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…
The sun’s last rays glance across the underside of a cloud-swept November sky as it sets south of the La Sal Mountains’ pointed peaks. The light, poking through a swath of blue above the horizon, sets the cloud bellies on fire, creating a tapestry of orange and gold and pale gray, and bathing Lost World…
And so castles made of sand Fall into the sea eventually —Jimi Hendrix, “Castles Made of Sand” “Did you hear the Crooked Arrow Spire fell down?” my buddy, Ben Kiessel, asked me. Another one bites the dust, I thought. I used to be surprised when I heard a climb or a major section of a…
This cartoon is based on a memorable descent from Triassic Sands in the Black Velvet Canyon. We were climbing with two parties close behind us, party number two hot on our tails and party number three howling, screaming, and crying their way up the crux pitch. With all the commotion and yells echoing through the…
“There’s someone on that off-width you wanted to do.” I pause—midstride—and look up to see someone hanging out halfway up the climb I was hoping to get on. I push my scratched Dollar Store sunglasses up over my head and use my hand to shield my eyes instead. The day is already hot, and…
As I listened to my boyfriend make his tenth phone call of the hour, I absentmindedly stirred vegetables and reflected on the events of the past month. Fuck this season, I overheard from the kitchen. Together, we had been stunned by a hero’s suicide and his partner’s avalanche burial, witnessed my mentor’s paralyzing accident, and…
It’s your mom’s minivan pimped out And only seats two Because if it wasn’t hard enough to live in a van It’s way harder to hook up in one This poem is published in The Climbing Zine Book 2, now available. Banner photo by: Kristen Hughes With a full set of seats in…
Revisiting this “Dirtbag Classic” with Alex Honnold. Subscribe to The Zine: https://shop.climbingzine.com/ Check out our new Send Your Face shirts: https://shop.climbingzine.com/collections/new-dirtbag-clothing-lines