So far this year has been funky and awkward. I've been firing hard on all cylinders, but somehow the timing has often just felt off. We like to use the funny phrase life gets in the way, but I wonder: in the way of what? There is a cruel paradox between being content...
Andrew Bisharat
Andrew Bisharat is a writer and climber based in western Colorado. He is the publisher of Evening Sends and the co-host of The RunOut podcast.
The Next Best Thing
The most truthful truths are the ones that draw ire and accord equally. This is a telling indication that I’ve got a hot potato this time around, one that’s sure to either devastate or affirm all our existences evenly. With that, I begrudgingly and gladly would like...
Born to Climb or Spiral of Death?
On a recent vacation, to a beach of all insane places—the first non-climbing trip I’ve taken in at least a dozen years—I caught up on some summer reading. Margarita in one hand, tablet in the other, I plowed through Christopher McDougall’s 2009 bestseller Born to Run....
Surviving the Jungle
From my vantage beneath a steep bouldering wall at the Movement climbing gym, called by some “the best crag in Boulder,” I sat hypnotized by the sight of a tight little package, all hot with hair full of body and bounce, pumping an elliptical machine. I enjoyed this...
The Truth About Bouldering
I spent Independence Day at Independence Pass. This was no happy coincidence, but the result of my eccentric affinity for all vaguely homographic relationships I can make between When It Is and Where I Am. Over the years, I have spent Cinco de Mayo at the Mayo Clinic,...
The Best Climber In The World
One of my earliest climbing heroes was Alex Lowe because he was one of the few climbers out there who could perform at a high level seemingly in every discipline. Lowe was a notorious training fanatic, and a climbing glutton. It didn’t matter what kind of vertical...
Adam Ondra’s Magnificent Failure
I would have given anything to be in Ceuse last Friday night. Of course that was the evening Adam Ondra tied in for his flash attempt of Biographie (aka Realization)—the world’s first confirmed 5.15a. Instead, I experienced the event vicariously through a barrage of...
A Desperate Search For Climbing’s Soul
Sport climbing is, in part, defined by the lifestyle it engenders. It’s not just competition and performance; there are other equally important qualities: Going on trips, meeting new people and seeing other cultures. The whole scene around climbing is equated with more liberal rules for living, tolerance and adventure. —Wolfgang Güllich To begin, I’m choosing a place I’m not supposed to write about. It’s a homestead somewhere in the mountains of a Western desert, an anachronism that makes you lose all sense of the future and fuels heavy inebriation after hard days on the salty rock. Pour a tall glass of bourbon and saddle up next to a fire—the anxieties drain out your toes. I’ve spent many nights in this anonymous earthen corner, which is to say that I’ve acquired a few memories. There’s nothing particularly special about this place except that lots of very good climbers from all over […]
To access this post, you must become a supporter of Evening Sends. Please consider supporting this site by choosing an Annual Subscription or Monthly Subscription. If you are already a subscriber, please log in to read this story.
Video: Climb Like Chris Sharma
Here is great video put together by Rock and Ice: tips from the sport-climbing maestro, Chris Sharma. Also be sure to read Sharma's introduction to my book.
Fair Means Free Soloing
Dressing myself this morning, I donned my most cherished heirloom, my grandfather’s engraved belt buckle, which reads: “Philippines 1945, U.S. Navy, Manila Cavite, James Andrew Clary.” From that year on, Grandpa wore it every single day until his death a few years...
Branded Controversy
Three issues come to mind today. Two aren’t very important, while one probably is. Before verging into this meandering dirge on today’s state of sport, I must admit to feeling bewitched by some sort of hipster malaise, one that is causing me to feel most fired up by...
The Best Wobbler I Ever Saw
All that climbers have are our stories. All that climbers are are stories. In fact, before one can even be called a climber, he must be absorbed into our great mandalic narrative, like a molecule into an amoebic vacuole, or a spilt puddle into the inconceivably...