Double Impact

WHY WORK ON THOSE TIGHT MUSCLES WHEN A PROFESSIONAL CAN DO IT FOR YOU?

- Chris Colin

MARGO HAYES is a perpetual-motion machine. On a late-November morning at Movement Climbing and Fitness in Boulder, Colorado, she has already swept the bouldering area and is now logging circuits on the MoonBoard, a ten-foot wall set at an abquivering angle and littered with microholds. When she falls, which is rare, she’s back on the wall before the chalk dust settles. After nearly three hours, Hayes appears to call it quits on her first training session of the day, but within minutes she’s slipping her climbing shoes back on to take another few laps on the MoonBoard. “It’s never really time to stop,” she says.

That insatiable drive helped Hayes, now 20, make history in 2017. First came her breakthrough ascent of La Rambla (5.15a), a 135foot endurance rally up an achingly steep line in Siurana, Spain, in February. The grade had narrowly eluded American phenom Ashima Shiraishi and Spaniard Josune Bereziartu, and Hayes’s success made her the first woman to climb a consensus 5.15 route.