I’ve been reporting on climbing news for awhile, and there’s one plug-n-play sentence I write that irritates the baby-shit out of me “Blah-Blarma made the Blah ascent of Blahzation (5.15blah).” What bothers me about this sentence structure isn’t the climber/route name...
Mahalo you fucking climbers, you goddamn nerds! I’m just kidding. We’re all part of the same tribe. You may want to put yourself in a good mood with a viewing of this video. Kelly Cordes just sent it to me, and now I feel energized by its raw crassitude. Think about...
One time, never mind when, at the Virgin River Gorge in the Arizona Strip, I witnessed a spectacle anathema to everything that climbing is supposed to be. In fact, I still do not feel ready to write down what I saw until I’ve had some more protein powder to speed my...
Sometimes you hear people bemoan the dearth of climbers out there who are willing to roll up their sleeves and put up first ascents. Sometimes the people complaining are the more fanatic first ascentionists themselves—though I believe their grousing is essentially...
It’s the first day of spring, and I’m in a good mood. Birds are chirping outside my window. The aroma of thawing dog turds is wafting through the morning air. If you could put your ear up to my head, you’d hear the faint and soft melody of Michael Jackson singing,...
I’ve compiled some of the interviews that I conducted while researching my article, “The Tyranny of History,” Rock and Ice #201, which discusses the Shakespearean events that took place on Cerro Torre this year. And I thought it would be cool to share them here. But...
Did you know that Maestri’s gas-powered compressor was hauled up to the summit of Cerro Torre in 1990 during the filming of Werner Herzog’s film Scream of Stone? The plan was to helicopter the infamous power tool down to El Chalten and have it brought to Reinhold...
Pawtuckaway is impenetrable. The forest extracts a haunting “Blair Woods” paranoia from its visitors. The old-growth trees live adjacent to a stagnant swamp that has to be one of the largest breeding grounds for mosquitoes in the world. The bloodsucking pests rise...
Have you ever tried to explain this “sport” to someone who thinks that a crimp is really just a crazy pimp? I take it for granted that you all know what I am talking about when I write something like: “He would’ve onsighted the 5.13a, except for the tickmark beta that...
Having just returned home from the winter OR Trade Show, I was pleased to see that my article about the new Adam Ondra movie, as well as Ondra’s big-league wobblers, created such a lively online dialogue. There were many people who seemed to be right there with me,...
With over two years in the making, "The Wizard's Apprentice," the definitive documentary about the world’s best rock climber, Adam Ondra—who, for all the attention he has received in the last five years, still remains rather mysterious (especially to Americans) in...
The first time I ever experienced technical climbing was during a lesson that my then high-school girlfriend surprised me with for me for my 16th birthday. And though I didn’t actually dive into the sport until a few years later, that was the first and only time in...