The normal approach to climbing is to maximize your chances of success. But Peter Croft talks about going for it–and being willing to fail big–rather than surely succeeding: “It’s kind of a lost, or it’s kind of an ignored idea, magnificent failure rather than a kind of mediocre success.” More »
In school we learn that Death Valley is the lowest place in the Americas. Less than 100 miles away, as the crow flies, is Mt Whitney, the highest point in the 48. Distance, elevation, extreme temps, and two mountain ranges is what lies between them. To visit both in a day on your own power, you need to think like Honey Badger. More »
Pop! “Falling!” I sat on the ground after lowering thinking, “Really? Really? Did that just happen? OK, calm the storm. Moonlight Buttress is about two weeks away, it might heal…” I had just tweaked something pretty bad in the left side of my calf heading up into my knee, while heel hooking. I sat there on the floor at the Mesa Rim climbing gym telling myself it would be OK.
Most weekends you can find the pullharder crew suffering in the high Sierras, fighting their way up big walls or training…hard! However, one weekend a year we take a break to meet up with friends from all over the country and enjoy ourselves. It just so happens that our idea of a good time is a costume party/BBQ 160 feet off the deck. More »
Roberto and I recently wandered off to the desert for a weekend of punishment. I’d been sport climbing, or climbing easier stuff for a while and I needed to get WRECKED! I asked Roberto if he was up for some punishment and he gave me a big fat YES. We flipped through the guide, and found our instruments of self annihilation.
I hadn’t been on a really long hard route for a while and I wanted to test myself. This year I’ve started training a little more intelligently and it was paying off. I was strong, but did I have endurance? Not really sure how hard I was climbing when it comes to 10+ pitch hard stuff, I decided what better way to find out than try to free a bigwall?
Failure is a relative term. Though one that is not often sought out among members of the climbing community. On the weekend of May 3, 2008 Albert and Shay came to know this phenomenon during our ascent of the Moonlight Buttress in Zion NP. More »
I flew into Vegas on Sunday morning to meet Scotty, Shay, and Nate to drive the rest of the way to Indian Creek (zussamen). After driving through a small snow storm, a couple tornadoes and a hurricane, we rendezvoused (yes that’s French) with Gil outside of Moab and proceeded directly to IC . To our pleasant surprise, we scored the best camp site at Creek Pasture (it comes complete with a picnic table and a great little fire pit for burning poop in). More »
Scotty had been jonesing to get on Primrose Dihedrals for a while and brought along a copy of the supertopo just in case he was able to tear us away from the sweet sweet cracks of Indian Creek. He succeeded. After spending 5 days of cragging at Indian Creek we decided to give our hands a break and diversify our trip with a little desert tower action. More »
Cloud tower (5.11d) sent, another adventure complete with the
bruises, muscle aches and frostbite to prove it. Damn vegas is cold
in December! More »
In April, Josh and I did the Rainbow Wall Original Route in a 16 hour push car to car, 36 hours San Diego to San Diego. We freed all the pitches, with Josh ropegunning all the hard stuff (and me hanging a few times on TR), redpointing the lower half of the route and onsighting everything after “Over the Rainbow” Ledge. More »
