-
The Climbing Zine Book (just added: $40 signed copy by Jimmie Dunn)
Dec 2 • 264 Views • For 10 years we’ve been publishing The Climbing Zine. We started off with print runs of 100, then 500, then 1,000, and...
-
A Venture Backward, Inward, and Upward by Rhiannon Williams
In Memory of Towyn Williams (1926 – 2016) I associate much of my childhood with a little white...
-
Read The Zine – Deals for the Week
We know you’re stoked to “read the zine” so we’re now offering a deal every...
-
Just A Climber, For Bears Ears (a short film)
Just A Climber (For Bears Ears) is the result of 20 years of thinking and recreating in Indian...
Inspiration Station Inspiration Station
The Climbing Zine Book (just added: $40 signed copy by Jimmie Dunn)
Dec 2 • 264 Views • No Comments on The Climbing Zine Book (just added: $40 signed copy by Jimmie Dunn)

A Venture Backward, Inward, and Upward by Rhiannon Williams
In Memory of Towyn Williams (1926 – 2016) I associate much of my childhood with a little white farmhouse in the Welsh countryside. My...
Dec 1 • 4628 Views

Read The Zine – Deals for the Week
We know you’re stoked to “read the zine” so we’re now offering a deal every week. Here’s what we have going...
Nov 12 • 4626 Views

Just A Climber, For Bears Ears (a short film)
Just A Climber (For Bears Ears) is the result of 20 years of thinking and recreating in Indian Creek. When the new protections are...
Nov 4 • 519 Views

A Journey Through Time by Adam Ferro
The expenditure of energy on a trip of this sort is massive and one only has so much of this energy. Energy that is accumulated as a person...
Oct 31 • 819 Views

Dirtbag State of Mind Hoodies Are In!
We are super psyched to announce that the new DIRTBAG STATE OF MIND hoodies are in, and to celebrate their release we’re offering...
Oct 28 • 282 Views

“I’m glad Royal Robbins isn’t here to see this shit show,” I said to myself as I watched the youngsters on Yosemite’s Nutcracker...
Oct 18 • 457 Views

Arno’s Dragon by Devin Dabney (a poem)
Long before we decide, the path is carved for us. Sliced through existence to be forged for this one, and beyond. The goals we strive for...
Oct 2 • 385 Views

Beyonce’s Balcony by Luke Mehall
Standing there, gaping at this monstrous and inhuman spectacle of rock and cloud and sky and space, I feel a ridiculous greed and...
Oct 1 • 316 Views

The Salajeet Collectors by Amanda Forrest
This story starts and ends with a chicken. On a bright morning in a high valley of the Hindu Kush, the doomed bird lay pinned atop a low...
Oct 1 • 422 Views

Keep the Zine alive and subscribe today! (update: we are going for 200!)
We’ve never done this, and perhaps it would be a failure (anything can be) but I’m hoping to rally a big subscription push for The...
Sep 27 • 1201 Views

I Got 99 Problems and a Bitch Is One by Kathy Karlo
I started seeing it sometime last year, and it got a small chuckle out of me then: #bitchesonpitches. But the more I thought about it, the...
Sep 10 • 898 Views

Crowbars, anger, and new routes, from The Desert by Luke Mehall
“I’m not saying I’m going to rule the world, or I’m going to change the world, but I guarantee you that I will spark the brain that...
Sep 9 • 485 Views

One of the greatest joys I have as a publisher is discovering an amazing climbing project, and then being able to share that with our...
Sep 4 • 447 Views

Biophilia On The Rocks by Birch Malotky
June’s humid breath settles in waves over the Mount Washington Valley as the sun dips low in the west. A shadow Cathedral Ledge pools at...
Aug 22 • 468 Views

Ray’s Red Truck by Roy McClenahan
In the rich caravan of climbers whom we meet at the crags, people come and go. Some, like the flowing of mountain streams, make a daily...
Aug 21 • 855 Views

Replacing The Seamstress Corner with Dave Marcinowski by Luke Mehall
There are climbing partners, and there are the climbing partners. The partner you want to climb to the ends of the Earth and back with. The...
Aug 6 • 1935 Views

The Desert by Luke Mehall, Fall Tour Kicks off in Crested Butte
Fall Tour Kickoff: Thursday, August 15th 7:00 p.m. Townie Books 414 Elk Ave. Crested Butte, Colorado Dear readers, reviewers, promoters,...
Aug 1 • 2116 Views

The Climbing Zine is always accepting stories, photography, and art. Below are our loose guidelines, informal pitches from solid writers...
Feb 21 • 5133 Views

Jim Bridwell’s Memorial in Yosemite (a photo essay)
When I heard that Jim Bridwell had died, my first thought was, I bet even he didn’t think he’d live this long. Between pushing the...
Jan 2 • 2407 Views

Events We Support: Get Complimentary Zines for YOUR Event
At The Zine we’ve got a plan. We started out small, really small, and we printed like 100 copies per issue. In 2019 that number will...
Dec 21 • 2140 Views

Where to Find The Climbing Zine – Independent Outlets
The Climbing Zine and Benighted Publications pride ourselves on independent distribution. Below is a list of our beloved retailers where...
Dec 9 • 4273 Views

The Giving Bolt, An Ode To The Bolt by Jimmy Keithley
Well here we are, old bolt; let me just say this before I remove you. You should be proud because great care was taken when you were...
Nov 30 • 2274 Views

The Desert (Mehall’s fifth book)
The Desert, Luke Mehall’s fifth and final book in his “dirtbag climber series” begins a Kickstarter campaign today to...
Nov 12 • 2325 Views

The Desert and The Dog by Luke Mehall
This is the most beautiful place on Earth, but of course, like Cactus Ed Abbey said, every person carries in their heart an image of the...
Nov 3 • 3408 Views

Powders of Persuasion by Luke Mehall (from The Desert)
My college years in The Desert were adventurous and crazy, a complete immersion in the unknown. After I graduated, I began to roam from...
Oct 19 • 2299 Views

The teenage Federale slings his machine gun over his shoulder and bends toward my bag. Cocaine? he asks. Marijuana? I have a stash of weed...
Oct 18 • 3043 Views

The Long Way Back by Mike Reddy
“Oh you feel and you taste it and you want to go higher. So what do you do? And so you peak into the mountain where your desire goes....
Oct 1 • 3762 Views

The Painted Wall by Luke Mehall
It is like any other start to a day of climbing in the Black Canyon. Dave and I are up before the sun, throwing down coffee and a quick...
Aug 3 • 2366 Views

At some point in my early to midtwenties, I came to the conclusion that life is not about rock climbing. There’s just too much other...
Jun 25 • 6022 Views

Time Continuum of Desert Road Tripping by Kevin Volkening
The Pinnacle of Technology, as we called her drifted through the endless space, the time continuum that is road tripping. Flakes of snow...
Jun 5 • 5462 Views

Hayden, I am just so sad that you’re gone. The news struck me like a train. It literally knocked me off my feet. Since then I have felt...
Apr 20 • 3184 Views

The reflection targets my disfigurement. If only the borders of this mirror could protect the rest of the world from my hideousness. My...
Dec 27 • 8118 Views

Flirting with The Nose In A Day in The Valley of Stone
“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...
Jun 22 • 11518 Views

Kansas City Urban Summits, a buildering adventure by Dakota Walz
I could see him clearly from directly across the alleyway. A light was on and a white balding office worker was clearly burning the...
May 26 • 6119 Views
Perfectical Prose Perfectical Prose

The Art of The First Ascent by Luke Mehall
You know you’re getting old when they start replacing the bolts you used for a first ascent. That was my first...
Nov 18 • 1138 Views

More To Give, The First Solo-Free Single-Day Ascent of El Capitan by Pete Whittaker
Walking up to the base of Freerider, I felt rested, light, but increasingly nervous. Two years ago, I’d never climbed...
Nov 12 • 23346 Views

Mountaineering Changed My Perspective On Beauty by Rebecca Ross
Most women, at some point in their lives, get discouraged about their appearance because they may not possess the ideal...
Nov 11 • 2900 Views

Reflections in The Black by Vic Zeilman
The black-and-white photograph is small and square, half a century old, showing my grandmother posing in front of the...
Nov 7 • 4948 Views

We Didn’t Have Much Time by Joanna Spindler (a poem)
by Joanna Spindler, published in Volume 16, now available. Banner art by Rhiannon Williams We didn’t have much time...
Nov 2 • 274 Views

Hip-Hop and Climbing by Luke Mehall
The fringe is where the magic happens. Four climbers pack into The Freedom Mobile, a graffiti-ed vehicle, spray painted...
Oct 31 • 5209 Views

The Joy Pendulum, Swinging High and Low in Yosemite Valley by Lauren DeLaunay
As I listened to my boyfriend make his tenth phone call of the hour, I absentmindedly stirred vegetables and reflected...
Oct 29 • 6445 Views

Yucca Ropes: The DIY Ancestral Puebloan Static Line by Len Necefer
In the late 1300s, experts point to drought and other environmental stressors impacting the Puebloan people in the...
Oct 11 • 2074 Views

Silent Partners by Luke Mehall
I know he knows. Adam Lawton is proud. In every group of adventurers, there is a leader, and every great leader must be...
Oct 3 • 3035 Views

Finding Protection In Bears Ears by Josh Ewing
“Yucca sandals,” I say to myself. “How’d they do this move in yucca sandals?” The sheer sandstone wall below...
Sep 8 • 1496 Views

The Desert, fall book tour kickoff in Crested Butte.
From Townie Books in Crested Butte, Luke Mehall and friends tell stories from his books American Climber and The...
Aug 29 • 153 Views

Old Becomes New in Indian Creek by Chris Schulte
November is closing in fast, and on this turn around the fireball, we reach a strange and interesting milestone in...
Aug 27 • 5503 Views

Up (and over) the Pope’s Nose by Josh Smith
“Think we could throw a haul bag out of an airplane? That would make the approach really easy.” Kennan was looking...
Aug 25 • 3270 Views

Do Not Go Outside To Cry by Kathy Karlo
I see it being used all around me to describe women, often by other women: badass. I have always considered it to have...
Aug 23 • 662 Views

On Fear, Climbing, and Depression by Sonya Pevzner
Trigger warning: This article discusses topics of depression, suicidal thoughts, and anxiety. For some, the content may...
Aug 15 • 4963 Views

The Prince P (in memory of Phil Schaal) by Cyrena Lee
It would have been hard to write about Phil Schaal even if he were still here—here meaning still alive. Alive meaning...
Aug 6 • 4425 Views

Granite Trinity by Michelle Dedischew
One thousand twenty-seven. One thousand twenty-eight. One thousand twenty-nine. My head is lost in some sort of vortex....
Jul 18 • 2424 Views

Elegant and Brutal by Cristina Marcalow
I. Trapped Kaiser Santa Clara Hospital, June 2018 The haul bag sits, a stuffed pig in the trunk. Cams, nuts, and two...
Jun 1 • 1254 Views

Going Out To Come Home by Stacy Bare
The night was cold, and where the moon and stars shone around patches of clouds, they were incredibly bright. There was...
May 27 • 4410 Views

Climbing Past War by Stacy Bare
The uninitiated, those who don’t climb, always ask me why I do. I normally begin my response with the statement that...
May 26 • 9724 Views

Suicide and Pirates by Andrew Allport
My father taught me how to climb, just as he taught me how to play guitar and ski—badly, I could say. But that...
May 17 • 8387 Views

Susie and The Gnar by Joshua Smith
Some are blessed by fate With thews and spines of steel, Some work hard and fiercely fight To rise above the common...
May 1 • 731 Views

Climbing En Plein Air by Birch Malotky
The dance of renewal, the dance that made the world, was always danced here at the edge of things… —Ursula...
Apr 2 • 1068 Views

A Culture of Climbing: An Interview with Len Necefer
“I try to pursue my enjoyment with the idea that folks care and love for the land the way I do for my own home. I try...
Jan 27 • 3493 Views

Just A Climber, For Bears Ears (a short film) by Luke Mehall and Greg Cairns
Greg Cairns and Luke Mehall have finished their second short film together, called “Just a Climber, For Bears...
Jan 9 • 1059 Views

Icons In Danger and Desert Medicine by Birch Malotky
Joshua Tree National Park is a refuge. I don’t know if I’d decided this by then, sitting folded into the crook of...
Jan 8 • 5089 Views

A Campfire Tale With The Old Man In The Desert by Stewart M. Green
The sun’s last rays glance across the underside of a cloud-swept November sky as it sets south of the La Sal...
Jan 6 • 1825 Views

A Narrow Escape on Mt. Kenya by Jason Haas
“Hey, wake up. Wake up!” Brian whispered harshly. “There’s someone out there.” I half opened an eye and...
Jan 6 • 4948 Views

Luke’s Vignettes by Luke Mehall
“Everybody must give something back / For something they get” —Bob Dylan, “Fourth Time Around” On Writing...
Jan 5 • 1269 Views

Monster Cracks by Pete Whittaker
Over hundreds of thousands of years, water has trickled, raged, and poured down cracks and creases, winding and weaving...
Dec 30 • 5029 Views

Hidden Dragons by Chris Schulte
I started climbing in Durango, Colorado, a small and isolated burg on the edge of the desert and the mountains, pushing...
Dec 27 • 7092 Views

Pain and Perseverance: Linking Sixteen Towers in a Day by Matt Pickren
“If you just stop for a second, I can show you there’s no road out there!” Ben said. “I know there’s a road...
Dec 18 • 2777 Views

Fall on Rock by George Perkins
I clipped her to the anchor, untied her knot, and pulled the rope through the gear. “I need more time.” Jessica...
Dec 17 • 4868 Views