This is why you don’t tell climbers they can’t climb something. They’re going to go right out and climb it.
So, when President Trump mentioned that his new border wall had “20 mountain climbers…some of them were champions…and this was the one that was hardest to climb,” a lot of climbing enthusiasts saw it as a challenge.
That was due in part to the fact that nobody seems to know any of those 20 climbers.
“We were all very puzzled because none of us in the climbing community had heard of these 20 people that had supposedly tried this wall,” Rick Weber told Time .
And so, Weber took the president’s comments as a challenge.
Weber runs the Muir Valley rock climbing park in Rogers, Kentucky, and he decided to add an exact replica of a section of the walk to challenge climbers.
It’s a signature attraction he hopes will draw in folks from the nearby “Rocktoberfest” rock climbing festival in the Red River Gorge, and he’s advertising a competition to see who can climb it the fastest.
Weber studied pictures and descriptions of the border wall’s construction and dimensions, and he thinks he’s got a good replica here.
It’s 18 feet tall, just like some sections of the wall — not the 30 feet, to save money — and he says there are gaps between sections of the panel at the top wall, so climbers are free to use the edge when scaling it.
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Some people have already had a go at the replica, including 8-year-old Lucy Hancock.
Lucy’s mom, Karla, brought the young rock climbing enthusiast out and let her take a run at the wall.
The girl had no equipment other than a safety harness called a belay to catch her should she fall. In a little over a minute, she patiently but determinedly got herself up and over the top of the wall.
It’s not the fastest time so far — a grown-up has done it in 37 seconds — but not bad at all. You can watch her climb right here .
Weber emphasizes that he is in favor of secure borders.
“I’m not making an argument that we shouldn’t have a secure border. I’m not doing that at all,” Weber said. “What I’m trying to do is to make sure that we’re not blowing a lot of money on some silly nonsense of putting up something that he thinks can’t be climbed. Because it can. And will be.”
h/t: Time
