Attacked by Wolves

On the home stretch of the hike out, both Pat and I were probably thinking about how vulnerable our position was: trodding along a narrow path in the woods, surrounded on both sides by a nice cover of tall brush. In the pitch dark. Almost in unison, we saw to our right, not 25 yards away, two beady yellow eyes…

The Deeper Meaning, Part 3: Respect

Sometimes, things happen in our lives that we cannot control. It is how we deal with these situations that determines how people see us…

The Deeper Meaning, Part 1: Pride

About a month ago, I asked Melissa if she’d be interested in contributing something to EasternClimber; something from her point of view, about climbing, in general. I told her to write about whatever she wanted, but only if she had something to say. Her eyes widened, her face lit up, and I think she started it that night.

Meet Melissa Godowski…

Thoughts on Recruiting New Climbers…

My girlfriend, while browsing my little home library, came across this book.  I acquired it while I was in Chicago for Lollapalooza two years ago.  I was sitting in a coffee shop that had a give-a-book-take-a-book thing, spotted this relic, and, while I had nothing to give, I felt that I was entitled to be [...]

The Sends… Like I said.

So I’m watching a video on VideoClimb, while chatting with people and flipping between tabs.  I’m gradually more drawn into the outtakes from this one film called “The Sends”, featuring a lot of prominent Swedish/Norwegian climbers, when I hear one of them mutter something I wrote about in my post on Zen.  Swede Peter Bosma looks frustrated and [...]

Where are the women?

I feel the need to speak about a number of issues that have been weighing heavily on my mind. The first is an ongoing issue with the climbing scene in the northeast: there seems to be a significant shortage of climber girls.See, I’m not speaking of some imaginary woman who climbs 5.13, keeps up with [...]

Zen Mind

I know, you just read the title of the post, groaned, thought of 12 cliché statements you’ve heard about Zen philosophy from someone who uses more mind-altering substances than you do.  It’s unfortunate that “touchy-feeley” subjects like Zen, Daoism, and spirituality get the bad rap of stuff only hippies care about, but if you need [...]

Climbing: A Life-Long Lifestyle Sport

There are a few activities in which people can participate throughout their lifetimes: Golf, Baseball/Softball, Running, and Rock Climbing.  Let’s examine an older participant in each of these sports, and how it would be done when someone was, say, 65: Bill: Bill played baseball throughout his youth, in hichschool and college.  In his middle years, [...]

Anthropology and Rock Climbing

Recently, ClimbingNarc ran a story on whether the Europeans were better rock climbers than Americans, noting that some of our biggest names – Chris Sharma, Dave Graham, et. al. – all seemed to be making a mass exodus to… places other than the U.S. It focused on the high-profile-competetive-althlete status that European climbers were able to [...]