Tuesday Night Bouldering

Recent violence near Potrero Chico confirms that the region is potentially unsafe for climbers.

Sometimes Andrew Lindblade, shaken by a near miss or just discouraged during a bad day in the mountains, would tell Athol Whimp that was it. “I’m retiring,” he’d say. Whimp, the other half of that powerful, intuitive climbing partnership, paid no attention. Whimp knew, Lindblade told me recently, to laugh at doubt.

I’ll never forget my first real gun, a seven-shot Ithaca .410 pump shotgun. It was a surprise Christmas present from Mack, my alcoholic grandfather who, in the 1950s, had murdered a black musician with a ball peen hammer when the guy rolled into Mack’s Paris, Texas gas station asking for a battery charge after hours. Apparently, the man had been rude.

If you ask climbers what our favorite part of climbing is, we would say solving problems. Well, we might actually say, “slaying the Gnar,” or “sending the chronicles of Gnarnia with advanced kneebar techgnarlogy,” or even just, “taking a dump on a route,” but we all mean the same thing, and that is we enjoy figuring out solutions to vertical challenges.

The tank top grew worn and faded while enduring numerous ropeless jaunts from Eldo to Yosemite. I like to picture Stevie’s screen-printed image high on the Redgarden wall, moviIn 1985, the legendary British free soloist...

"Oh no!" Randy thought, or so he'd tell us later, as he skied down from the top of Sunlight Mountain at dawn in storm. "Alison's going to kill me! I've lost the intern!" At Rock and Ice we usually have an intern around, writing and helping in different ways; and intern mortality and well-being are good things to be concerned about.

From my vantage beneath a steep bouldering wall at the Movement climbing gym, called by some “the best crag in Boulder,” I sat hypnotized by the sight of a tight little package, all hot with hair full of body and bounce, pumping an elliptical machine. I enjoyed this nice moment until the guy (jerk) next to her diverted my attention.

Klem Loskot talks about his return to the top of the game.

Bouldering was climbing's highest art form. Then it was regimented. Can the pure experience be reclaimed?

Six surgeries in 13 months is a lot, and a lot of recovery and painkillers, and Kelly Cordes will tell you he was a little whacked even before that.An alpine, ice and rock climber, Kelly broke his ankle and pulverized his tib-fib ice climbing. He tore his knee. He destroyed his shoulder. But the worst insult was yet to come.“Leave it to me,” he says,

What’s the most impressive unclimbed line on an 8,000-meter peak? Before July 15 many climbers would have said it was the Mazeno Ridge on Nanga Parbat (8,126-meters/26,660 feet).

My coworker Andrew has a little joke. “How do you know someone does CrossFit?"