Now more than ever, we feel it’s important to acknowledge each other. To give room for everyone to exist within our climbing community. Hopefully, it returns to us as well.
While this applies to Flashed as a company, we first feel this way as individuals. Remembering what it is that brought us here first: climbing.
Remember when you just started climbing, and it entirely took over your world? I couldn’t get enough of it, and I was at the gym as many days/week as my body would allow, and often more. There was so much discovery at the beginning surrounding the movement, complex sequencing, and body/hand positions. This made every problem a Rubik’s cube to be both mentally and physically grappled and broken into a solution. But that was maybe only part of it. If I didn’t take that top-rope class and meet who would be my partner for the next month, who knows if it would have stuck?
Community is not a word used frivolously around climbing. For example, we have another person’s life in our hands (when belaying). It demands our respect and honesty and brings us together. Climbing has been fortunate this way, and even as gyms have grown and multiplied, you can still find people supporting fellow competitors and strangers in our pursuit of climbing and its lifestyle.
When you’re staring at a highball, like See Spot Run in Hueco, who would ever say ‘No’ to more pads? Instead, we often welcome the offer and neatly add them to the arrangement for greater safety.
We want to support this sentiment and decision to choose community at Flashed and on our website. We want to showcase all that is ‘celebrate climbing’ through our photos and imagery regardless of whose pad is under the problem. Indeed, we will still commit to making the most rad climbing products! But whether you choose one of our products, another brand, or make it yourself, it still comes back to climbing, and we’re excited to walk that journey with you.
We hope you’ll enjoy reading through our content, meet up on this crazy road, and share some climbing!
Mark Fraser
General Manager, Fellow Climber
