Posts Tagged ‘trad’

  • Climbing Past War by Stacy Bare

    Jul 11, 17 • 7512 Views • Locations • • No Comments

    The uninitiated, those who don’t climb, always ask me why I do. I normally begin my response with the statement that I don’t climb enough. I’m a marginal climber at best and am thankful for many far superior climbing partners who humor me struggling up...

  • Flirting with The Nose In A Day in The Valley of Stone

    Jun 22, 17 • 7712 Views • Locations • • 2 Comments

    “Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.” Goerte I grew up in the traditions of western science and puritan pragmatism. Success is earned through work, luck is the sum of preparation, a penny saved is a...

  • From Midas’s Touch to A Green Thumb: Remembering Doug Tompkins by Joy Martin

    May 18, 17 • 2679 Views • Locations • • No Comments

    Doug Tompkins opens the door to a South American summer evening. At seventy-one—stooped and shuffling, a button-down shirt tucked into khakis and held up with a leather belt—he’s not exactly the climbing jock he once was. Looking up through kind, brown...

  • Awake On El Cap by Tristan Greszko

    Feb 21, 17 • 5936 Views • Locations • • 2 Comments

    Awake. Alone. It’s 3 am. Only two more hours to sleep, the clock is ticking. The world is silent.  Maybe there’s a breath of wind here and there.  Late July in California and it isn’t hot at all – I’m in a big puffy coat, sitting on a...

  • Jugs on Jugs by Gaelen Engler

    Feb 8, 17 • 38873 Views • Locations • • 22 Comments

    Pulling into The Chief campground in Squamish for my first time, I had to double-check the sign to make sure my boyfriend and I hadn’t driven into the training ground for a traveling circus. Uncoordinated, poutin-hungry tourists from China and Montreal...

  • A Climber In The Winter of His Content

    Jan 28, 17 • 7302 Views • Indian Creek • • 1 Comment

    “You know there’s something special you’re needing. And you know there’s no drug that’ll do the healing, and no liquor in the land to stop your brain from bleeding. You need something special to open up a new door, to show you something you’ve...

  • Sacred Space by Drew Thayer (art by Rhiannon Williams)

    Jul 31, 16 • 1701 Views • Locations • • No Comments

    Right now, this detail is all that matters: the carabiner just fell back into the crack, and you’re staring it down as if it’s the only damn thing in the whole universe. Your middle finger brushes it aside on the first pass, then just lightly levers it...

  • Benighted in The Black Canyon – (excerpt from American Climber by Luke Mehall)

    Jul 28, 16 • 3782 Views • Locations • • No Comments

    My path as a climber had to face a most real enemy: pure unadulterated fear. This fear manifested itself in the biggest baddest canyon, nearby, the most intimidating chasm in Colorado, and even the entire United States, The Black Canyon. Excerpt from American...