Climbing a bridge under: "It's ridiculous and stupid, it's a great success"

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A bridge.

Yes, a bridge.

A cement bridge.

A long bridge, 762 meters long, and quite wide, with three lanes in each direction.

On the M5 motorway, on the River Exe, in the south of the United Kingdom.

You can cross by truck, car or motorcycle or even, illegally, by bicycle or on foot.

You can jump from it.

It can be photographed.

You can just watch.

And that's it.

Do not?.

"A bridge can also be climbed, of course," says climber

in conversation with EL MUNDO and the answer is a question: "What?!"

Beneath the median, through the crack that readjusts the vibrations of traffic, he and his friend

invented a new specialty and opened a route on it last spring.

It took them four days and four nights, but yes, yes, they scaled a bridge.

"I know it's ridiculous and stupid, but it's also a huge success for world climbing," says Whittaker, forcing a second question: "Why did they do it?"

"Because of the pandemic we couldn't travel to the great rock walls of the United States, which were our goal, and all day we thought: 'Imagine if there was a great route close to home'. And, well, we found it. From the beginning was very motivating because it presented us with a lot of physical and logistical obstacles", explains Whittaker, who together with Randall form the Wide Boyz, one of the best couples in the world, experts in extreme fissures.

With so much pull that they even have their own marketing and climbing material for sale, the 'Bridge Boys' project began as a pandemic entertainment for the duo and has ended up as one of the documentaries of Reel Rock, the best traveling 'outdoor' film festival , who these days travels through Spain.

After passing through Barcelona, ​​Valencia, Madrid, Seville, Badajoz and other cities, the films can be seen this Tuesday in Granada (Megarama cinemas), on Thursday in San Sebastián (Trueba), on Friday in Sant Lluís, Menorca (Talayotic Monkeys) , on Monday the 23rd in Bilbao (Bilborock) and then Zaragoza, Ibiza, Pamplona, ​​Cuenca, Benasque...

obstacles

According to Whittaker, he had already climbed several small bridges for entertainment or even training, but had never considered making it a real challenge.

Among the difficulties that were found, the fact of always moving horizontally, logically, and many other obstacles not so easy to see with the naked eye.

"The bridge was moving quite a bit from the traffic going over it. For example, when a big truck came across, the structure would vibrate, contract and expand so a crack that was good suddenly became bad. this kind of thing never happens on a rock climb, it was a rarity that we had to get used to," discovers Whittaker, who also points to the dust as a hindrance: "Many people told us that noise would bother us, but surprisingly we got used to it to him, we only noticed at night, when he stopped. It was worse the dirt, the dust, the grime that fell into our eyes. We had to end up wearing protective glasses to be able to see".

"Actually, what was attractive was that we were in completely unknown territory, for us and for anyone. Because of the rarity of the place and because it was an unprecedented achievement: no one had ever climbed such a long ceiling. We had to train specifically and then it happened to us invoice", assures Whittaker, to whom a whole universe could have been opened.

Having already discovered climbing bridges, he and Randall could now go for the Tower Bridge in London, much shorter than the one already achieved, the Pont Nuef in Paris or even the very long Golden Gate Bridge, already in the United States.

"No, no, we are not going to climb any more bridges, it would not make sense to do it. We have already lived the experience and we have already closed that chapter. I prefer that we explore other rare and wild ideas within climbing", concludes Whittaker, who has recently been a few days climbing through Norway.

Apparently, from his experience, anything can be climbed.

Up to a bridge.

Yes, a bridge.

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