I’m traveling again. Back on planes, pilfering free internet from sidewalk coffee shops, and cutting the top off my travel face moisturizer to eek out the last of the goodness. After eighteen nights in my own bed it’s time to leave and check out the mattresses of the eastern seaboard. It’s time to put on my game face, the one … Read More
Finding Your Better Half: Whipped Installment
This week I am going to start doing something different and introduce back installments of my column Whipped. I hope to alternate between column installments and other comments. View Online | Download PDF Finding Your Better Half : The search for the perfect (rope) mate (Part of an on-going series on my blog of posts from my column Whipped, for Climbing Magazine. … Read More
Reunited
I never went to my college graduation. I got out of Jersey as fast as I could back then, got out and went west to where my new life was waiting for me with all of the mountains and rock faces and sage brushes I could find. I skipped out of the east a full month before I was supposed … Read More
Available at an Ethiopian Bookstore Near You—Vertical Ethiopia, and a Porsche.
I got an email from a friend last week who lives in Addis Ababa. “Saw your book at the Hilton,” she wrote, “next to Time magazine’s Africa Edition. Does this mean you’ve finally arrived?” Nope. But my book has. After almost three months, Vertical Ethiopia finally landed in Addis for distribution. The first print run happened all at the same … Read More
Consistent Humbling
I did my first lead climbs at the Gunks, in New York. Back then I was feisty, eager, and adamant that I could pull anything off. After my first lead tying off trees for pro, I decided I was ready for more, hopped on a climb, placed two pieces, and took one of the biggest whippers of my life. On … Read More
Context
I’m home in Boulder for the next five days, three days longer than I have been in town for three months. I’ve been looking forward to this week for a long time, but when I drove into town last night I felt empty instead of relived. I’ve become addicted to the road. The travel creates a sense importance. Ineed to be … Read More
Nobody told me when I would need the Marshmallow Shooter
When I was in sixth grade, I thought being an adult meant you were done. Done with anything tough or complex in friendship, life, love—any of it. My best friend had recently been stolen by an evil girl, the boy I had been going with moved to another school and seemed to have lost my number, and I suddenly sucked … Read More
The Weight of Your World
I got married young. Back then, I would have never admitted I was young—back then I was 21 and had it figured out. Back then is nothing like now. Now it’s ten years later, I’m single, I’m dating, I’m changing my career, and nothing is figured out. Does anyone have it figured out? The driving conversation we all seem to … Read More
Community Riff
I’m in Miami. South Beach, to be exact. I saw more mini-dresses, three hundred dollar flip flops, and oversized sunglasses in one hour last night than I have in the past year. This morning I sat overlooking an aqua pool encased in glass so that it runs over into the ocean, almost. It was breakfast. For sixty dollars. When the … Read More
Free Time
I’m in Bishop, California. Yesterday, I woke up at 6:30, made breakfast in my van, worked on my computer for two hours, and then went climbing. I came back by 4:00 for more work. My hands were covered in dust from the Owen’s River Gorge and I clanged away at my keyboard regardless. At 6:20 I set my computer to … Read More