Rock Climbers

Climbing magazine's in-depth profiles and interviews reveal the stories behind rock climbing's most intriguing people: the stars of the sport and the lesser-known local heroes. We ask rock climbers how they got started, what motivates them, and how they get better and stronger.
  • Vet-Ex-Featured-660

    Invisible Wounds

    Hours before sunup, we click on our headlamps and follow the blue-hued cones of light on the first steps of what will surely be a very long day. We’re embarking on a 20-mile traverse of the Mummy Range in Rocky Mountain National Park, over the course of which we’ll summit seven peaks over 13,000 feet. For the first half hour or so, our crew of eight military veterans doesn’t say a word—the only sounds are gravelly footfalls and varied degrees of labored breathing in the thin alpine air.

  • Cedar-Wright-Gravity-Ceiling-158

    Rock Therapy

    The rope arches in an unbroken loop from me to Lucho, 30 feet above. “At least there’s no rope drag,” I quip, trying to make light of his predicament. We are six pitches up the South Dragon’s Horn on Tioman Island, off the coast of Malaysia, living proof that climbing can go from fun to fubar in a microsecond.

  • S'more Energy (5.11c), Endless Wall, New River Gorge

    Red River Gorge vs. New River Gorge

    When the Red River Gorge and New River Gorge rivalry threatened to boil over, there was only one place to settle it: on the basketball court. - Huge spotlights suddenly lit up the small community basketball court in Lansing, West Virginia, near the rim of the New River Gorge. Lights, really? Who rigged those?

  • Stephanie Forte’s Story

    Every few years, Stephanie Forte, 44, whips herself into top shape and climbs a flurry of hard 5.13s. A New Jersey girl with a sharp wit, a publicist's poise, and fierce athleticism on the rock, Forte has written for Climbing many times and has had her hands on all kinds of climbing-related events and causes.

  • Survivors - Enduring Desperate Situations

    Survivors – Enduring Desperate Situations

    We surveyed readers and more than a dozen climbing historians and writers in North America and Europe to collect 25 stories of stamina, ingenuity, and human will, some well-known, others not. Our hope is to remind readers to take care and prevent accidents--to"do nothing in haste, look well to each step," as Whymper famously said after the Matterhorn tragedy.

  • Staying Alive

    Staying Alive

    Survival tips from climbing rangers - Nobody expects to be loaded onto a litter and evacuated off his first big wall. Or stuck in a snow cave, out of food and fuel, hypothermic, and praying that a storm will quit and someone will find him. Yet it happens, every year, and not just to newbies. Climbers make mistakes, or get unlucky, and rescue rangers drop from the sky and save our asses.

  • Half-Life

    Half Life: Chris Sharma Turns 30

    Sharma has delivered everything that "the next generation" is supposed to in rock climbing. He has been setting new standards for 15 years--half his life. And now, on April 23, he turns 30.

  • AMPED: The climbs back home for three veterans

    AMPED: The climbs back home for three veterans

    Three wounded Iraq War Veterans recount their near-death stories and triumphant climbs back home.

  • 21 Questions with Boone Speed

    21 Questions with Boone Speed

    Portland Oregon Based pro-photographer, father and 5.14+ climber, Boone Speed recently had his work showcased on the highly acclaimed and widely respected Feature Shoot website "featuring" photos and interviews with both up-and-coming and established photographers.

  • The Guidebook Odyssey - Unearthing the epic task of writing a guidebook

    The Guidebook Odyssey – Unearthing the epic task of writing a guidebook

    Never a fan of guidebooks, I’ve long had a “just pick a route that looks good and climb“ mentality. “It’s supposed to be an adventure!“ I’d tell myself. Until one fateful day at Colorado‘s Eldorado Canyon.

  • Steve McClure’s New 5.15a

    On May 20, 2008, Steve McClure, 37, freed his super-sustained 100-foot crimpfest project on the North Buttress at Kilnsey Crag, in Yorkshire, U.K., on his second redpoint attempt. Climbing interviewed McClure about the route, his training, and other climbs.

  • Stone Monkeys: Visions of the Modern-age Stonemasters

    Stone Monkeys: Visions of the Modern-age Stonemasters

    By Cedar Wright - Photos by Dean Fidelman - The Stone Monkeys are a slightly more inclusive, modern-day equivalent of the “Stonemasters,” the amorphous band of Valley hardmen who pushed the limits of climbing in the 1970s and ‘80s. However, to be a Stone Monkey, you don’t have to climb hard or be famous (though quite a few Monkeys fit this bill).