I will be presenting a slide show at Bent Gate Mountaineering’s Community Night on Wednesday, May 14th. Festivities run from 6:00-8:30pm. Here’s a Google Map of the location. I’ll be talking about how I evolved from a novice climber to my current level, and key ascents that inspired me to improve along the way. In particular…
Happy Cinco de Mayo friends! Today is an important day for The Rock Climber’s Training Manual, the 37th anniversary of the authors’ birth. To commemorate the occasion, here is the first in a new “Flashback Series” of tales of past adventures. The below story was selected because it has a strong “twin” theme that we…
Last spring I climbed Mission Overdrive in Clear Creek Canyon, a linkup that begins up Daniel Woods’ 5.14c(/d?) test-piece Mission Impossible, and then traverses right at mid-height to catch the upper half crux of the canyon’s mega-classic 5.13d Interstellar Overdrive. At the time I was curious to investigate the complete Mission Impossible, but the remainder of…
As promised, here is some hangboard resistance data from my recently concluded Strength Phase. This was my first full phase using the Rock Prodigy Training Center. I thought it would take a while to get the loads dialed in correctly but I was able to get pretty close to the right resistance during the first…
The inaugural Shelf Road Anchor Replacement Weekend was a big hit. We had a lot of volunteers and a lot of fun. We replaced tons of mank hardware at The Bank and Cactus Cliff, and built a fence at the Bank Campground for the BLM. Anything we can do to maintain positive relations with landmanagers like…
The Rock Climber’s Training Manual has been sent to the printer! That means as far as my contributions are concerned, the book is “done”. According to the guys at Fixed Pin, it normally takes about 3 months from the time the book is submitted to the printer until it arrives on bookshelves. Once the printer…
Performance rock climbing is all about strength-to-weight ratio. We tend to fixate on the “strength” side while ignoring the “weight”. Perhaps because the strength side of the equation seems actionable, and the weight side is all about restraint. The reality is that losing weight is probably the easiest thing a climber can do to improve. …
When I started climbing, I was pretty much a regular bumbly. I went through season after season of little to no improvement, without really understanding why. Every time I flirted with a breakthrough I wound up injured and right back where I started. I assumed that all those people climbing 5.12 or harder were simply…
The Rock Climber's Training Manual 