The Climbing Zine is a creative collective fueled by passion, dirt, and rocks.
When life looks like Easy Street There is danger at your door —Grateful Dead, “Uncle John’s Band” I’m sitting here writing on a cold October morning in El Potrero Chico; yesterday seemed to be summer, and today old man winter showed up. It’s the type of weather, combined with all the war and sadness in…
The fog rolled in surreptitiously, encroaching every visible surface. It wasn’t just there one day when I woke up, the way it happens sometimes. At every moment, this fog quietly magnified like some cunning creature, sneaking its way into my being. The moment I realized it had made itself a home inside my mind, it…
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 stone wall that had been built by local goat herders. One sharp birdie eye looked up into the cloudless sky, the heavens a pale blue, the air…
Brad Gobright is pure of heart. So pure, in fact, that he may never have faced a dilemma in all his life. That’s not exactly serving him well right now, as he’s stuck in a pickle of his own making, at the top of the first pitch of Southern California’s gem climb, The Vampire. He’s…
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I started this painting over a year ago after seeing a beautiful sunrise over the North Six-Shooter. It was a quiet morning at camp as folks roused from tents and vehicles, sand lodged in their eyes and deep under their fingernails. I started hot water for coffee, let Izzy, my dog, out of the van,…
Volume 24 is now available to order The issue is printed and has started shipping. Here’s a look at the story list: Guerreras by Zach Clanton Sharp Edges, Holding On by Letting Go by Shara Zaia Climbs Fall Apart by Luke Mehall Scotch On The Rocks by Greg Petliski You’re Safe, Mom, Climb When Ready…
It starts with a plan like a break in the clouds. We set out thinking on the lines, the foods, the sunrises and campfires, the saving up. And then you set to with the forty-second aspen tree planted that day, the twenty-third special with sauce on the side, the eighty-first stone laid, the fifteenth pair…