Video by Ben Nielson / When Nathaniel Coleman first scoped out the textured edges on a stately project boulder in the Swell, he thought the line might go at V9 or so. That grade began to creep up to double digits as he and Ben Tresco started working with the sub-par …
Story by Mason Earle / There is a circus net that lives in my attic. It’s 50 feet long and twenty feet wide, made from cheap paracord and old climbing ropes. I built it specifically for climbing––like a giant crash pad for free soloing. My original vision was to use …
Story by Mason Earle / My partner Nik and I were 4 pitches from the top of El Cap, crammed together at an exposed belay below the final hard pitch of the new free route we’ve been working to establish. It was the end of our fall season, and the …
Story by Mason Earle / I was infatuated with Yosemite and El Capitan before I even started climbing. Rocks and cliffs just appealed to me, and the thought of a cliff over half a mile tall was mind-boggling. I first climbed El Cap when I was 18, and it stuck …
by Mason Earle / Thinking about climbing a big wall? Do you dream of spending days ascending an enormous wall, sleeping on portaledges, and watching as the ground grows distant until the trees look like toothpicks? Big wall climbing can be incredibly fun and rewarding— but it can also be …
Story by Mason Earle / Halfway out a 50 foot roof crack, I desperately stabbed for a thin hand-jam. I was 40 feet off the ground, without the protection of a rope, and exhausted. I caught the jam, but knew I couldn’t make another move. I looked down at the …
by Jon Vickers / Sometimes it is easy to forget that the access we have to recreation is special. Our ability to play outside is greatly improved by our proximity to the Wasatch, our access to indoor gyms and the expendable incomes that we take for granted. We can learn …
by Nik Berry / Scott Carson had a respectable job as a planner for an aerospace missile company in California. He was working 70+ hour weeks and only succeeding in decreasing his happiness, so he packed his bags and moved to Salt Lake City to attend engineering school. While riding …
By Mason Earle / While free climbing El Cap’s Golden Gate in 2009, I spotted a system of beautiful cracks and corners leading out of the left side of the massive heart-shaped recess in the middle El Cap’s southwest face. The steep crack system I was looking at belonged to …
By Mason Earle / Notch Peak, January 2015. My 5am alarm woke me up inside the van. Frosty windows. I really didn’t want to get out of my sleeping bag. I especially didn’t want to go and climb a 2000-foot chossy bigwall. All was silent outside. Maybe Niels forgot to …
