Ask a rock climber

[CapnAwesome]

I am a non-professional full time rock climber. That's the nice way of saying 'climbing bum' another word for which is dirtbag. I've climbed in 15 states (Washington, Oregon, California, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, Kentucky, New Hampshire, Idaho and Wyoming) and 9 different countries (USA, Canada, Mexico, Columbia, Ecuador, Peru, Chile, Argentina and Australia)

Most sports people really don't understand well, but rock climbing people really really really don't understand well. Answering tourist questions is probably the funniest and most fun part about being a climber because climbing seems simple, you just climb the rock, right? Well yeah, but how do you get the rope up? How do you not die when you fall? What do you do when you have to shit? All these I will answer and more! I've heard probably every question that someone can ask, so bonus points to original questions. Also I will use this as an opportunity to share some of my favorite climbing photos, mostly of me and if not, that I have taken.

This is on a route called 'Tall Storey' near Canmore, Alberta this summer. As you can see by my clothing, it's cold. I don't know how people live there in the winter. That's 1000 feet of air beneath me.



Yosemite Valley, in California, the most beautiful place on earth and center of the universe:

This is my Brazillian friend, she's onsighting a hard route in Red Rocks, which is right outside of Las Vegas. I took this picture a week ago. Onsighting means climbing a route for the first time cleanly without falling:

Me Rappelling off an arch 500 feet in the air in the Utah desert:

This is me in Bishop California, I'm drinking a beer and standing on a burning pallet. The beer is PBR, which is cheap and tastes like water mixed with a little bit of pee. It doesn't seem to have much to do with rock climbing, but trust me, it does.