By Mark Anderson Lesson 5: Proper Practice for Climbers Part 2 If you’ve made it this far, pat yourself on the back! Few have the perseverance to suffer through my pedantic rambling for even one post, let alone 4! If this is your first lesson you can find Lesson 1 here. In Lesson 4, we…
By Mark Anderson Lesson 2: (Almost) Anyone Can Become an Expert Climber When we ended Lesson 1, we were pondering the main theme of Anders Ericsson’s excellent new book Peak: There are no limits*, it’s never too late to start*; You can be anything you want to be* (with the right kind of practice) Ericsson…
By Mark Anderson Last year I stumbled upon a rad little north-facing cliff I’m calling the Gaudi Wall (for famed Spanish architect Antoni Gaudi). In fact the wall is not exactly “little”, with pitches up to 38 meters. The rock is super high-quality Gneiss–I would argue some of the best in Colorado. I put in about 20 routes…
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 Over the winter I bolted three routes on the steep visor that sits high above the “Catslab” in upper Clear Creek. This feature looks like a roof from the ground, but it’s more like a convex bulge, gradually sweeping from about 60-degrees overhanging at the base up to ~30 degrees at the…
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 This is the third installment in a multi-part series about my training for Shadowboxing. For the first installment click here. For the second installment click here. Visualization is an important part of any hard ascent, but the picture in our mind is often overly idealized. We imagine everything going flawlessly—executing the sequence…
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…
by Mark Anderson This is the first in a multi-part series about how I prepared and trained for my ascent of Shadowboxing in Rifle Colorado. For background on the route and details of my ascent, please read here. The decision to embark on a multi-season redpoint campaign should not be taken lightly. It’s a huge…
The Rock Climber's Training Manual 