Humor

"If I know anything about fashion, which I don’t, it’s that it's a cycle. Let us thus peruse climbing's long and ugly fashion journey.

Climbers possess a handful of traits that are potentially attractive to your business

Hit a plateau? There’s no need to switch up your training routine, nor incorporate hangboarding. All you have to do to boost your climbing grade is relocate. To the Midwest.

Sometimes the hardest part of climbing is not climbing.

The route is all but in the bag, just as soon as everything starts going my way.

"Showed up in a swami belt, refused to use a belay device, and made fun of my figure-eight knot. One star."

If you’re an aspiring trad leader, this document will provide you with more bad advice than you can shake a rack of hexes at.

The author was mean to his body in the worst ways. But is he really sorry?

The world’s highest tattoo parlor just opened up at everyone’s favorite climbing destination.

Gotta collect 'em all.

I’d like to propose the following DIY tools for staying fit. By embracing the current hipster ethos of artisanal, hand-built, small-batch wares, we can still stay fit easily and with very little cash outlay.

Climbing is supposedly about soul, but nothing beats beating everyone at their own game, and that's why we invented style.

And how to combat this noxious trend of empty-and-meaningless humblebrag effluvia...

Check out Kevin Corrigan's author page.

An eight-part questionnaire

"Maybe this is shallow, but you’ve let yourself go. When we first met, you were hangboarding three days a week. These days you’re lucky to get in the gym one day"

Brace yourself for the half-mad rantings of the world’s saltiest, crustiest, least-patient-ever climbing partner.

Sendhaus™ is the premier facility for affluent millenials that heard rock climbing was a great workout.

Was it a freak almost-accident? A parable about life and fate? Both?

First ascentionists just want affirmation, for you to pat them on the back and tell them that their pile of a route is "great." Here's how to get that love.

Check out Kevin Corrigan's author page.

"Notice I didn’t mention aesthetics. I’m not climbing a painting. The only aesthetics I worry about are the graphs of my sends on 8a.nu and the topography of my chiseled back muscles."

"I used to be a bit of a rock climber myself. Now I haven't so much as touched a hold in—gosh, how long has it been?—four or five weeks."

'Fall' is an edge-of-your-seat ride of whompers, pröösiks, hand-wenching, vulture attacks, free-fall and free-ball rappels, one-armed max hangs, and finally, an epic trundle for the ages. Four stars.

Kelly, a non-climber who got dragged to the crag by her obsessive-climber boyfriend, faces off against him.

Trigger Warning, dear reader: the following is a humor piece on everyone's favorite topic—chipping. 

Climbing is hard and so is training. Here's how to exert minimal effort and still succeed.

For sale: Offwidth rack, used once.

A lot of people love ice climbing. This one is for those of you that don't, but go anyway.

Climbing training is hard and boring, and often requires expensive, specialized equipment. Here's how to get more swole for less work and even less money.

An ode to the routes that got away—and what they can teach us if we let them.

I asked the old man for advice, and he came through with five tried and true panaceas.

Any time spent helping your partner achieve his goals is time not crushing your projects.

Not to be confused with the Dawn Wall—a 5.14d on El Capitan—#Dawnwall is actually something less quantifiable and slightly more perplexing for climbers.

Us 9-5ers want to climb 5.16, but we don’t have the time to get there because of our jobs. Well, let me let you in on a little secret: You can train for climbing all day every day with these simple exercises.

Dressing up as a climber doesn’t have to be as bland as throwing on a harness and coiling a rope over your shoulder.

These are the kinds of excellent excuses we’d make if we were really being honest about our climbing performance.

Hold on, I know what you’re thinking! Celibacy solves nothing. But here's where you're wrong.

An ice climber, a trad climber, a boulderer, and a sport climbing visit a fortune teller and learn their fates.

Follow these five simple, experience-driven not-training tips and in just six weeks you will be no better of a climber than you are today—and possibly worse.

Everyone’s a critic.

If you don't onsight 5.14, but instead toil like the lowest of serfs on routes of lesser grades, read on. I can give you the psychological edge to succeed.

Sick of being the weakling and the buffoon? Forget excuses. “Discrete tension,” aka DT, can earn you credit for routes significantly harder than you actually redpoint.

I thought about it for .0000004 seconds and realized the opportunity was just too good to pass up.

Oh, your Tinder date climbed the world’s highest peak? I’m unimpressed.

Climbers always think they're injured. They're not injured, they just climb too much! But when it comes to something as urgent as our own performance, climbers will tell themselves anything but the truth.

Most climbing clinics have boring agendas of played-out rope skills. Here are the clinics we actually need.

If you observe any of these symptoms in your friends or in yourself, don’t delay. Consult your crag doctor as soon as possible. Together, we can beat common climbing diseases.

It is time to make up new tropes if the sport is to actually progress. Or, leave it for the next generation?

Climbing is full of flying toenails, smelly shoes, gross-spider scares, people pooping off portaledges, and—the cherry on top—the shame of not sending.

Many climbers settle into a niche discipline in the vast expanse of the climbing universe. Some—for better or worse—get so stuck at their grade that their personalities begin to mimic the rocks and routes they choose to climb. 

The crags are getting busy. If you want to send, you’ll need to set up camp. Here’s how.

Turns out, it's pretty easy to make a mistake you know better than to make—but pretty hard to admit having done so.

And the secret to living with a serious climber is.... don't take it too seriously.

Rock climbing is hard. If you're tired of toughing it out in the great outdoors, here is how to acclimate to gym life.

All the things you absolutely should not say in response to the question “What is that thing on your back?”

All the things all your non-climbing friends and family have ever said to you. Enjoy!

Jackson Smith, a 33-year-old climber, has clipped the chains on his 5.11d project that he’s been telling everyone at the gym about for the past three months.

The fine art of sending your dream routes without really trying.

While it certainly helps to climb 5.15, you don’t actually have to.

Whether you’re a climber from Southern California or from Northern Vietnam, these will probably be familiar, and they probably changed the way you do business.

Sandbag: (noun) A route of substantially elevated difficulty in comparison to others of the same grade. (verb) To suggest a route of such character to a friend.

Just a few of the partner-wanted ads you'll likely see at your local gym.

Check out Owen Clarke's author page.

Knee pads, better shoes, better chalk, internet beta, and other reasons you might be tempted to downgrade a climb.

Climbers and gamers share a lot of the same qualities: obsessiveness, dedication, hours spent avoiding real life, a propensity for tantrums and unnecessary insults, poor social skills… Which got me to thinking: Why don’t climbers import gaming terms into our lingo, to freshen up our slang?

Tired of bickering over climbing grades? Then check out this new, streamlined rating system.

Paddle dynos, white claws, and a slew of LET'S GO!!!'s. The next generation of climbers is ruining the culture.

Seasoned climbing gym managers reveal ways out of the dreaded belay test.

Clipping bolts back when ground up was the only way to climb almost felt illegal, immoral even, but even a diehard tradster and Stonemaster like John Long could see the light.

Check out Esq.'s author page.

A masterclass in why you should rehearse your topouts

It's too beautiful. It's not crowded enough. You're better off at your local gym.

Check out Kevin Corrigan's author page.

Check out James Lucas's author page.

Where is trad climbing in World Cups? Where are the alpine and mountaineering aspects? Comp formats need to change, obviously.

Check out Rex Dangerman's author page.

Check out Climbing Staff's author page.

Check out Kevin Corrigan's author page.

Check out Kevin Corrigan's author page.