5 Hills I Am Willing to Die On

Before I fell in love with my wife, I thought it was okay, noble even, if I died while rock climbing. At least that's what I thought when climbers and alpinists I admired lost their lives in the mountains. "They died doing something they loved," or some nonsense like that. Nowadays, I'd really rather not die doing something so silly. And rock climbing is silly. There are, however, still some hills I am willing to die on.

Though technically a mountain, Lookout is not only a hill I am willing do die on, I'd actually prefer to die there. Not in a "my belayer and I miscommunicated about how I was going to lower from the top of a rock climb" kind of death. Lord, no. I'm thinking more of a, "I have one hour to live so I am going to the top of my favorite mountain in the world to say my final goodbyes" kind of way. Is that morbid? I don't think so. Spread my ashes from these sandstone cliffs, okay? (And pour some out at the Wacissa River back home). 

Don't tell my employer that the coach of their rock climbing team doesn't think so, but it's not. I mean, it definitely is. Rock climbing is in the olympics now. But it shouldn't be. Why? Because rock climbing, at its best, is a mystical union between human and stone; "the freedom of the hills," if you will. It is, at least, an act of rebellion, an eschewing of societal norms and constructs to retreat to the mountains or woods, doing something that has absolutely zero productive value. Grades and points and comps ruin all that. There's a reason John Sherman, who developed bouldering's V-Scale, later lamented grades as "the excrement of rock climbing." I want the kids on my team to fall in love with the activity and, more importantly, the outdoors. That's it. Seeing former students getting out there, sleeping in the dirt, eating Vienna sausages like a dirtbag, and sending the gnar, whatever "the gnar" is for them, is one of the things I'm most proud of. I don't care about winning competitions or "making the playoffs;" I've never even looked at our scores. Leave points and scores to the meat-headed, thick-necked jocks. Go rock climbing for the sake of climbing a rock. 

Relax, e-commuters. I'm talking about six-figure salaried, able-bodied goonies taking the easy way to the top of the MTB trails so they can blast back down. The only acceptable reason to ride an E-bike on trails is if you're eligible to receive Medicare and Social Security from the federal government. Otherwise, learn how to pedal uphill. Or get off and push it, like me. 

Refusing to leash your dog on public trails is anti-social behavior. You are a trail-runner. I am a mountain biker. It is our common interest to be outside. We are responsible to one another. That responsibility is our freedom. To avoid it is to lose our freedom. (Yes, I'm plagiarizing Ursula K. Le Guin's The Dispossessed.) We should build a giant crane big enough to hurl all the people who don't leash their dog into the ocean. Simple as that. Keep the dogs. Fling their owners into a deep watery grave. 

Politics and religion. The best burger in town. Hurling selfish dog owners into the sea. "I reserve the right to be wrong about everything." The highlight of my teaching career is a graduating student using this as her senior quote in the yearbook and attributing it to me (I heard it from Will D. Campbell). 

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The Future of Climbing

You've seen it. The local university outdoor club leaders going to bolt-to-bolt on the cliff's only moderate routes. The conga line of colorfully clothed gumbies waiting impatiently to top rope for the next several hours. The hammocks all flapping about like the sails of a hippie pirate ship. The "Mother of God! It's all toilet sounds!" music blasting from Bluetooth speakers. We've all seen it. Heard it. Heck, we've probably been a part of it. 

Last December, the Access Fund distributed an email with a picture of a similar scene at the Orange Oswald Wall near the New River Gorge. It asked, "Is this the future of climbing?" You probably remember the now-viral traffic jam of over 300 climbers on the Hillary Step of Mount Everest (if you don't, watch 14 Peaks on Netflix). Whether Ten Sleep, Wyoming, Sand Rock, Alabama, or the highest peak on earth, the problem of overcrowded crags isn't the future of climbing, it is the present reality. 

Climbing advocacy groups like the Access Fund and local climbing coalitions have two competing goals. On the one hand, they seek to increase access to an activity that is relatively exclusive. On the other, these groups seek to decrease the negative impact rock climbers have on the environment. These effects are infinitesimal compared to, say, a coal-fired powered plant but with rock climbing in the Olympics, Alex Honnold at the Oscars, and the proliferation of big business climbing gyms, more people are at the crag than ever before. The effects are noticeable. To be clear, I think these goals are inherently good. Diversity, inclusion, and the longevity of cliff base vegetation matter. But, like a good toprope anchor, these goals are opposite and opposed. It doesn't take a nihilistic alcoholic rocket scientist to know that more people climbing means more impact on the environment. Morty, meet pickle. 

It's a dilemma, but it isn't one without solutions, even if I personally do not know what those solutions are. Thankfully the fine people over on the Mountain Project forums do. 

Mountain Project posters with predictable profile pictures have taken it upon themselves to determine who does and does not have access to America's rock climbing, i.e., "gatekeeping." And it is almost always those who started climbing after the gatekeepers that do not deserve access. It's an ingenious idea that certainly would, if implemented, have positive results on our climbing areas. No new climbers! The implementation is the tricky part. Who's let in the gate? What year does one have to have started climbing? How established in the scene does one need to be? Are people who climb above a certain grade grandfathered in?  

Instead, I would like to propose an alternative to these Mountain Project posters, an alternative far easier to implement and far more effective for protecting wild spaces. Just stop climbing. Quit it. Walk out of that gate you made and leave it behind. I mean, when you took the photo of the overcrowded crag and complained about it at the bar later, were you not also there, crowding the crag? And when the boulder field parking lot was full, did you go somewhere else or did you park on the shoulder and work on your sick project anyway? It seems to me that the most responsible thing for a climber to do for the future of climbing is to quit climbing. 

There are so many other hobbies to choose from! Have you ever tried meditating? Trail running? Becoming a sommelier but instead of wine, you become an expert in Danimals® Kids Yogurt & Smoothies? Other such "hobbies" may include but are not limited to...

• reading
• baking
• knitting
• competitive duck herding
• watching Lord of the Rings: Return of the King 362 times
• Magic the Gathering
• open water swimming
• semi-professional stone skipping
• weightlifting
• staying more hydrated
• hog calling
• LARPing 
• bird watching
• mowing the yard with a pair of fingernail clippers

Each is as arbitrary and momentarily rewarding as on-sighting 5.12 or finally sending your boulder project. These hobbies are less time-consuming than volunteering with a local climbing coalition to conserve wildlife or working with land managers to preserve access. And each is far easier than mentoring a new climber in the ways of Leave No Trace principles, crag etiquette, and safe climbing practices. Ugh, creating an actual sustainable future for rock climbing is so much work! 

Protect America's climbing. Stop climbing and start being a Danimals® sommelier. 

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United States of Apocalypse

Rising emissions, rising temperatures, rising sea levels; if more is a good thing, then you could say we’re killing it. USA #1! Maybe it’s more helpful to say corporations are killing it. Either way, something is dying and, oh, by the way, it’s the earth. The overwhelming majority of scientists who specialize in the earth’s climate (not politicians, political commentators, or stay-at-home moms on Facebook) unequivocally affirm that we’re in a human-created ecological crisis.

There's no more avoiding our climate-induced collapse. Irreversible ecological damage is here and our current political-economic system is incapable of dealing with it. Short of an international mass movement of monkeywrenchers dismantling fossil fuel extraction around the globe, we're going to have to adapt to our new nightmarish hellscape. Look around: California is forever on fire, Florida is annihilated by a hurricane six months a year, and increasing swaths of Louisiana are already underwater.

We are already citizens of a new place: the United States of Apocalypse. To help us prepare for our dystopia, I have divided our new country according to how each region will become a real-life post-apocalyptic film. 

East Coast + Rust Belt: Judge Dredd (1995)

Judge Dredd begins with James Earl Jones' ominous narration, "The Earth transformed into a poisonous, scorched desert, known as 'The Cursed Earth.' Millions of people crowded into a few Megacities... Law, as we know it, collapsed. From the decay rose a new order, a society ruled by a new, elite force." The Judges are fascistic law enforcers who rule the megacities with brute force and little to no due process. For much of the densely populated eastern seaboard and post-industrial "rust belt" this future already exists. Only now you will receive your extrajudicial killings and police brutality with an extra dose of heat and humidity. 

Appalachia: The Road (2009) with a  C.H.U.D. (1984) twist
The rural bits of the southeast, i.e., Lyndon B. Johnson's socio-economic "Appalachia," will be Cormac McCarthy's The Road meets the cult classic, C.H.U.D. The sun will be blotted out by ash, but instead of nuclear holocaust or whatever unnamed event from The Road, it will be caused by the raging forest fires. Roving bands of cannibals (leftover maga chuds) in jacked-up trucks will roam the ashen grey hills in search of fresh flesh, AKA baby meat. These cannibalistic humanoid Appalachian dwellers or "CHADs" won't feel bad about it either because, spoiler alert, they were never really "pro-life" to begin with. 

 

Gulf Coast: Water World (1995)

Rising sea levels will turn the entire states of Florida and Louisiana and much of southern Alabama, Mississippi, and East Texas into Kevin Costner's Water World. Inhabitants who have not already will be forced to pawn their belongings to buy wave runners and become pirates. Sounds nice, actually. Except, something tells me warmer waters will cause alligators to evolve back into full-fledged dinosaurs. I mean, they're already climbing trees. 

 

 

Midwest, Mountain West, and Southwest: Mad Max (1979, 1981, 1985, 2015)

The biggest geographical region deserves the biggest post-apocalyptic film franchise. The majority of the landlocked United States will resemble the Mad Max universe. The Great Plains will be choked dry by drought and industrial farming. Think Great Depression "Dust Bowl" meets marauding gangs of leather-clad, daddy-issues off-roadsters. Most will be forced to move to coastal megacities and the few that remain will scavenge or pillage for limited food and resources to survive. Of course, Americans' market-based health care system already resembles the Thunderdome, so now you will have to duel to the death in a gladiatorial arena for Oklahoma's last can of franks n' beans. 

 

West Coast: Soylent Green (1973)

Imagine a world where climate catastrophe causes severe shortages of food, water, and housing. Okay, you're imagining liberal enclaves, Los Angeles and Seattle. Now imagine a world where society is almost entirely dependent on a singular global corporation, which controls the supply of most of the earth's necessities and brutally exploits its workers. Okay, now you're imagining Amazon. Shortages and supply bottlenecks create daily riots policed by corporate-sponsored armed forces who, unsurprisingly, brutally remove protesters with no due process. Welcome to Portland, Oregon. 

Behold our future and the future is bleak. But lest I be accused of casual nihilism or climate fatalism, I am not without hope. A long time ago I heard someone say that realism without idealism leads to apathy and idealism without realism leads to cynicism. I, personally, tend toward the latter and this post is probably a bit of both. Yet I hope it is, at least, a humorous caricature of the absurd landscape climate fatalism will bring. The truth is we don't have to accept this cursed earth future. Things, drastic or difficult they may be, can still be done to reduce the harm and suffering that our climate crisis is causing and will continue to cause. 

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5 Things I've Noticed While Riding a Bike

Figure 1

I'm no Alex Howes but I've ridden my bike enough to notice some things. For example, the more miles I ride, the more pizza I need. The more pizza I eat, the more miles I need to bike. (Fig. 1). I've noticed other things. Like, cyclists love data. Cyclists are on Strava because they crave the data. They need the data. They want to become one with the data. And since I am a visual learner who loves charts and graphs, I have systematized the data for you to consume and become one with. Let's start with some easy direct correlations and ease our way into more advanced behavioral economics.

Figure 2 

A redneck friend of mine said that anybody with tires over 33” is compensating for something. Whether that is true or not, and it definitely is, it is true that anyone driving a truck with tires over 33” is guaranteed to not give you your three feet (T.C.A. §55-8-175). This is especially true if they have a Punisher symbol anywhere on their Jeep or truck. These people do not care if you live or die, and they take some pride in that misanthropy. I am nearly convinced in a medieval, Dantean, abysmal hell because of people like them. Essentially, the bigger the truck: the bigger the pile of loose, sloppy stool in the driver's seat. 

Figure 3

The same can be said for sports car people. Generally speaking the louder the car (or truck) the more inconsiderate (re: deadly) the driver. This includes American muscle and imported Fast and Furious wannabes. A while back, I lectured some mid-life-crisis in a convertible at a stoplight about T.C.A. §55-8-175. It states that a cyclist does, in fact, ride in the road, not the sidewalk (and may even take up the entire righthand lane). He flipped me off, revved his engine, and “drag raced” me at the green light. Cool? I casually rode my bike and pulled up next to him at the next red light. Nice.

Figure 4

I’m always in an imaginary race with geared cyclists on the trail. I'm like a little wiener dog with a Napoleon complex at the dog park. I just want to run with the big dogs. RIP legs. 

Figure 5

In Figure 1, I stated that the more miles I ride, the more pizza I need. True. But I also noticed that I don't have to ride my bike very far to demand pizza. In economics, a perfectly inelastic demand curve means that no matter the price, the quantity demanded will always remain the same. For example, a person’s demand for insulin stays the same regardless of how much it costs (we need Medicare For All, now!). Assuming “miles biked” is represented on the “price” or y-axis and “pizza” on the “quantity demanded” or x-axis, the demand for pizza stays the same no matter how many miles biked. Whether I ride my bike 10 miles or 100, pizza and beer sound nice. 

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The 5 Worst Kinds of People at the Crag

Josh at an empty crag near Chattanooga

It's hard to have the crag to yourself these days. That's okay. But there's no denying that our cliffs and boulders are seeing more people than ever before and climbing's ever-growing popularity has changed the landscape of the sport, sometimes literally. I'm increasingly and un-inronically convinced that the most ecologically responsible thing a climber can do is quit climbing. But nobody's going to do that. So whether you're headed to Ten Sleep or the New River this summer, there are lots of climbers out there and there's some that you should avoid and avoid being like.

5. The Bluetoothers & Hammockers

There are worse people on this list but the Bluetoothers and Eno Hammockers are my personal least favorite. These easy to spot (and hear) user groups are likely young granola types from the local university's outdoor club and they treat the outdoors like their campus's green space: bright colored hammocks strewed about with electronic toilet-noise music blasting loudly. Nobody likes your music. Nobody likes mine either. This is a forest/cliff/desert/mountain, not a chill hang-out spot to vibe with your friends. Leave your boombox and hammocks at home.

4. The Screamers & Wobblers

One time, my friend Julia and I went to the Obed for a day trip with a couple from Nashville. Julia and I were not a couple. In fact, I spent the whole drive talking about my friend Eli and now Julia and Eli are married (a point I did not neglect to mention when I officiated their wedding). Both members of that couple were strong climbers with even stronger personalities. They spent the entire day arguing about route choice, screaming about beta differences, yelling at each other about belay catches, and throwing humongous hissy fits when they did not send. Except for Julia, I never climbed with those people ever again. 

 

I understand being frustrated with bad climbing or bad belaying or obnoxious beta spraying but yelling, fit pitching, and temper tantruming (otherwise known as a "wobbler") is inexcusable behavior when other people are at the cliff. 

 

I also find screaming while trying hard a particularly annoying crag occurrence. There is some evidence that it helps with the send but it is really about the short, powerful exhalation -- not the noise. My friend Josh is a great example of a strong climber who exhales with purpose, rather than screams like a banshee. Noise pollution comes in many forms. Keep it down...

Cora and Josh being good land users AAA Crag in the U.P. Michigan

3. The Sandbaggers & Beta Sprayers

Everybody knows these guys -- usually guys -- and the Venn-Diagram of sandbaggers and beta sprayers is quite large. Sandbaggers undersell the difficulty of an objective while Beta Sprayers give unsolicited advice about how to accomplish the objective. Maybe you have had a conversation like this:

me: hey, we're looking for [5.8 hand crack in a dihedral].

Sandbagger: oh, you should totally get on this [5.10c overhanging splitter finger crack]

or like this: 

me: *falling off difficult-for-me boulder problem and not asking for help*

Beta Sprayer: bro! you gotta hand-heel match, then cross, then throw for the lip!

Both, Sandbagger and Beta Sprayer, are so plagued by their own ego that they feel the need to spray or "word vomit" all the information and not-so-humble brag they can muster to anyone in earshot. Everybody begrudgingly listens but nobody actually likes them. Don't be one of them.

2. The Non-Hole Digging or Wagbagging Woods Poopers

I'm not quite a crusty trad-dad yet, but I have been climbing long enough to see how climbing's growing popularity has caused growing pains at our local crags. Nothing demonstrates this more than the proverbial minefields of human feces that surround our most popular cliffs. I haven't climbed at Foster Falls in years (I refuse to anymore), but even a few years ago you couldn't wander into the woods to pee without stumbling on, what the Access Fund calls, "toilet paper flowers." AKA "flowers" or piles of soiled toilet paper erupting from the earth. Do we even need to talk about how reprehensible this is? 

It's gotten so bad that WAG-bags -- special bags you poop in and carry out -- are being implemented at southeastern crags, like Deep Creek. These bags were once reserved for delicate desert and alpine environs but increased use and impact at southern climbing destinations has necessitated them. Fun.

1. The Dangerously Stupid Help Rejecters

I watched a climber deck at Horseshoe Canyon Ranch. It was from the first bolt so it wasn't as bad as it could have been but I'm pretty sure he was going home with bruised or broken heels that evening. After we checked on him, to our dismay, he started up the route again! This time, when he struggled at the first bolt, he put his finger through the hanger in desperation. We let out a collective, "NOOOO!" and offered to spot him for a downclimb and let us stick clip it, if he was still committed to the route. He rejected our help and we packed up and hightailed out of there because we didn't want to scoop up brains that afternoon. 

We were all gumbies at some point. I had a few helpful mentors along the way but I am very much a self-taught climber. I've built anchors I'm ashamed of and I've done things that have caused me traumatic flashbacks about how I could have died or severely injured myself. One thing I've always appreciated is when a more experienced climber offered me a teaching moment in a kind, helpful way. 

Pride, ego, and insecurity combined with stupidity is a dangerous concoction. Be humble. And when the visibly ignorant are openly recalcitrant, it's probably just best to pack your gear and move on.

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The 5 Worst Kinds of People on the Trail

We love our local trail systems. In Chattanooga, we're lucky to have several nearby options for folks in various parts of town. But with relative ease of access (and ease of access is relative) comes certain frustrations too. People, mostly. And while we shouldn't expect solitude from our front country adventures, we should expect certain behaviors that allow for  mutual enjoyment. These are the five worst kinds of people at the local trail.

5. the directionally challenged

A lot of trails feature daily directions, i.e., CW on M, W, F and CCW on T, R and so on. No matter how clearly stated at trailheads and intersections these directions are, some people can't seem to get it straight. I don't want to be too harsh to the directionally challenged, many of them are elderly. But an honest mistake can quickly turn into an emergency room visit when Grandma Dorothy gets mowed down by the MTB guy trying to snipe the coveted King of the Mountain (KOM).

4. the KOM/QOM 

“In its need for special clothing,” Grant Peterson writes, “bicycle riding is less like scuba diving and more like a pickup basketball game.” That said, somebody convinced the KOM/QOM crowd that spandex is the only fabric for any outdoor activity. These folks show up to the trailhead decked out in full kit for a casual after-work ride around the park. I like going fast about as much as the next guy, but these easy-to-distinguish trail users seem to think that KOM stands for "Kill All Mountainbikers" (the 'A' makes a soft 'O" sound) (I stole this line from Brooks who swears he doesn’t remember saying it). The King of the Mountain crowd is out for blood and bragging rights. Forget a friendly wave from these riders, they won't even give you an inch of the trail. Look out, move over, and let them pad their Strava profile; they're clearly compensating for something. 

3. people who don't pack out their dog's poop

Leave No Trace applies to the front-country too. A baggie filled with dog poop sitting on the edge of the trail has to be the apotheosis of "leaving a trace." If you're not ready to pack out your dog's poop, you're not ready to take your dog out for a hike. Be prepared. Pick up your dog's poop in a bag, put it in a sealed zip lock bag, and pack it out. Or, better yet, buy a tube of Pringles. Eat all of the Pringles (delicious). Put the poop bag in the Pringles tube. It seals and fits nicely in a backpack's cup holder sleeve and you can dispose of its contents at the nearest trash can.

2. people who don't leash their dog on the trail

I don't want to be that edgy online guy advocating for Soviet-style forced labor camps but people who walk or run their dogs at the trail off-leash should be sent to a gulag. I don't care how good of a good boy you think your precious pup is, put it on a leash. It's the law in a lot of places and the rule in most. The reasons for this are multitudinous and readily available so I'll only mention two.

First, your dog is an animal. It has animal instincts and I swear bicycles trigger something in dogs that make them go berserk. I've had a crash, several near-crashes, and a few scary moments when unknown dogs have charged at my bike with their owner nonchalantly walking down the trail blurting something about it being nice. And I know you're reading this thinking, "That's not my dog." But that's what these people thought too.

Another reason to keep your dog on a leash is for my dog and dogs like her. I have a rescued pit bull. Her name is Lula. She's sweet, tender, intuitive, and an overall fluffernut. I love her more than almost anything in this world. But her breed carries a lot of baggage. Let's say your off-leash wonder pup wanders ahead and wants to check my dog out. Let's say it gives Lula a fright or more realistically, Lula interprets that as an invitation to play. (What is "play" between two dogs is often interpreted as a scuffle when the dog looks like my dog.) Your dog is an animal, my dog is an animal and they both respond animalistically. Guess whose dog is taking the blame for the scuffle? The pittie, every time. Even if the encounter was banal, benign, or not even the pittie's fault. Please put your dog on a leash.

1. judgemental outdoor bloggers named "Chet"

  They're the worst.

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In Defense of Butt Shots

A lot has changed in climbing. There's plenty of crusty and dusty old dudes on mountain project giving you a million variations of that same lament. Now, I'd like to embrace my inner curmudgeon and add to that growing and futile cacophony -- except instead of bemoaning the proliferation of bolts, the pilfering of land access, and the exploding population growth of gym rats, I want to talk about "butt shots."

Russ on "Cashmere" at Palisades Park

 

 

Remember the glory days of overly edited and poorly enhanced butt shot climbing photos? When your (hopefully non-belaying) friend would snag a phone camera photo from the ground of you on your route? It was an equalized, democratic, even Jeffersonian ideal of climbing photography. We were all the same out there, and online.

myself on "Sacbrood Virus" at the RRG

But now it seems like every recreational climber has a personal photographer jugging up an adjacent line snagging radical top-down action shots with fancy cameras and professional editing programs to bless their followers' feeds. Every instagram post looks like a curated photo from Rock and Ice instead of, you know, you and your friends just out having a good time in the woods.

Julia at the Small Wall at the Obed

Climbing photography has gotten bougie, elitist, and exclusive.

Media outlets like REI make it very clear, they want NO MORE BUTT SHOTS. Climbing Magazine wants you to go "Beyond the Butt Shot." And Mountain Project even asks you, before even uploading a photo, to reconsider uploading a posterior picture to their data base.

Andrew pulling through the roof of "Wild Pink" at T-Wall

Well, I'm sick of action shots from the top and side. I'm tired of having an elitist aesthetic forced down my throat by the burgeoning bourgeois of drone operated climbing photographers. The vast majority of us will never know what it's like to climb with an Andrew Burr or a ladylockoff but we still have memories to share. We are climbing photography's proletariat and we will not be ashamed of our posts.

Camera-phone-butt-shot climbing photographers of the world, unite. You have nothing to lose but your "likes!"

/rant

An Open Letter to Every Outdoor Retail Company Ever

The warm alpine glow bounced off the face of White's Peak, down into the valley which separates it from Mt. Antero. It was cold but the early morning light and the urge to relieve myself beckoned me from my Black Diamond bivy bag. I stretched my legs and wiggled my toes and then began to unzip my bivy hood.

SNAG.

The zipper was caught on the NanoShield fabric. I muscled my index and middle fingers into the minuscule unzipped hole, loosened the fabric, and unzipped some more.

SNAG. 

Repeat a half a dozen more times.

With my head finally dislodged from my delightfully lightweight but agonizingly difficult-to-get-out-of rain shelter, I was a step closer to urinating and starting my day. Reluctantly, I started to unzip my beloved Mountain Hardware UltraLamina 32 sleeping bag.

SNAG. 

I wiggled my left arm free from the mummy bag to pull the ultra lightweight synthetic material out of the teeth of the zipper and pulled some more.

SNAG. 

Now I really had to drain the main vein. My right leg began to bounce a little bit, a little like Elvis but a lot more like a toddler standing in line at a urinal. They can put a man on the moon! I thought to myself while wrestling out a few more snags, crawling out and putting on my Chacos. Thankfully, my campers/clients were still asleep so I didn't have to walk far to relieve myself. I spread my knees in a semi-athletic stance and pulled down the zipper of my Marmot Precip Pants.

SNAG. 

SNAG some more.

A string of unmentionable language vomited from my mouth before I barely could access the crotch zipper of my Kuhl Liberator Zip-Off Pants under my rain shell. I wore my Precips over my shorts because the zipper had fallen off the left pant leg on another mountain another week. It took all that was in me to hold my super charged urine while fiddling with an assortment of zippers and zipper teeth on an array of outdoor retail.What had started as a pleasant, peaceful morning in a lovely valley between two beautiful mountains had turned into urinary nightmare.

Chances are if you have ever spent a night in the woods, you had at least one piece of equipment with a zipper on it. And chances are you have a story similar to my own. Which is why I have written an open letter to every outdoor company ever. "Open Letters" are kind of a thing right now, what with the power of the internet and advent of social media and everything. But I believe in them. In 2007, I wrote an open letter to my congressman to end the Taco Bell monopoly of Mountain Dew Baja Blast. And in 2014, purchasing Baja Blast was made available in gas stations and grocery stores everywhere. You're welcome. Unfortunately, I don't drink soda anymore.

So without further adieu, my open letter to every outdoor retail company ever:

Let's spread this thing around. Let's start a movement. Let's be the change in the world we want to see. 

Shirts-On and Shirts-Off Climbers

Alex Puccio crushing  it (via tumblr)

Ever gone to the gym to get a few laps in after a long day at school or work? You feel slightly lethargic, maybe a bit pudgy because you splurged for the $5 footlong instead of just getting the six-inch sub. Nevertheless, you're psyched to work on that 11d that worked you on your last visit only to find some shirtless, perfectly chiseled specimen with exquisite hair-to-body ratio effortlessly cruising up its microcrimps as if it were a 5.8 jug haul. Suddenly you're not so psyched to climb anymore.

Why does he have his shirt off anyway? It's a cool night outside. Air-conditioned inside. Massive utility fans blowing chalk in every direction. There are two types of climbers in this world: shirts-on climbers and shirts-off climbers.

"shirts off" climbers Anderson and Kyle spotting Jamie in Little River Canyon, AL.

Shirts-off climbers are those gym gods who crush 5.13; they've earned their stripes.Those stripes outline every trapezius and latissimus, every abdominal muscle bulging forth like a constant reminder that you ate Taco Bell yesterday. It's clear these climbers live at the gym, do juice cleanses regularly, and crush on the weekends. Horse Pens' sandbagged slopers? No problem. The Obed's horizontal roofs? They can do it and they do it sexier than you.

And this is the movement of modern climbing, right? Ondra, Woods, Puccio, et. al. Nobody's interested in Joe Climber running up West Ridge on Pigeon Spire. But the truth is shirts-off climbers don't always have their shirts off. And shirts-off climbers also include those who want to be shirtless. The gym bros who think they can crush 5.13 but then struggle on a 5.10. Or think that if they take their shirt off, they go from climbing 5.10 to climbing 5.13. 

Barrett and I on top Torreys Peak, CO; definitely "shirts-on" climbers

I'll be honest, I want to push myself to my climbing limits and look halfway decent with my shirt off too. But I also want to eat a pint of Ben and Jerry's ice cream. 

I know that I am just a lat guy living in an ab guy's world and I definitely don't have a perfect body hair ratio. Any given day at a southeastern crag, it is very likely that I'm the only dude with a shirt on. And that's as true in June as it is in December. In fact, it might even be my desire to keep my shirt on that pushes me towards the mountains where layering up is not only the norm but the necessity.

It's probable that the lure of mountains is more significant than that. But the point is, that's where you'll find shirts-on climbers. On an airy pitch in the high country, sweating it out on what would otherwise be a warmup route if it were closer to the ground. Don't get me wrong, I love a hard sport route just as much as the next guy; I just really love jackets and the places a jacket, a rope, and basic rock craft will take you.

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