IT’S ON

Rock Climbers to Hold Competition Challenging Trump’s Border Wall Claim

The event organizer says that “to declare something to be impossible to climb to a bonafide rock climber is to issue a challenge.”

President Trump left many people (especially professional rock climbers) baffled last month when he claimed the White House had 20 “world class” climbers test his latest stretch of border wall, but some in the climbing community are now holding a competition to take him to task for that claim. Rick Weber, a founder of Muir Valley, one of the top rock climbing preserves in the U.S., has organized a climbing competition to take place later this month where skilled climbers will be given a chance to scale an “exact replica” of Trump’s border barrier, he wrote in Rock and Ice magazine.

Noting that he’s not only an active climber certified by the American Mountain Guide Association, but also a “retired engineer,” Weber wrote that his replica’s “configuration and design is dimensionally identical to the 18-foot version of the bollard wall (vertical steel square columns) now being erected along our southern border.” The competition, to be held on Oct. 11 and 12 in the Red River Gorge region of Kentucky, will feature several categories, prizes and trophies, and entry will be free. Weber linked the competition directly to Trump’s declaration that his latest installation of border wall is “impossible to climb,” writing that “to declare something to be impossible to climb to a bonafide rock climber is to issue a challenge.”