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by Pat Ament (note the full version of this piece was published in Volume 17, which is now available in print.) Banner photo by the author. Ascetic solitude is difficult. You withdraw from the world to get a clearer glimpse of who you are, what you are doing, and where life is taking you. The… https://climbingzine.com/chuck-pratt-liquid-sunshine-by-pat-ament-part-1/

Me and my higher self, We often would speak Somehow we lost the connection, Might meet at Joshua Tree —Nas, “Nobody”   Banner photo of Hobo Greg by Emmie Snead   My greatest fear as a climber is becoming crusty. Not the good kind of crusty but the bad kind of crusty. The crust that… https://climbingzine.com/the-art-of-being-crusty-by-luke-mehall/

Don’t you put any more stress on yourself It’s one day at a time —Mac Miller, “Circles” Part of me always thought I’d die young. I had this feeling even before I was a climber, long before I took the risks with our lives that we climbers take. It was probably related to the depression… https://climbingzine.com/the-dirtbags-arent-dead-theyre-just-in-mexico-by-luke-mehall-an-excerpt-from-volume-25/

This story starts and ends with a chicken. On a bright morning in a high valley of the Hindu Kush, the doomed bird lay pinned atop a low stone wall that had been built by local goat herders. One sharp birdie eye looked up into the cloudless sky, the heavens a pale blue, the air… https://climbingzine.com/the-salajeet-collectors-by-amanda-forrest/

Over hundreds of thousands of years, water has trickled, raged, and poured down cracks and creases, winding and weaving through rock rugosities, and worn paths through weaknesses to form (what is now known as) Canyonlands. by Pete Whittaker note: this piece appears in The Climbing Zine Book 2, now available After another trip there this… https://climbingzine.com/monster-cracks-by-pete-whittaker/

Dear Kurt,  This is a letter I don’t want to write. Writing is often difficult to get started, but this one is nearly impossible because you are gone, at least in the physical.  It was in the evening of my birthday when I learned that you were presumed dead on Mt. Cook in New Zealand. … https://climbingzine.com/a-letter-to-kurt-blair-by-luke-mehall/

My college years in The Desert were adventurous and crazy, a complete immersion in the unknown. After I graduated, I began to roam from climbing area to climbing area, and The Desert seemed like just another destination on the circuit. It was in that era that the inevitable plateau began for me on that Colorado… https://climbingzine.com/powders-of-persuasion-by-luke-mehall/

I’m here writing this morning because it’s my birthday. For many years, starting in my late 20s, I used to write every morning when I wasn’t out climbing.  That practice came out of the general writing advice that if you want to be a writer, you should write every day. But climbers, well, we’re different.… https://climbingzine.com/we-did-it-the-zine-is-alive-and-other-musings-on-my-46th-birthday-by-luke-mehall/

Note: this poem is published in Volume 25. Photo of Anna climbing “Peace” in Tuolumne Meadows, California by Mary Eden.  Climbing draws us to these moments. Where flowing water harmonizes with every exhale; Where bare toes find solace in mud And bare skin befriends sunlight’s golden rays. Where our wild hearts stir with blooming friendships… https://climbingzine.com/peace-by-anna-hazlett-a-poem/

I. Trapped Kaiser Santa Clara Hospital, June 2018 The haul bag sits, a stuffed pig in the trunk. Cams, nuts, and two foil-wrapped burritos vibrate with expectant energy. But the car is parked in the red haze of the emergency room parking lot sign, and it won’t be going anywhere tonight. Inside the hospital, her… https://climbingzine.com/elegant-and-brutal-by-cristina-marcalow/

No place soaks up sun like the Johnny Cat enclave at the Cat Wall, Indian Creek. The maroon cliffs are striped with perfect cleaved fissures, like vertical gateways into a hidden world. The desert heat can be oppressive, but in late autumn, the low golden rays cast long shadows over the walls. by Luke Mehall… https://climbingzine.com/creeksgiving-luke-mehall/

How did I end up becoming an off-width climber?  I used to absolutely hate off-widths—mostly because I didn’t like the way it felt thrashing blindly inside of them. It hurt. It felt unpleasant. And I never had enough wide gear. The whole endeavor felt like a waste of time.  My first visit to the off-width… https://climbingzine.com/the-wide-tour-by-mary-eden-an-excerpt-from-volume-25/

I started this painting over a year ago after seeing a beautiful sunrise over the North Six-Shooter. It was a quiet morning at camp as folks roused from tents and vehicles, sand lodged in their eyes and deep under their fingernails. I started hot water for coffee, let Izzy, my dog, out of the van,… https://climbingzine.com/message-board-magic-by-molly-malone/

This month, Peter W Gilroy announced that he will no longer be making his classic hats, and we realized we’ve got a small stash of his classic “dirtbag state of mind” beanies. Score one at the link below! Hats https://climbingzine.com/closeout-of-the-peter-w-gilroy-dirtbag-state-of-mind-beanie/

All Zine Shirts and Tanks Are On Sale For $25 SHOP HERE SHOP HERE All Zine Shirts and Tanks Are On Sale For $25 https://climbingzine.com/all-zine-shirts-and-tanks-are-on-sale-for-25/

In the late 1300s, experts point to drought and other environmental stressors impacting the Puebloan people in the Southwest leading toward societal collapse. My people, the Diné, the Athabaskan-speaking migrants from the north, also began to place pressures on these societies. Resources like food and water became increasingly scarce, and preventing theft or raids by… https://climbingzine.com/yucca-ropes-the-diy-ancestral-puebloan-static-line-by-len-necefer/

I started listening to the Grateful Dead a week before Jerry Garcia died. The year was 1995 and it happened as it always happened then: a friend played me some Dead tunes, and then I made a tape recording of the ones I liked.  I played Uncle John’s Band, over and over again, entranced by… https://climbingzine.com/unbroken-chain-a-letter-for-phil-lesh-by-luke-mehall/

In the rich caravan of climbers whom we meet at the crags, people come and go. Some, like the flowing of mountain streams, make a daily ritual of their appearance on the stone. Others show up every weekend, while outliers make the scene only once a month, or less. Climbers who’ve shared the bonds of… https://climbingzine.com/rays-red-truck-by-roy-mcclenahan/

“I climb my best 4,000 feet off the ground” – Alex Honnold. Luke Mehall + Alex Honnold in dirtbag state of mind. https://climbingzine.com/untroubled-with-alex-honnold/

open jug filled by authentic rubber and stretched leather laces of Velcro rooted in gravity toward the edge of rock then toward inverted air the body of a bat hangs weightless cemented in time where wingspan takes flight, autopilot into nocturnal sleep for seconds as blood rushes to the start of a dream and your… https://climbingzine.com/bat-hang-a-poem-by-lex-abbruscato/