Why one little-used technique can make or break your fall. I’ve always viewed trad- or ice-climbing falls as more serious than sport whippers.

As far back as I could remember I’d wondered which of mankind’s faiths and illusions I could choose as my sustaining light, and I’d chosen the greatest existential pathology of them all: that if I worked hard enough, and smartly enough, my greatest challenges would someday flow effortlessly under my hands like glassy Malibu swells.

Eastern versions of the new old tradition

Alexandra Kordick on The Path (5.13c), at Rifle.In the 1940s, a young woman named Mireya Hernandez earned masters' degrees in both mathematics and che...

That Charlie Fowler would meet his end while doing what he loved is no huge surprise given the sheer volume of his climbing. At age 52, he'd racked up three and a half decades of it, and had carried his quiet air of a seasoned survivor from hard rock to the high-risk games of alpine climbing and soloing.

WHAT IS CLIMBING'S BIGGEST TABOO? BOLTING CRACKS? CHIPPING HOLDS? STEALING A REDTAGGED ROUTE?No, no and no! Climbing's biggest taboo is admitting th...