So far in my adult life, I have lived in some of the country’s most expensive places. In Manhattan, where I first went to school, I was on a fairly generous scholarship from the university I attended, and was thusly shielded from many of New York’s financial perils, but they were always in full view beyond my walls. In Honolulu, I broke my body waiting tables, and then eventually donned a tie for the State, moving papers from one side of my desk to the other, a white-shirted picket in the bureaucratic fence. I got by. And now I find myself in Boulder, a city that is certainly by no means cheap.... Read More

She stole the very beauty from the earth. He would try to continue to find it, but on the long drive through the canyon that morning, one that he never felt compelled to rush and instead enjoyed reveling in the less-touched pieces of land beyond the city, he could only speed, passing each car and feeling disgusted by the perfect trails of clouds, trails he would often look at as threads of heaven spun over the earth, feeling today that they looked instead like claw marks made by the hand of his own ache, raked across the face of God. The bright plumage of the Aspen forests and the rivers normally... Read More

I have a fear of heights, have had it as long as I can remember. I suppose that it’s more appropriate to say that I have a fear of falling, as the state of being up off the ground itself doesn’t really bother me. Years ago, when I visited the Eiffel Tower and was walking around the first landing, I felt no discomfort until I actually stood at the railing in order to see the city, a view of Paris that you can get nowhere else, and rather than focusing on the mesmerizing sprawl of tumultuous urban romance laid out before me, I could only see in a single vector directed straight at the pavement... Read More

I’d like to take a moment to practice some thinking about my thinking, metacognition, in the context of writing and climbing and sense of place. This is perhaps something that should have been done earlier, this moment of reflection, this breath, but it is nevertheless something that I have toyed with through the endless afternoons and shimmering heatwaves of the last month, in the same way that it is so easy to step back and, with self-directed skepticism, question just what the hell it is that one thinks that one is doing. When I was approached by Scott Armstrong, the founder of About Boulder,... Read More

Last year, when my circumstances in Hawaii changed and it was time to pack up and move on, I had family in Boulder that I hadn’t seen in far too long and, with no plans or places to be and having just started climbing, Colorado seemed like the most logical choice. I really had no idea of what the environment would be like, or to what opportunities I was about to expose myself. All I knew was that this area was a cradle of the sport in all of its forms, and I figured that, if I were to pursue it in any capacity, there would be no shortage of options here. And I never could have foreseen how, even... Read More

I fell into climbing almost serendipitously – the last time that I returned to Hawaii, a friend of mine with whom I was reconnecting after many years had, since my previous move, become completely enamored with the sport of bouldering. I was perplexed, totally, finding myself in the camp of outsiders who, without insight, might only be able to view rock climbing in any form as simply a recreational amusement for thrill seekers, strength jockeys, extremists. Presumptive as that may be, he never did and still doesn’t fit this profile, and so with my curiosity piqued I accepted his invitation... Read More