The list of climbers I've met, either for climbing or for coffee, who started out as Internet friends is long and growing. Honestly — it's become too long to tell each story (much to my surprise). Each meeting has been warm and easy — not at all like meeting a stranger. By the time I meet folks in person, we've chatted via Twitter or exchanged blog comments, then usually emailed and sometimes chatted logistics by phone. The standard greeting is a hug, and then we're off and running, talking climbing, business and life, with the ease and comfort of old friends.

My recent trip to Denver was a huge treat. I stayed with Erika — a Twitter BFF and bad ass ice and rock climber girl and my humor hero. I met the aforementioned herd of Boulder friends for our climbing day — every single person who RSVP'd showed up. After getting ourselves organized, Tyson stepped up to lead us up to our chosen destination, the Avalon area. We had a fantastic climbing day — full of fun, laughter, safe climbing, pushing limits, and supportive, encouraging talk amongst ourselves — whether climbing 5.9 or 5.12. The day wasn't nearly long enough, but it was one of my most positive, most fun climbing days I can remember, and I'm excited to have more like that. The next night, we all got together with even more climbing friends from Twitter, for beers at the Southern Sun in Boulder. There simply wasn't enough time to meet and climb with everyone I wanted to meet and climb with, and it truly was the type of trip where there were open arms and doors everywhere I went, whether I needed a sofa, a meal, a shower, a belay, or just company.

Climbing trips with partners I'm not acquainted with in real life are planned carefully, so that we can suss each other out at the crag before undertaking any huge objectives, but so far, I've had great experiences with competent climbing partners who've exceeded my expectations in terms of safety and skill. Climbing with less-known partners has made me more self-sufficient, and more confident in my own skill, since I can't just rely on the known skills and experience of my existing "real life" partners.

In the last few months, I've met more climbing friends, including the Aussies from the fantastic, up and coming ClimbFind.com website; Jamie Clarke, a Calgary-based mountaineer who's helped inspire my alpine aspirations; and Duffy who found himself surrounded by my entire climbing posse (or rather, my girl Candace's #belaymonkeyharem, in her Twitter parlance) for dinner after climbing with us at our local gym, only to give me one of the best email pep talks I've ever received the next day when my work day was a bit down.

I plan to meet many more climbing friends at the Outdoor Retailer show next week in Salt Lake City, as well as here and afar in the next few months. Of course, I prioritize spending time with my "real life" friends and climbing partners, but the climbing relationships I've built via social networking are also invaluable — especially when those "Internet friends" make the leap to "real life friends."