Cragsters: Meet the Hog Hauler

Presenting Cragsters, a series of illustrations and descriptions by Adam Nawrot of climber-types. Cut ’em out, collect ’em, laugh, cry, or rage—just remember, don’t judge, because we’ve all been one type of Cragster or another.

Armed with an iron skirt of doodle-dads, billabongs, husker-dos, and husker-don’ts, the Hog Hauler finds solace in geeking out with his metal doohickeys to ascend inches at a time on big walls, proof that given enough tools and patience, you can climb anything. This masochist loves all rock types, from Yosemite’s fine-grained granite to the Fisher Towers’ caked-mud sandcastles. By painstakingly body-weighting individual placements, he can carry bags of his own poop up some of the most exposed cliffs on Earth. It’s worth noting that the last thing to move so slowly across these spectacular rock faces was the glaciers that created them.

Dreams of:

• A 2,000-liter haulbag
• A poop tube that doubles as a pillow
• Thicker kneepads
• Top-stepping
• An 18:1 hauling setup

Stomping Grounds:

• Zion National Park, Utah
• Colorado Plateau
• Baffin Island
• Yosemite Valley, California
• Your local cliff, practicing big-wall logistics on a free-climbing trade route on a busy weekend

Lingo:

• Pig
• Poop tube
• Portaledge
• Jugging
• Hooks
• Bolt ladder
• Pin scar
• Bongs
• Pulley system
• King Cobra
• Bounce test
• “Free climbing is neither”

More Cragsters

• The Offwidthionado
• The Pebble Wrestler
• The Crag Royal
• The High Roller
• The Gumby
• The Trad Dad
• The Purist