The Way Up

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I Surrender

I surrender. I surrender to the weight of the world; To the human spirit And the things that electrify me with life. I surrender. I surrender to myself. I give myself permission To explore the boundaries of my own humanity; To fall in love with stillness And light And being. I surrender! To the unknown Without fear of being broken or lost; With the love of risk and adventure in my heart And a willingness to open myself up To the possibility of finding my truest self. I surrender to awareness That, like the sea, We are fluid beings, Navigating the waters of uncertainty, Yearning to reach an endless shore.

The Truth About Why I Haven't Been Climbing (As Much)

This time last year I was going through what I now consider to be an awakening. At the time I felt like my entire world was falling apart. I was in a relationship that was slowly failing. I had become co-dependent on my partner and embraced his definition of my identity more than my own. I cried almost every day, multiple times a day, usually in my car in a random parking lot so nobody I knew would see me, and sometimes I wasn't even sure why. I felt alone, like I was on a vast island, despite the fact that I live in one of the largest cities in the world. I stopped hanging out with my friends and family. I stopped writing. And then, slowly over time, I stopped climbing. Not entirely, but my trips to the gym were so infrequent that people were surprised to see me when I walked in. I wasn't motivated to do any of the things that I loved. This was a tragedy for me. It wasn't the first time I'd experienced some form of depression, but it certainly had a more paralyzing i

Conquering Bishop's Highballs: Part 1

"Being brave doesn’t mean you aren’t afraid—in fact, the opposite is true. Courage without thought or meaning is simply recklessness. Brave people aren’t fearless; they’ve simply found something that matters more to them than fear." - Jeff Haden, Inc. Magazine Giovanni Traversi, 40ft. off the deck on Ambrosia V11. Photo by Dusty Glasner . Before we get started, I'd like to thank Forrest Sheldon for inspiring me to write this article :) I've never really had the best mental game for highballs. Some people might think that's a funny statement considering I spend most of my time climbing in the Buttermilks, but it's true - it takes me a long time to work up the courage to climb tall, challenging lines. There's this period of acclimatization to the highball environment that I have to go through to prepare both physically and mentally for a climb, and I think that's true for a lot of people. Before sending The Process (V16) Daniel Woods spent d

Stop Saying Everything is "Soft": Why Your Strengths Matter

This post is going to contain a little bit of a rant, so bear with me... I've noticed a trend in the last few weeks both outside and inside the climbing gym where I've heard almost every climb called "soft." I'm not saying that calling climbs "soft" is new, but for some reason it's become more frequent/noticeable and to be quite frank, it's been bothering me. And it's frustrating that I'm bothered by this, because I don't want to feel the need to question whether I'm actually getting stronger as a climber or not based on someone else saying that a climb is "soft" or "stout." But perhaps those are my insecurities speaking, and that's a discussion for another day... Now sure, some climbs are actually soft for the grade they've been given, but in my opinion there are a lot of climbs that are not "soft" but that instead play to the strengths of the climber that's calling them "soft.&

Sendage, Current Goals, and the Start of Buttermilk Season

For the crew I climb with, the start of October officially equals the start of climbing season in the Buttermilks. Come rain or shine, we'll make the trek to Bishop every weekend, wake up to the sweet smell of Black Sheep coffee , rub the bleariness from our eyes, and crush some absolutely stunning boulder problems (see Fig. 1). As you can probably guess, this season has been no exception, and Friday marked the first official day of the season for yours truly. Fig 1. Greg Horvath climbing on the back of the Grandpa Peabody. Photo by The Burrow Files . I hope they don't mind me using their lovely image. As with most seasons, there's always an acclimatization period during which you can't climb for shit because you've been lugging yourself around on plastic all summer, and during which you absolutely beat the fuck out of your fingers - and really everything else on your body. And while in many ways the start of this season was no exception (60% of my finger

What Climbing Has Given Me

"Why do you climb?" The age old question, and one that most climbers I know struggle to give a simple answer to. I've had many a philosophical conversation around the campfire trying to formulate an easy answer to this question, but it usually comes out as an ethereal, jumbled mixture of personal goals and reflections, and we don't end up answering the question at all. The fact of the matter is that there is no simple answer - climbing has a far greater bearing on our lives and on the way we perceive the world than most of us are willing to admit or are able to explain. It is my personal belief that we don't fall in love with climbing just because it's fun, or because it helps us to set personal goals, or because it keeps us in shape, although all of those things factor into why we started to climb and why we continue to do so, but that we climb because of what it gives to us and because of what it teaches us about ourselves and about the world around us.