You may have heard of ‘Trench Warfare,’ but have you experienced ‘Necronomicon’? Mary Catherine Eden, aka Tradprincess, just became intimately acquainted with the mega-hard crack climb.
Let me be clear: Mary Catherine Eden is crazy strong. Her hang-tough climbing style and determined attitude have helped her secure burly trad ascents all over the planet. Along the way, she has secured a reputation that the nickname that made her Instafamous — Tradprincess — seems to contradict.
But that’s just the thing: princesses can be tough as nails. That’s the case with Eden. And last weekend, the honorary Moabite hammered out a career-defining ascent.
“Necronomicon” is a 100-foot fissure in a 90-degree sandstone roof in Canyonlands’ White Rim area. I’ve never seen the route, but looking at pictures of it gives me two feelings: reticence and skin pain.
But I can’t climb 5.14, so there’s no reason for me to look at it — unless somebody like Eden’s up there brawling with it. On Oct. 14, Eden fought the gruesome rig and won, becoming the first woman to do so.
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“I did the thing!” she announced via Instagram. “I got the red point on Necronomicon 8b/8b+ trad. It honestly weirded me out to wrap up such a massive life goal (climbing 14a on gear). I think immediately after sending, I said I wasn’t tired and then started crying bc..well.. feelings.”
Eden’s signature tendency to lampoon herself for the sake of her audience was securely intact, even if the skin on the backs of her hands and wrists was not: she used the “joy” (crying while laughing) emoji to describe the moment.
Still, joy and pain are just two snippets of a story that revealed the inspiration Eden drew from “Necronomicon.”
“The first time I saw the 30-meter roof crack, Necronomicon, there was a herd of bighorn sheep standing around the base, the sun lit up the sky for a cotton candy sunset, and the hardest looking crack I’d ever thought about climbing loomed above,” she wrote. “Climbing there has fully captured my imagination and curiosity.”
Eden can tell the story as well or better than I can. Give her a follow — there’s no telling when Tradprincess (and the rest of the ‘Girls Gone Wide’) will summon the crack-climbing magic again.
