“The spider of ice walls”
Stevie Haston is a name which has made history in competitive climbing. He started when he was a boy and his “vertical curriculum” is full of winter ascents of great classics (the north face of Eiger in winter and the first solo ascent of the Walker Spur on the Grandes Jorasses), passing through the most extreme European sports trails. He opened new trails leading to the peak of Mont Blanc in the mid nineties, whilst towards the end of the millennium he explored the limits of dry tooling, or “mixed modern” which allows you to switch between towering cliffs and columnar ice using ice climbing tools.
He continues to amaze today with extreme climbing inaccessible by athletes much more powerful and young than him.
In 2010, against all the odds, he arrived in Courmayeur, despite the many accidents which have featured in the activities of the climber (a good five knee operations). In 2011 it went badly: when he set off he was already not in perfect physical condition and he had to drop out at Donnas.
“The Tor this year - says Stenie – has anyway been an absolutely fabulous experience, just like last year”.
STEVIE HASTON
Bib number 82 at the Tor des Géants 2011
Spirito Trail, November 2011 / extract