalls flowing, pools cold and clear, and long summer days made for wandering deep into the bush, responsibly.
🧗 Limestone jungles and slow days
📍 Laos
February is prime season for sport climbing in Laos, when dry air, cooler mornings, and jungle limestone line up just right. Towering karst walls, vertical and overhanging, routes weaving through tufas and pockets with the river never far away. Many climbers base themselves at low-key spots like Green Climbers Home, where days revolve around morning sessions on the rock, afternoon swims, and evenings that move at Laos’ unhurried pace. It’s less about chasing grades and more about letting the place set the rhythm.
💥 Stay Stoked. Stay Wild.
Before you hit “Next”… Send this newsletter to your favorite belayer and the guy who shouldn’t be following you into the backcountry!!
See you on the next send!
❤️🔥 The StokedAF fam 🤘
PS: Make this mind-boggling performance the soundtrack to your next day on the mountain!!
So much talent and dedication to the craft!