For the Love of Climbing

Lor had to decide. They could go on hating themself, or could be a part of making the world a place that was more healed—and that started with healing themself. This is part one of a two-part story. For the Love of Climbing is brought to you by Deuter USA , Gnarly Nutrition , Allez Outdoors , and presented by Patagonia . Music by: Kakurenbo and Chad Crouch. A HUGE thank you to Chad Crouch for crea...

What role does excessive boozing in a community of athletes play? And let’s be really clear—this isn’t just the outdoor industry and trade show happy hours. It’s not about climbing culture or the river or ski or mountain biking community, or even the outdoor community at large. America has a drinking problem, and Ari’s story isn’t unique. It prompts us to ask the question of why we’re drinking in...

Phillip Schaal, an elite rock climber and one of the world’s best boulderers at the time, died in 2016 after a severe reaction to a suspicious drug overdose, as told by his mother Eloise. Francois Lebeau described Phillip as an “underground machine”. “Quiet and humble”, Phillip was always doing his own thing and “shied away from the media limelight”. Phillip’s story is told through Eloise’s lens a...

We’re increasingly pressured to parcel ourselves up in various social contexts, but identity is complex. Being transgender is just another way of being human, and the beauty within that is that it can mean whatever you want it to mean.   For the Love of Climbing is brought to you by Deuter USA , Gnarly Nutrition , Allez Outdoors , First Ascent Coffee , and Patagonia . Music by: Kakurenbo. A HUGE t...

In 2017, a forty-foot fall broke Brittany’s L1 vertebrae, sending a piece of bone into her spinal cord. She describes it as one of those surreal dreams where you wake up and think, “Thank God—that wasn’t me standing in my underwear in front of the entire classroom. It wasn’t real.” Except, after she woke up—shit got real. But Brittany has been gritting her way through life long before her accident...

On April 16th, 2019, elite climbers Jess Roskelley, David Lama, and Hansjörg Auer lost their lives in an avalanche climbing Howse Peak in Alberta’s BANFF National Park. The margin of error for alpinism is unnervingly thin, and the truth of it all is that you are not in control—the mountain is. And it took losing Jordan’s brother, Jess, to learn this unforgiving lesson. "And even when I was close t...

Cedar, who was named after a tree, has something called Progressive Familial Intrahepatic Cholestasis, otherwise known as PFIC 2. This devastating genetic disorder affects 1 in 50,000 to 1 in 100,000 live births and, if untreated, can be fatal by the age of twenty. Visit http://pfic.org for more information.   This episode is brought to you by Deuter USA , Gnarly Nutrition , Allez Outdoors , First...

How do you measure something that definitively changes your life forever—whether it be for better or worse? Like, what kind of metrics are we supposed to be using for that kinda thing? Is the entire idea of “change” just an arbitrary construct, something that we make up to make ourselves feel better? Since the start of the pandemic, life has been nothing but change. So, we thought it was a good ti...

Last September, North Bennett sent me a personal essay and told me that he thought it wasn’t send-y enough for most sports publications, but also a little too climb-y for others. And—that’s where we come in. As it turns out, it was actually *just* the sort of story that we’d share on this podcast. “A Knot like Infinity” is putatively about seeking romance on Tinder and climbing with friends, but r...

Just shy of twenty 5.12 free solos, Austin Howell had climbed nineteen unique routes without a rope—one of them without shoes and butt ass naked. In 2019, Austin died free soloing in Linville Gorge, North Carolina. His love for climbing is hard to capture with words alone, so we flew to Minnesota in the summer of 2019 to borrow some of Susan’s. Austin's story is complicated, but as the pendulum in...

Jack used to do all the things, like surfing and jiu jitsu. But an incomplete spinal cord injury in 2018 changed his plans indefinitely. What’s a little neck fracture at C4 and C5, right? It still hasn’t slowed him down and his accident unknowingly gave him the foundation for understanding risk and its counterpart, the consequences of rock climbing.

On March 9th, 2016, Eric was working on linking the crux moves of Moonlight Buttress, one of the most classic test pieces for hard climbing in North America, when he fell from the upper pitches to his death. This is just one part of Eric’s story, who played a huge part in Hayley’s life. This is also a story about the stereotypes of gender and emotional expression, the importance of self-love, and...

Body positivity isn’t about “fat” versus “skinny”, despite barrages of criticism from armchair philosophers. The body positivity movement is about feeling comfortable in the skin you’re in now, at this very moment. And it’s not just a women’s issue, but where do men stand in this movement? The more we invite men to the table to have conversations about male body concept, the more the foundation of...

Addiction is a need-hate relationship. It can be a terrible secret, it can frame the very shape of your life. It’s the white noise behind many lives, and everyone’s experience with it is unique. For those who suffer from addiction, there’s a steep price to pay. Sarah learned what that price was.

Throughout America’s history, hallmarks of our democracy have been largely reserved for cis white people through intentional exclusion of BIPOC people. Connie and Kai Lightner call attention to the role of race and how racism in the outdoor industry, public and private institutions still disproportionately segregates and oppresses Black people in 2020. In the midst of a revolution and pandemic, th...

Going through a traumatic experience is kind of like putting your life through a sieve. In 2009, Kareemah was diagnosed with cancer and underwent an amputation on her left leg below the knee. This episode is about strength in visibility and what happens when the narrative shifts from; “you don’t belong here” to “you belong here, you exist, and you matter”.

If you’ve been paying attention to the news, this is what we know: Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor and George Floyd are victims of three separate crimes against black people. Cases like these have raised questions about racial profiling. We still have a lot of work to do, and that work begins by listening to one another—especially to those who have the least power in society. Healing begins by liste...

On May 12, 1986, students and teachers from the Oregon Episcopal School Basecamp Program set off to climb Mt. Hood. Three days later, nine of the climbers would die in what’s known as the second deadliest alpine accident in North American history. At age sixteen, Lorca Smetana survived the 1986 Mount Hood Tragedy and has transformed a series of painful experiences into a life of resilience and lea...

We’ll be back on May 1st with new episodes. Until then, enjoy a mini-episode while I try to do things like not burn a film festival into the ground (just kidding...I think!) and if you’re in Denver, Colorado March 5th through 8th, come out to the No Man's Land Film Festival Annual Flagship event for four days of films, workshops and guest speakers. This mini-episode is comprised of episode ten wit...

When you go on a climbing trip, everybody thinks it’s a vacation. And you can’t get PTSD from a vacation, right? Except that a winter in the Himalaya nearly destroyed Ian. He survived unroped crevasse falls, an avalanche, bivouacs in negative forty-degree weather, high altitude cerebral edema, Hepatitis A, an earthquake, oh—and also, nearly being eaten alive by fleas. When he returned to the state...

To know Savannah was to love her. Nina and Court loved Savannah to the ends of the earth, and her unexpected death forever changed the climbing community. In their love and grief, Savannah’s parents turned everything that she was into purpose. Savannah left the world with a legacy of love, joy, and gratitude. Introduction by the lovely Chelsea Rude.

Grief is the one human experience that we all have in common, but there are no words for losing a child. Savannah Buik was 22 years old when she died in a climbing accident at Devil’s Lake in Wisconsin. Nina and Court saw both sides of the pendulum: how the stronger and deeper we love, the harder it is to overcome the pain on the other side. This is part one of a two-part story. Savannah credited...

Life is full of interruptions we’re rarely ready for, so the more doctors tried to convince Hans how serious his condition was, the more he denied it. We most commonly associate grief with death, but what about the softer versions of grief? Like, grieving the loss of a relationship or an old life, or maybe a kidney?

Women are a lot of things. We’re complex, we’re coffee-fueled, we smell good—sometimes we smell bad. Sometimes we’re hangry. But one thing is certain—we’re hustlers, we are strong, and we are gritty. Welcome back to the second season of For the Love of Climbing.

It's Still (Mostly) Not a Climbing Podcast. We took the summer off to stand fully in our truth, which means sometimes we have to sit in those uncomfortable feelings, too. But we’re back this September with ten new episodes that unpack a lot of this. We spent the last eight months on the road talking to climbers (like you) about what resilience looks like when shit hits the fan—and everything that...