Britney or Christina, Frappuccino or half-caf vanilla latte, Maxim or FHM, trad or sport—our world is full of crucial, life-defining choices. Your sling choice, however, truly is life affecting. Read on to find out why.

The greatest riches lie at the end of your dreams

It took the spotlight of the Petzl Roctrip to show what the locals already knew: The Red River Gorge is America's Best Climbing Area.

I am sitting at a friend’s house in Seattle when Jonathan “J Star” Siegrist decides he will start building a house of cards. Siegrist is fresh off his rampage in Kentucky’s Red River Gorge, where he destroyed nearly all the area’s hardest routes in just a handful of tries. Nonplussed, I watch the house rise to an impressive five card-stories tall.

The scorched desert expanse surrounding Las Vegas smears together into one terrible brown color as Chris Sharma, Dalia Ojeda, Miguel and I whiz along at 90 miles per hour in an old Jeep Grand Cherokee. The American West, this celebrated frontier, as tame as it has become with commercialism and super highways, is still the last good place I know of for real adventure.

Don’t let the name fool you. The “Regular” is more than just average; it’s darn good, and lightweight to boot.