Innholdsfortegnelse for Spring 2021 i Vertical Life

I hope I haven’t bored you – Elvis I do not believe in my death – Dali It’s better to burn out than fade away – Kurt So long, and thanks for all the fish – dolphins Tell them I’ve had a wonderful life – Wittgenstein Mama, Mama, Mama – Capote Nothing lasts forever, not even forever – Madden A certain butterfly is already on the wing – Nabokov We, Ross and Simon, are stepping down as the editors of Vertical Life. We’re looking forward to new challenges, like rehabbing our ever-growing list of injuries, prehabbing for the new ones that await us, and prepping for the End Times (which can’t be far off). It feels like the world was very different back when we put out that first issue in 2012, and in a way our tenure…

There is a classic Irish parable about a lost traveller who meets a farmer upon the road outside Limerick and he asks directions on how to get to Tipperary, ‘Well’, the farmer replies, ‘I wouldn’t be starting from here.’ When we hear that we think, ‘Pffft, at least that dude knows where he is trying to get to.’ Even though we have no idea where ‘we’ are going, since this is our last issue captaining the good ship SS VL, we thought it prudent to ask some questions of the future. It’s just a shame the future cannot answer back. We do know the future is not going to be like the past, and it will be different from the present. And whilst the uncertainty (anyone have ‘global pandemic to…

Climbers use chalk and though it undoubtedly benefits friction, it creates other problems. At popular crags built-up chalk traps oils and dirt, making it harder to use holds. Brushing can help remove this residue, but it’s not always effective on its own. Even backyard boulders like the Balkans in Sydney can have a wilderness feel, and the white stains are a clear sign of human activity, which detracts from this. And the stains also attract attention from passers by, who may include land managers concerned about degradation or impact on Aboriginal Heritage. When climbing was a relatively small sport it was mainly climbers who worried about chalk build up. Back then the thin walls and balancy slabs that were popular would be washed clean by rain fairly regularly. In the…

This article contains big time spoilers, if you don’t want to know what happens in the film The Alpinist then do not read it. ‘I don't want to sound grim or fatalistic’, Marc-André Leclerc is standing in a hostel kitchen in El Chalten, Argentinian Patagonia, ‘but it is undeniable that every time you go to the mountains, it could be your last time.’ He is answering the question of what he eats for his final meal before a big climb. ‘So all these things that you love, you have to appreciate. Whatever dinner you would want to possibly be your last dinner, you have to eat it … because you are going to the mountains.' For me, this is the most memorable piece of dialogue in the film. Marc is…

Listen CLIMBING GOLD Alex Honnold (swoon) and the OG climbing podcaster, Mr DirtBag Diaries, Fitz Cahall, take you on a (notably US centric, of course) history of climbing that cashes in on the Olympics cache. The history was supposed to culminate with broadcasts from Japan, but obviously that was kiboshed by the f$@king virus that's stuffed up everything god-damn-it, but the series still holds together nicely despite lacking the planned Tokyo climax. Whilst it is designed to be listened to in sequence, that doesn't mean you can’t drop in and out if a topic takes your fancy or gives you the shits. Highlight episodes include exploring not-for-profit gym Memphis Rox, celebrating the influence of John Gill and looking at the legacy of the so-rad Lynn Hill. The production is slick-as…

WE SAW YOU COMPETE AT A VICTORIAN STATE CHAMPIONSHIP A NUMBER OF YEARS BACK AND WHAT STRUCK US WAS YOUR TENACITY ON THE WALL – WHAT DO YOU THINK IS YOUR GREATEST STRENGTH AS A CLIMBER? That’s really interesting because a few years ago when I was pretty new to climbing, I asked my coach, Al Pryce, what my strength was. He said it was my tenacity. I never really understood what that meant but I do realise that I have a tendency to wrestle boulders with every bit of power I have. It might not look pretty or be technically correct, but it often works for me. I don’t really accept that something is too hard for me and give it my all. WHAT DO YOU LOVE ABOUT COMPETING?…

Painting and climbing are two pursuits that are very similar. Neither is done for financial gain. They can both be self-inflicted torture or mind-smoothing meditation. Nobody besides me cares about what I do on the rock or on paper, but yet it feels wonderful to share both with other people. Inspiration and motivation are needed to start a project in both. Sometimes, I do little experiments on rock or on paper and take on little practice steps, dipping my toe in to see where it will lead. Most people agree on how to successfully complete a sport climbing project – with the goal being to do it clean and get to the anchors. Some say you have to clip both anchors, others even say that in addition to clipping the…

16 August 2019, 7:25am. I remove one spoonful of no-fat Greek yogurt from my bowl and tip it back into the tub. I don’t have scales, but it looked like a little more than the 200g standard serving size and might equate to more than the 100 calories listed on the nutritional panel. Five almonds. Half a banana. That’s breakfast. I pack my lunch, a wholemeal wrap with cooked egg whites, salad leaves and the thinnest scrape of hummus I can manage without it looking strange. I carefully ensure my thinned-out wrap will not get confused in the lunch bag with Chris’s filled-out version. Half an apple. Some sugar-free electrolytes added to my water bottle and I am ready to start the one-hour uphill walk to the Equinox, a little…

Going to the Olympics was kind of like going to Santa’s workshop, if Santa’s workshop was experiencing an extreme heatwave. The whole thing was like a fantasy land, yet familiar and comfortable. We all know about the Olympics. It’s a bunch of fit people doing rad sport stuff on the TV and we get to sit at home and cheer everyone on. Recently I found myself stood in the middle of it all, with my manky climber’s feet and cragly hands. Due to Olympic COVID protocols, no athletes could be in the village more than a week prior to their competition. With climbing at the tail end of the Games, we (Will the coach/team official, Oce the female climber, me the male climber) lobbed in a few days after the…

IS GRADE 36 SITTING THERE JUST WAITING TO BE DONE OR IS IT YET TO BE FOUND? There are definitely a few routes already bolted which are a level above what any of us have climbed in Australia so far. There’s also crags we know about which will have routes in the next level. It’s just a matter of having the time. HOW RARE ARE PROJECTS THAT MIGHT BE 36 OR HARDER? This is one of the biggest cruxes for hard routes. In Australia where we predominantly have sandstone cliffs, it’s hard to get the magic formula together; the size of holds, and the rests or consistency of moves. With sandstone, the holds can just not be there, it’s blank. Something like limestone, where you see most of the world’s…

Even before the pandemic I think many of us were missing something important. Or, perhaps more accurately, something had gone unnoticed. We’ve had our heads buried in work, distracted with family affairs, our thoughts consumed by even something as simple as what we’re going to eat for dinner tonight. We race through life, making plans for the future, or worse, using the present to reminisce about the past. Even though we physically exist in the present, our mind is captured elsewhere, leaving us almost completely distracted. I feel as though this current Sydney lockdown, despite being loathed by many, has allowed some of us a reprieve from the hamster wheel of daily life. The reprieve is the opportunity to change perspective. Paulo Coelho’s novel The Alchemist states that alchemists harbour…

1. Do I need to lose weight to climb better? Most of us have watched it happen. Someone falls off their project, attributes it to feeling heavy and then decides the solution to sending is to be lighter. Or worse, they watch a smaller, lighter climber send their project and decide being lighter like them is the only answer. Their objectivity abandons them, they block out the memory of skipping power endurance training for the past month or forget how often they walked past the hangboard rather than hung on it. They discount the ability of that lighter climber and conclude a crash diet is the answer. There is no denying that weight plays a role in climbing. But often while climbers fixate on weight loss and head toward disordered…