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Apple PodcastsOn Episode 321 of the Enormocast, I sit down at the Michigan Ice Fest with dry tooling maven, Katie McKinstry Stylos. Katie spent her entire youth as a “horse girl”: training horses, caring for horses, and competing. But when she lost her beloved horse to complications of an injury, her enthusiasm was dashed and burnout set in. Katie had started to gym climb simply as a way to take a break from all things horse, but it was a memory of a day of ice climbing near Boise, ID that would set her path to her next obsession: dry tooling. In the years since, and under the tutelage of Kevin Lindlau, Katie has emerged as one of the world’s best sport dry toolers. Pilgrimages to the late Tom Ballard‘s dry tooling mecca Tomorrow’s World has racked up some records for Katie including her becoming the first woman to climb D15+/D16 on the route Parallel World. Along with Katie’s dramatic story, this ep is ripe with terms, secret beta, and rivalries that introduce us to the enigma wrapped in a mystery that is dry tooling.
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