Written in Stone: Climbing History

After a few weeks of thinking about it, I've put my finger on what I learned about climbing by looking back at the 1980s, and I'm ready to reveal where we go next season.

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Today, in the final interview of the season, we are talking to young legend in the making, Jordan Cannon, who is fresh off of an incredible season of big wall climbing. Most important for this conver…

Mark Hudon is a bonafide climbing legend. One of the best free climbers of the 70s and early 80s, he and partner Max Jones looked past convention and moved hard free climbing to the big walls of Yose…

Steve Bechtel is a Wyoming climbing legend who moved to Lander when the limestone at Wild Iris was discovered and helped to develop it alongside Todd Skinner and Paul Piana. 

In this episode we discu…

After causing a ruckus in Yosemite Valley and Index, Todd Skinner didn’t slink away. He looked up. Way up. At El Capitan.

He and Paul Piana had been dramatically influenced by an article written by M…

By the middle of the 1980s, the shift to sport climbing was in full swing. Two Wyoming cowboys, Paul Piana and Todd Skinner, recognized that the strength they’d gained from sport climbing would give …

Rob LeBreton wears a lot of hats. First, he’s a long time friend of the show, but he’s also a dad, husband, gym owner, former president of Sport Climbing Australia, and absolute climbing legend - the…

Alan Watts is widely recognized as the father of American sport climbing and a leading developer at Smith Rock. However, most don’t know about his impact on the indoor climbing industry in the US or …

In 1985, 19 of the top French climbers signed a manifesto against competition climbing. But competitions came anyway. Quickly, most of those same signees defected - becoming the climbers to beat at e…

A big part of my research for any UK climber ends up being first, climbing-history.org run by Remus Knowles, but then immediately after I start reading endless threads on UKclimbing.com. While there,…

In 1984, Jerry Moffatt was quite possibly the best climber in the world. A year later, he was out of climbing entirely, with severe elbow problems. During his couple of years off, climbing moved on w…

Beyond being a top athlete, Wolfgang Güllich was also a training nerd and developed the campus board. Because of this, I knew I needed to talk to Mark Anderson. Mark is one of the twin Anderson Broth…

After establishing Punks in the Gym, the first 14a (8b+), Wolfgang Güllich was looking for a change. First he accepted an invitation to a competition in Bardonecchia, Italy. It left a bad taste in hi…

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Over 40 years ago, Mountain Magazine published an article by Rosie Andrews called No Spare Rib. Filled with photos of strong women and asserting that women would eventually climb at the highest level…

Louise Shepherd was and is a juggernaut for women’s climbing, particularly in Australia, where she did for climbing what Lynn Hill did in the US - make it impossible to ignore that women are excellen…

Alison Osius is easily one of the most impactful people in climbing media. She helped to shape how so many climbers learned more about and engaged with the sport from the '80s into the '20s. She’s a …

Lynn Hill is THE legend, and quite possibly the most impactful climber of all time. I could make a case that Lynn's free ascent in a day of The Nose is the greatest climbing achievement of all time. 

Today I sit down with my good friend Amy Skinner - who, in the early '80s in Las Vegas, sort of stumbled into the scene that would eventually be called sport climbing. We discuss that movement, where…

In Part 3 of our series on female climbers of the 1980s, we wrap up the decade with difficulty reaching new heights. We see a smart pattern start to emerge at the top of the pack as women realize how…