“How I Beat My Biggest Climbing Nemesis: Myself.” Climbing Magazine Column. March 2009.

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“I’d lived In Colorado 10 years before I climbed in the Black Canyon of the Gunnison, the only place I’ve seen that pulsates beauty and fear at equal frequencies. Tight, 2,000 feet deep, dark-green water surging over house-sized boulders through its inky depths, the Black fills humans with imprudent desire. Up close, the cracks bottom, the rock flakes apart, blocks from TV-sized to car-sized boom hollow, and the route-finding is epic. No one comes to the Black to have ‘fun.’ We come instead for a taste of our own mortality . . .”