Every day 500,000 outdoor enthusiasts* put on a pair of rock shoes for the first time. But with every new climber joining the tribe, differentiating yourself from the rest of the pack becomes more difficult. by James “Peaches” Lucas. Spoiler alert: this story is published in Volume 6. Dare to be different! Embody the true…
While I was on the road recently I met an artist whose favorite muse was the naked body. I was intrigued, first, because she was a beautiful thirty-something woman, from Aspen of all places, but on a deeper level it made me ponder why. I’ve later thought about how writers get naked. [by Luke Mehall,…
I blame my dirtbagging, vagabond ways on my education at Western State College of Colorado. As a child of the Midwest, I’d slept under the stars maybe a handful of times before I moved to Gunnison at 20 years old, but in my first year studying Recreation I found myself sleeping in a snow cave,…
The older you get, the more you realize how precious life is, and the more you appreciate the little things. And sometimes the universe just throws you a little gift, a little nugget that makes you say, “Yes, today is a good day to be alive.” [story by Luke Mehall] This is exactly what happened…
The way of the dirtbag is a simple life: maximizing recreation while minimizing responsibility. Life as free as the wind, work as little as possible, and spend mucho time in the outdoors doing what you love. As a rock climber, in my twenties I lived this lifestyle to the maximum: I’d wash dishes all summer…
The print version of Climbing Out of Bed, the first book from Luke Mehall, was released on April 13th and is available through Benighted Publications, which also publishes The Climbing Zine. The book can be found here: https://www.createspace.com/4113259 Climbing Out of Bed is a collection of rock climbing and mountain town stories, written over the…
An excerpt from Luke Mehall’s piece, Hip-Hop and Climbing, which will appear in the next volume of The Climbing Zine: Volume 5, The Dirtbag Issue will drop on April 20th as an e-zine on Kindle, followed by a print release. “The top gets higher the more I climb” Drop the World by Eminem and Lil…
With spring just around the corner every rock climber is getting stoked. But how stoked are you? Is your stoke in progress, are you stoking off, or have you been getting out climbing already and you are substantially stoked? Well, your friends at The Climbing Zine are here to help you guide your stoke level…