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Ben Agro

@ben_agro

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Rock climber 🪨

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still not tan

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A Maze of Death (V12)

I got to spend two weeks in beautiful Bishop with my best friend, and it could not have gone by faster. Bishop was everything I hoped for and more. There is no shortage of high quality problems and the climbing is so diverse (although most holds are sharp, incut crimps, which I’m not complaining about 🤤). I leave Bishop feeling hungry for more. Every project I got on was incredibly nuanced, and required time and patience to learn their subtleties.

My goal for the trip was to send “A Maze of Death” (V12), FA’d by Dave Graham in 2002. It’s a near-perfect line: slightly overhanging, heinous crimps, very technical. The approach is also heinous, especially if you make any wrong turns (oops) 🫠... One of the things that made Maze so tricky was that there was a hundred different methods to choose from, and what you ended up choosing would depend on your morphology and strengths. Being that I’m short, flexible and have pretty strong fingers, the left hand-foot match beta felt really solid for me. Once I unlocked this beta thanks to the help of some good friends, Maze went down pretty quick.

I wasn’t sure I would even be able hike up to Maze as I rolled my ankle on day 2 of our trip, falling on uneven pads. I was super bummed when this happened, but then I remembered @bruce.zou sent Pegasus barefoot with two injured feet. I decided I would not let this minor ankle sprain ruin my trip. Thankfully, after a couple rest days, I was walking normally (ish) and a couple days after that, was ready to go back to Maze. Getting it done was super satisfying. Maze has a flat landing and is not very tall, so working it didn’t feel risky. However, on my other projects, I wasn’t able to try and commit as hard as I know I can due to fear of making my sprain worse. I’m looking forward to training up for next year. I learned so much from this trip and I’m eager to come back to the projects I tried with a healthy foot.

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Getting ready for fall⚔️

MEGAlomaniac @40
Van Gogh @40
6 7 @40
Skrilla @40
Cheerios @45
Lelatch @45
China man @45
Softy @45
Couch 10 @45

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⬛BlocBuster 2025⬜ Happy to be a part of a good show with the strongest lads in Ontario. Proud to be on the podium led by Ben and in a cheeky tie with Leo. Great sets from the crew @climbersrock. Much love to @chrisgatotos on the 📸 @nylertorton on the 🎤 and @betabreakerz for the live stream!

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BlocBuster Finals! Hosted by @climbersrock

Congrats to @ben_agro & Madison Richardson for taking the win!🥇

Thanks everyone for coming out and to the athletes and volunteers for putting on a great show!

You're welcome to come on over and try the finals climbs!

Full event gallery coming soon. (Link in Chris's bio)

📸 @chrisgatotos

Thanks @climbersrock for having me on!

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2024 was pretty sweet; putting this photo set together made me realize I’ve got many people and memories to be fricking grateful for 🥹 many of them I don’t have pics of, but they were still a v special part of my 2024. This year was a rollercoaster. Some of the highs included getting my coaching biz off the ground, gaining confidence in myself and my abilities, strengthening existing relationships and building new ones, climbing my highest grade, making some breakthroughs in my climbing, and getting a new job. I pushed myself in new and scary ways, like doing more public speaking, which makes me very uncomfortable even in front of only a handful of people. The lows included struggling with my mental health and body image, injuries setting me back, lulls in motivation, and constantly questioning if I’m on the “right” path. All in all, 2024 was a banger and I can’t wait to see what is in store for 2025.

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reppin’ @arcteryxtoronto, crimping hard on the spray, celebrating 25, putting holds on a wall and watching really good climbers pull on them, saying goodbye to the home gym (w some climbing twister) and prepping for some change 💫🍂🍁🥰 october was good to me

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16 plus sesh, more than 300 attempts for just a single move!
This is just the beginning of astro psych rampage ☄️🌌🪐🚀
Karasu + Threat level midnight ---> Fall 2024 🌟👾🦎👨‍🚀
Peace n love all around 🫶🏻

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Some photos I have been meaning to post from my time in Squamish. What a magical place ✨Itching to go back already. In the interim, I’ll be training for next trip’s projects 💪

@arcteryxtoronto @flashedclimbing

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Wanting to share a bit of the past few weeks of my life with loved ones, climbing and the climbing community; parts of my life that so deeply overlap and coexist. It’s been a wonderful shift in my recent climbing journey that the moments where I feel most at peace during climbing are moments defined by the movement and, more deeply, the people around me- a change that has precipitated into a shift away from the actual sending of a climb or my attachment to definitively improving. I’ve shared a few of these moments where I am so so grateful for the people around me and the movement, and yet very much fail to send the climb (or finish the pull-up 🫣). I realize now that these moments fuel why I continue to climb and fall and then continue climbing.🦍🦍🦍

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Metamorphosis 🌟 V10 ✅️🔥🦎(🐛-->🦋)

The amount of psych in this footy is just unreal 🥹Honestly, this send only happened because of the astronomical aka legendary psych from everyone during the send🥹🥰
I’m dedicating this send to every single one of you and ofc to our psychednation gang 🫶🏻💫❤️

Frankly speaking, it still feels unreal to put this beauty in da bag!🦎 I literally couldn't stick the black eagle sloper move a single time in iso, but a full send with mad extra psych energy from the gang was all I could ask for to make it happen (lol they call me the punt and red point master for a reason 🤣)💫🌌 who would have thought I end up using the drop knee in the middle of the starting hold and make it work instead of dyno🐛🦋

On that note, psych is just overdosing these days and motivation is beyond the Andromeda Galaxy with da gang 🌌
As for the next proj since I'm on a mission to send all 10s at Glen, next side proj on the list is BFF, and the main proj is Coals from the Ashes! As @leo_wolfe said cave these days hit different with da gang🔥 Full send rampage mode is on!!! LFGOOOOO ALLEEEEEEEZZZZZ😎🔥🌟🚀

Peace and love all around, and keep crushing y'all 🦎🫶🏻😎

Ps: More gecko emoji for madness due to high demand:🤣
🦎🦎🦎🦎🦎🦎🦎🦎🦎🦎🦎🦎🦎🦎🦎🦎🦎🦎🦎🦎🦎🦎

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Zathura 🌟 V8 ✅️🚀😎🦎 (Crag Next Door roof proj FA)🌌

My first ascend of a proj at crag next door and first FA in my climbing journey (BTW sorry for the low quality footy! The light situation was something so the cam was getting psyched in the middle🤣)!🥹🔥
Honestly, words can't describe the psych lvl atm🔥🔥🔥 but I want to dedicate this send to all the crag developers out there for all their dedication and efforts to make it happen! Just to name a few @____dp____ @tom_048 @tiger.climbs @brendanbaars and many more!❤️

Astronomical shoutout to the legends @____dp____ @tom_048 for showing me and cleaning this beauty roof and legendary proj and to @leo_wolfe @tiger.climbs @jax.climbs @ben_agro for the astronomical beyond Pluto psych on this beauty 🔥🦎😎

Abit about the name and the grade:🚀

Since the theme of the boulder is about astronomy and the line pretty much traverses the entire boulder, I decided to go with "Zathura" since it's the name of one of my fav childhood movies based on space adventure (if u havent watched it, I would definitely recommend 10/10 aka Jumanji in space)!👨‍🚀
As for the grade the entire climb and crux reminds me of bobs balancing balls at Glen, which is a solid V8 but time will tell (lol I'm pretty bad with grading so u be the judge 😜)

On that note, psych is overdosing for da next aka direct roof proj in this cave! Let's full fking send🔥🔥 Alllllleeeeezzzz😎🦎🔥

Peace n love all around n keep crushing y'all🫶🏻🌌🌟

YouTube:▶️ https://youtu.be/MNtrwUwD3Ng?si=s1o9zyiXx0_U9pHa

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