It’s rare to be told by an editor that you can write whatever you want, but that’s how this essay got started. Since the seed was planted, the publication with said editor didn’t come to fruition, but I wrote out this piece, and I want to share it. by Luke Mehall, publisher of The Climbing…
The Climbing Zine is now accepting stories, photography, and art for our 2025 volume. Below are our loose guidelines. Words The Climbing Zine publishes thought provoking essays, stories, and poetry. Word count can be anywhere from 200 to 10,000. Our aim to publish work that focuses on the essence of climbing; we’ll publish accounts of…
A second preseason episode before we kick off Season 7. A letter and poem for our dear friend Kurt Blair, who passed away last year. Poem read by Marcus Garcia, and letter read by host Luke Mehall.
Four fingers grip an empty cup. “Go back to your country, terrorist!” a stranger spits, tossing his beer on me as his eyes survey my Middle Eastern features in disgust. Budweiser drips down my cheeks and onto my American flag T-shirt as cars race the Indy 500 track in circles on a hot summer day…
The young buck who offers to take us up Time Wave Zero instead drinks twenty-eight Tecates and keeps the hot tub party going until 2am; The silent and slight European who walks slumped and duck-footed seamlessly climbs 12a and slouches away, unexpectedly the most badass climber in Virgin Canyon; The excitable new guy…
A preseason episode before we launch Season 7. Originally aired in 2020 near the end of Season 1. Season 7 kicks off later this month.
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…
“Keep dreamin’, stay hungry, and remember that there is no finish line.” This quote by Todd Skinner in the opening pages of the book Hangdog Days by Jeff Smoot gave me chills the first time I read it. In the pages that followed, I felt history come to life as I read tale after…