Transient Connections

I spent the weekend part inside the future of my past. The Pacific Northwest was my first landscape of adulthood—it was where I learned how to be an independent woman and climber set free by the snowy peaks and the soft earth. Back in the beginning, I lived in Bellingham, WA. I came out there in 1996—a time in my … Read More

Inside the Wheels

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

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

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

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

The Great Divide: Whipped Installment

THE GREAT DIVIDE: THE GOOD, THE BAD, and THE UGLY OF CLIMBING COUPLEDOM (Part of an on-going series on my blog of posts from my column Whipped, for Climbing Magazine. December, 2006 Installment.) Download PDF   I just want a boyfriend who climbs … I just want a woman who will go to Yosemite with me … I want a man/woman/dog … Read More

Appalachia Merge

Travel has a way of smashing your life together and making you earn the fall-out. I’m on a plane, again—this time from the southeast to home. I’m back on tour and just spoke, got sandbagged, and took a flu shot to the left shoulder all in three days in North Carolina. I like the southeast. The air feels good, the … Read More

Expando-Crag: Whipped Insallment

EXPANDO-CRAG: MAXIMIZING YOUR CLIMBING SPACE, POLISH-STYLE (Part of an on-going series on my blog of posts from my column Whipped, for Climbing Magazine. September, 2006 Installment.) Download PDF The Poles, long known for making do in the face of social, political, and economic hardship, have also always applied the same perseverance to sport. Consider the recent introduction of the bicycle with … Read More