Ethan Salvo does Dreamcatcher (9a) and Event Horizon (8C+)

Ethan Salvo, with four 8C’s under his belt, has during the same week repeated Chris Sharma’s Dreamcatcher (9a) and Andy Lamb’s Event Horizon (8C+), both in Squamish. The 22-year-old is working full time in a climbing gear store.

Can you tell us more about the number of sessions needed and how it was to work two projects at the same time?
I probably spent over 100 sessions on Event horizon over the past 3 years, that’s a bit of a guess tho, I tried to make my sessions count instead of counting the sessions.

Dreamcatcher was a lot less effort, I’d kind of play on it from time to time over the years. Last summer was my first season really trying to do it, and I spent maybe a dozen days on it, but in the end I wasn’t in shape physically or mentally for it.

This spring I climbed on Dreamcatcher another handful of days before getting it done. Not really sure how it was possible to work both, I guess it was though? A year ago I wouldn’t have considered that I’d be trying both at the exact same time, let alone finish them both at the same time. It was kind of one of those situations where you just end up in it like “huh alright I guess this is happening and I’ll just go along with it and see what happens”.

I really tried to let go of all logic this year when trying to understand if I was ready for both. No questioning if I was in “sport shape” or “bouldering shape”, I just knew I wanted to climb on whatever I was psyched on, and it happened to be both at the same time and I’d just split my time between them. I guess the main thing they did have in common was power endurance, Event horizon is 16 moves and Dreamcatcher is around 29 moves (minus the slab). So I’m sure my power level on event horizon helped with dreamcatcher, and my fitness from dreamcatcher helped with event horizon.

I didn’t need much fitness for dreamcatcher either since I found last year it was easier for me to skip the rests and just climb through them. I’d often leave the rests after 2-3min feeling more pumped and tired then if I didn’t rest. On the send go, I think I made it to the headwall in about 2.5min, quite the opposite from how most people climb on it, I really tried to speed climb.

What is next?
I’m spending the summer time working on a new trad pitch on the chief that’s got some very hard boulder cruxes on it. It’s been cool to try and apply my bouldering base to something totally different and explore a different world. I’ll probably spend the rest of the summer and fall season hanging up there on the wall, trying hard and enjoying the views of town, or clipping bolts at sport crags around town. I love bouldering but I am excited to explore sport and trad climbing more over the coming years.