Having to re-climb doubled rappel ropes is one of climbing’s most taxing situations. In my 30-something years of climbing, I’ve only had to do this twice, and both times were epic.

The search for the source.

Fourteen years is a long time for a major free route in Yosemite to go unrepeated. On October 3, Tommy Caldwell made the second free ascent of the Dir...

I’m still a traditional climber. So for me climbing must contain three elements: difficulty, danger and, most important, exposure. Exposure means there is no possibility for outside help. Exposure increases the higher up you are, the more remote your location, and the greater the difficulties encountered higher up.

Joe Josephson phoned with an interesting proposal: Fred Beckey had come to town for a reunion of Montana's Dirty Sox Club, a guild of Montana climbers from the 1960s through the 1980s.

If anyone has earned an honorary membership in a group named Dirty Sox it is Washington's Fred Beckey, sovereign of American DirtBag Climbers.

It's easy in this new world order of knobby-handled, leashless mixed tools to lose sight of reality. While we all might fantasize about sending M11 or kicking that little (OK, he's big) Russian's behind in the Ouray mixed finals, the cold hard fact is that we need tools that will actually climb ice, and usually need leashes.