PRESS RELEASE
Madaleine on Freerider. Photos courtesy of Mikey Schaefer
The MAD Tour
Professional rock climber Madaleine Sorkin will be doing a multi-media slide show tour across the Midwest and East Coast from mid-May through June, 2011. Current tour sponsors include Evolv, Rab, Kelty, Maxim ropes, and Stonewear Designs (Read more about our sponsors here).
For more information or for an interview with Sorkin, please contact Lizzy Scully at 303-747-6548 or email her at Lizzy Scully.
The show will include video footage from Madaleine's various free ascents, a film on her trip to Proboscis, and photos by Mikey Shafer, Madaleine and her climbing partners. There will also be an accompanying fund raiser for Girls Education International.
Read more about Madaleine:
According to Rock & Ice magazine, "Madaleine Sorkin stands closer to the cutting edge of gnarly, difficult, traditional, free climbs than most." She has climbed 5.13b and free climbed some of North America's stoutest big wall and alpine rock climbs, including:
- Free Rider (VI 5.12d, 37 pitches)
- The West Face of the Leaning Tower (VI 5.13a)
- The Regular Route on Half Dome (VI 5.12)
- Moonlight Buttress in Zion (V 5.12+), (which she also did in a day, with just one fall)
- The Original Route (FA 1963, VI 5.12R), for which she did the FFA with Lorna Illingsworth and Emily Stifler
She also loves sport and trad cragging, onsighting 5.12a off the couch and 5.13a/bs when she is strong.
Few women climb as hard as Sorkin in the trad arena. And few who do have spent so little time pursuing sponsorships. Sorkin doesn't like to feel pressured when climbing. While she appreciates her sponsors, such as Rab, Trango, New England Ropes and others, she feels more responsibility to give back in other ways to her community.
"It's nice to be recognized, but it is not fundamentally important," she says. "The important things are whether or not I like myself and am happy. If I'm recognized along the way, that's rad. But if that's my focus, my ego just kind of lets me down." She currently attends the University of Colorado, Denver, where she is getting a master's degree in urban planning.
On the other hand, Sorkin also owns a Sprinter van that is fully equipped for traveling with a two-person bed, solar panels, a frig, a swivel chair and a stove. She recently traveled for four months from Colorado to Yosemite to the Yukon, where she and two friends did a first free ascent in the remote Cirque of the Unclimbables.
"Climbing adventures that I share with my friends feed me and are avenues for growth," Sorkin says. "The sport has always been a really self-expressive, personal thing for me. No one can tell me what I should or shouldn't do. I love rock climbing. It is my passion."
