The new issue of Rock and Ice will be out on newsstands next week, and I’m really excited about its arrival because it has a feature I wrote about my climbing trip this spring to Catalunya, Spain.

Why is Catalunya important? It’s important because people are going there. It is to sport climbing what Camp 4 was to climbing in the 1970s—the place where all the strongest climbers come to test themselves on the biggest, baddest climbs in the world. This charged feeling of significance is due to the recent congregation of energy, talent and media. I can’t climb 5.15. I’m not bolting king lines at Oliana. But what I can contribute are the words that will (hopefully) bring readers here to this area and give them a way to feel like they are also a part of this special place and time.

Feature writing is a tortuous process, an adventure around many steep and consequential blind corners. It’s best to approach a story like a detective, and not shy away from the more brutal, ugly aspects of life—while also not getting too obsessed with trivial details. Remaining truthful during a period of upheaval, like being in a far-off place, and distilling and compressing that time into a piece of easy-to-read writing can be difficult. But if you’re lucky, it all comes together, as I believe it did here thanks to Keith Ladzinski’s awesome photos that accompany the article. The finished product feels satisfying in a rare way.

I believe that creating good climbing media is of the upmost importance—not just on a personal level, as in my own stupid raison d’etre, but in a more global sense as well. The sport can’t progress if you are unable to make the words, photos and videos that show how it is progressing. If someone like Chris Sharma climbs the hardest route in the world, and no one hears about it, and no one sees what the climbing is like, then it doesn’t matter.

It’s a strange idea because media aims to exist in the background like a silent observer of the action. When the camera comes out, the authenticity of the moment is somehow compromised – or at least that’s the cynical perception. But without media, there is no greater meaning and the sport becomes less rich and purposeful.

There’s a fine balance, of course: a spectrum that runs from propaganda (the least truthful), to advertising and self-promotion, to first-hand gonzo-style writing, to strict “unbiased” (if that’s even possible) reportorial journalism.

The reason the Stonemasters are so important to climbing is because they created their own legacy with great writing and authentic, memorable photography. If you don’t tell your own story, then no one else will. I think that’s an important lesson in general. You can create the world that you want to live in, or let the world create you … for better or worse.

The Spain feature was important to me because it’s all about what I think is most rad about climbing: top-end, ridiculously hard, cutting-edge free climbing. It is a departure from the more “everyman”-style, you-can-travel-here/climb-this editorial focus of late.

Anyway, be sure to check out the feature, “Climbing to the Death,” and of course, I’d love to hear your thoughts.