Weekend Whipper: Front Flip!

Elliot Gaunt was climbing the route B/C (5.13b/c) at Summersville Lake, West Virginia and skipped the clip in the last V7/8 section. When he reached for the right-hand, angled finish slot, his feet cut. Gaunt tried to regain body tension by moving his left leg, but at that moment, his right hand blew off and he fell with his leg caught behind the rope.

“So then I was facing outwards,” Gaunt told Rock and Ice, “and flipped when the rope went taught between my legs.”

Thirty-minutes later, he jumped back on to send B/C his next attempt.

“For some reason the whip didn’t shake me up that much,” says Gaunt, “and when I got back on for the send, it wasn’t even on my mind. Somehow I was able to focus enough that it didn’t faze me, other than a little rope burn in the unmentionables haha.

“But the rope burn has healed, the route has been sent and I’ll be moving on to the harder projects.”

Stay safe out there!

Whipper submitted by Elliot Gaunt