The other night, while speaking in Amherst, I was introduced as living in North Conway. Just like that, three months in, and I am from New Hampshire. The woman who introduced me had no problem uttering this statement; good thing she is not me. I came east on December 1st, and for the next month, when people asked me where … Read More
Transient Connections
I spent the weekend part inside the future of my past. The Pacific Northwest was my first landscape of adulthood—it was where I learned how to be an independent woman and climber set free by the snowy peaks and the soft earth. Back in the beginning, I lived in Bellingham, WA. I came out there in 1996—a time in my … Read More
Inside the Wheels
I leave in an hour for Cleveland and Vancouver. I am going back into book tour mode. Last year, when that was about my only mode, I would try to climb each time I came home to Boulder. I would text potential partners the moment my plane touched down at DIA. Three, sometimes four leads in, I would get a … Read More
Appalachia Merge
Travel has a way of smashing your life together and making you earn the fall-out. I’m on a plane, again—this time from the southeast to home. I’m back on tour and just spoke, got sandbagged, and took a flu shot to the left shoulder all in three days in North Carolina. I like the southeast. The air feels good, the … Read More
Expando-Crag: Whipped Insallment
EXPANDO-CRAG: MAXIMIZING YOUR CLIMBING SPACE, POLISH-STYLE (Part of an on-going series on my blog of posts from my column Whipped, for Climbing Magazine. September, 2006 Installment.) Download PDF The Poles, long known for making do in the face of social, political, and economic hardship, have also always applied the same perseverance to sport. Consider the recent introduction of the bicycle with … Read More
A Saab Story: Whipped Installment
A Saab Story: Of Mice and Karma (Part of an on-going series on my blog of posts from my column Whipped, for Climbing Magazine. July, 2006 Installment.) View Online | Download PDF The longest road trip I’ve ever taken was in a two-door 1983 blue Saab 900. It was a fussy, impractical little automobile. The sunroof leaked, and the clutch stuck … Read More
Burley Integration
My senior photo for high school was a shot of me in a Crazy Creek chair on a rock next to a lake in Glacier National Park in Montana. More so than a glammed up version of myself, I wanted to present the rough and ready self to the world. Everyone else’s head took up the whole frame—I was a … Read More
Tossed
Last week I got tossed. Imagine a 4X8 space littered with maps, cables, bedding, food, dishes, and plastic bags. The space was my van and it looked like a bear had gotten inside and wreacked havoc. But I was not in Yosemite—I was at home in Boulder. I’d slept in my bed for three of fifteen nights and had been … Read More
La Petite Epic: Whipped Installment
La Petite Epic: Learning the Ropes, French Style (Part of an on-going series on my blog of posts from my column Whipped, for Climbing Magazine. October, 2004 Installment) View Online | Download PDF It all began with an overhanging limestone pocket at Wild Iris. Actually there were two of them, and, due to their distance apart and the lack of other … Read More
But What if There are Two Million Germs?
I’m traveling again. Back on planes, pilfering free internet from sidewalk coffee shops, and cutting the top off my travel face moisturizer to eek out the last of the goodness. After eighteen nights in my own bed it’s time to leave and check out the mattresses of the eastern seaboard. It’s time to put on my game face, the one … Read More