Lesson 4: Proper Practice for Climbers Part 1 By Mark Anderson Now that we understand that we all possess tremendous untapped climbing potential, just waiting to be exploited, how can climbers specifically go about unlocking that potential? Ericsson’s work in Peak not only provides tremendous inspiration, but also general frameworks for improvement that can be…
By Mark Anderson The alarm sounds. I scramble to shut it off before I wake the kids. I grab my bolt kit and slink out of the house into the eerie darkness. After 45 minutes of driving I shoulder my bulging Crag Pack and trudge through the brush. My knees aren’t what they once were,…
By Mark Anderson Once I finished up the Switchblade projects, the next objective on my list was a massive fin of granite called “Sidewalk in the Sky.” This formation is about 100 meters wide, and rises a good 70 meters from the ground. It peters at the summit to a narrow strip of dizzying granite,…
By Mark Anderson In 2015 I crossed paths with prolific route-developer Tod Anderson (no relation). Tod has been a major player in Front Range route development for decades, but he is probably best known as the Devil’s Head crag patron—discovering countless crags, opening hundreds of routes, establishing positive relationships with land managers, replacing old hardware,…
By Mark Anderson For our last climbing day of the trip, we chose the region around the village of Boragni. This area has a wide selection of crags within a small area, and also seemed to offer some of the best tufa climbing in Finale. It also offered another spelunking adventure for the kids, with…
By Mark Anderson Venasque is a little known crag outside the village of the same name, about an hour south of Buis. We first went there on one of my rest days, to give Kate a chance to climb some of the highly recommended 5.10s and 11s. Kate really enjoyed the climbing, and it looked…
by Mark Anderson A few years ago Steve Bechtel gave me an article called “40 Years of Insight” by strength Coach Dan John. The article is a list of 40 lessons Dan learned in his 40 years of coaching strength athletes. I liked it so much, I keep it on my nightstand and re-read it…
By Mark Anderson With the winter weather finally arriving in Colorado, I headed south to Shelf Road to wrap up a few projects I had bolted several years ago but (almost) forgotten about. Shelf is a really important crag to me. While I had done the odd First Ascent before I started climbing regularly at…
By Mark Anderson This is the second installment in a 4-part series. The first installment can be found here. By the end of the Fall 2015 climbing season, I was consistently 2-hanging the route, and while my hang points were converging, the rate of improvement was glacial. Clearly I needed to reach another plane of…
by Mark Anderson Fall 2016 probably would have won the title “Best Season Ever” even if it ended after the third day (the day I finished off my year-long bout with Shadowboxing). After that send I spent a night celebrating, which for me entails eating a bunch of food I normally wouldn’t, in this case a greasy…
The Rock Climber's Training Manual 