“I am glad / For every thought that puts my memory / On my past time.” —Michelangelo This piece is published in Volume 19 of The Climbing Zine. Banner photo of Layton Kor by Paul Mayrose Nothing slowed Layton Kor. April, 1962, he drove to Yosemite with Jack Turner and wrote me a…
open jug filled by authentic rubber and stretched leather laces of Velcro rooted in gravity toward the edge of rock then toward inverted air the body of a bat hangs weightless cemented in time where wingspan takes flight, autopilot into nocturnal sleep for seconds as blood rushes to the start of a dream and your…
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 more I wondered: in a world full of bad bitches and rich bitches and boss bitches and basic ones too, what does that word even mean anymore? by Kathy…
A roommate and dear friend of mine used to talk both eloquently and incessantly about her Purple Rabbit. She would describe its power, its pleasuring capabilities with the benefits of independence and non-attachment. Often I thought she shared to entertain our friends’ appalled reactions, although over time, I realized her serious appreciation for her rabbit.…
Over hundreds of thousands of years, water has trickled, raged, and poured down cracks and creases, winding and weaving through rock rugosities, and worn paths through weaknesses to form (what is now known as) Canyonlands. by Pete Whittaker note: this piece appears in The Climbing Zine Book 2, now available After another trip there this…
Fifteen meters up Rutabaga, a moderate 5.9 splitter at the base of Squamish, BC’s Stawamus Chief, stretches a traverse between cracks. The move crosses jugs and offers fine, slabby feet, but still, I find it exhilarating. In fact, for reasons related only slantwise to climbing, it is exactly the sort of move that I seek…
Ring the bells in elegy For the last engine Of the last Saturn On (semi) permanent loan From the buddy of the last dirtbag To struggle off rock You were bitching the other day That the artists weren’t starving anymore That the spirit was no longer willing to suffer for it maybe, But the flesh…
My college years in The Desert were adventurous and crazy, a complete immersion in the unknown. After I graduated, I began to roam from climbing area to climbing area, and The Desert seemed like just another destination on the circuit. It was in that era that the inevitable plateau began for me on that Colorado…