Stolby Style: Free Soloing in Siberia

Last year our friends Jonathan and Brittany took a trip to Siberia that could only be described as crazy. The stories they told us were unbelievable, of a massive climbing culture where everyone regularly went out free soloing on big granite domes. Hardly any ropes or proper climbing equipment were used. By the end of the evening our sides hurt from laughing so much at the insane antics they relayed to us about the locals and the climbing there. They’ve finally got the video footage from their trip up on YouTube, along with some narrative. My favorite part is the guy down climbing the chimney head first. Insane!

It’s hard to imagine the kind of nonchalance about danger that these people seem to have when it comes to climbing. As JT says at the end, it’s not like they don’t know about ropes and climbing shoes and modern equipment, they actually choose to climb this way. Interesting.