The Climbing Zine is a creative collective fueled by passion, dirt, and rocks.
Chuck Pratt: Liquid Sunshine by Pat Ament (note the full version of this piece was published in Volume 17, which is now available in print.) Banner photo by the author. Ascetic solitude is difficult. You withdraw from the world to get a clearer glimpse of who you are, what you are doing, and where life…
Me and my higher self, We often would speak Somehow we lost the connection, Might meet at Joshua Tree —Nas, “Nobody” Banner photo of Hobo Greg by Emmie Snead My greatest fear as a climber is becoming crusty. Not the good kind of crusty but the bad kind of crusty. The crust that…
Acknowledging the roots and conceptualizations of the outdoor activities that we so passionately pursue enriches our participation and ties us to the land, as well as to one another. When we view our industry through a historical lens, we inevitably hear about John Muir, Sir Edmund Hillary, Royal Robbins, and other giants of outdoor recreation.…
*Trigger Warning* This article discusses self-harm. “Look at my hands!” I hold my blistered and scabbed knuckles out to my friend Alison. She isn’t as impressed as I hoped she’d be. It is 2017, and it’s my first week of trad climbing. I’m in Yosemite Valley, and until recently, I’ve always had the…
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…
The distinction between a “climber” and “someone who climbs” has always fascinated me; it’s a nuance I’ve observed throughout a decade of routesetting, teaching, and exploring anyplace I could find rock. These observations started small, with friends who found the sport around the same time I did. Gradually, one by one, they stopped telling people,…
Curled into the bench seat like astronauts they hurtled through the dark, stars hanging low outside the dust-dimmed beam of her headlights, his eyes twinned planets in her mirror. This poem is published in Volume 23. Art by Rhiannon Williams Rambling conversation, comfortable strangers, that strange intimacy of predawn, those trickling hours that bathe any…