I leave in an hour for Cleveland and Vancouver. I am going back into book tour mode. Last year, when that was about my only mode, I would try to climb each time I came home to Boulder. I would text potential partners the moment my plane touched down at DIA. Three, sometimes four leads in, I would get a … Read More
Fighting The Impulse or, Working Make Believe, 2
At age nineteen, I took a year off of college and climbed full time. It was great, for most of the time. Actually, it was great when I was around other full-time climbers. When I was around people in real life, however, it was horrifically uncomfortable. Tioga Pass, May, 1997. I’m sitting at the family-style dinner table with my boyfriend … Read More
Working Make Believe
It’s 4:34pm on January 31st. I spent the last eight hours working. Today, that work was outside, ice guiding. I know it was work because other people knew I did it, and I got paid for it. Yesterday, I spent the same eight hours in front of my computer. Nothing I did touched another person or was directly revenue producing. … Read More
Styling Your Life
I’m living in North Conway, NH this winter. It freaks my mother out. She thinks I am going to move here, permanently. She looks at the numbers: 47th in funding schools. I point out it is the #1 most “livable” state, according to CQ press. No matter that neither of us know where either of these ratings comes from. Or … Read More
Toward the Tunnel
Three years ago, a microwave sized rock dislodged in a gulley and began its long roll towards my foot. I ended up writing a novel, or trying to. I started out thinking I was going on a long climbing road trip and spent the next six months focusing on getting my coffee cup from the kitchen to my desk without … Read More
Holiday Break for the Unbreakables
It has been over three years since I spend more than three days without doing something productive or additive. These days, if I climb for more than two days in a row without checking my email I start to grind my teeth. Or rather, with current technology, it is more like 6 hours without a quick run through my phone. … Read More
Working in the Void
Yesterday I finished up work on a grant application that took me five days to complete. It was 2:30 pm. I pressed send. It disappeared from my computer. I looked at my dog. The New York Times recently had an article about family and office roles mixing at work. The piece explained that all of the issues you have at … Read More
The Dark Side: Whipped Installment
THE DARK SIDE: WELCOME TO THE MAD PURSUIT OF NIGHT CLIMBING (Part of an on-going series on my blog of posts from my column Whipped, for Climbing Magazine. February, 2007 Installment) Download PDF Four hundred feet up Eldorado Springs Canyon’s Yellow Spur, pigeon shit on my lips and headlamps around my ankles,I screamed at my belayer to stop pulling me off. … Read More
Girls on Point
Up until five years ago I climbed with men more than women. It wasn’t a conscious choice, it was just what I was surrounded by. These days it is almost the opposite. Maybe some of that has to do with the murkiness that surrounds cross-gender climbing. With women, it’s relatively simple. And it’s getting easier. But it is still surprising … Read More
Ice Up
It was 80-degrees in Boulder yesterday, October 29th. Almost too hot to climb…rock. The ice, on the other hand, is on. Pike’s Peak, Colorado. Home to a road to the 14,000’+ summit and early season ice. I don’t exactly live next to Pike’s Peak, but I live close enough to warrant a drive down with my ice gear fresh from … Read More