About

I was born in Manchester, NH in 1955. No, you won’t hear stories of my Mom saying that I was climbing all over everything; she wasn’t constantly having to pull me down from the top of the refrigerator. I was your pretty average kid. My family camped in New Hampshire’s White Mountain. Later in my teens as a Boy Scout, I did long backpacking trips in the mountains. Every Boy Scout who has ever backpacked imagines himself as Edmund Hillary climbing Mt Everest and I was no different.

I started rock climbing in 1972 at the age of 16 when I was a sophomore in high school. My sister’s boyfriend at the time (they were seniors) wanted to start rock climbing and asked me if I’d like to go up to North Conway in the White Mountains to take some lessons. I certainly wasn’t a star right out of the gate but I was pretty good and really loved the sport. This is back when there was one 5.10 route on Cathedral Ledge and if you could climb 5.9+ you were considered one of the better climbers around.

Lucky for me, there was a small crag near my house in Manchester that offered some pretty good climbing. It was covered in graffiti and littered with broken beer bottles but I took it over and climbed there with a few friends regularly. We made frequent trips to the White Mountains in New Hampshire, Crow Hill in Massachusetts, Ragged Mountain in Connecticut and The Gunks in New York.

“Fun Is Job #1”

In 1973 a friend asked me if wanted to go to Yosemite with him in the spring of the following year, my senior year in high school. On my first day of the school year, I walked into my adviser’s office and told him I would be taking the last two weeks of April and all of May off from school to go rock climbing in California. I’d do any make up for all my teachers before I left but needed his help in arrange it. He refused even as I adamantly asserted that that was his job. In the end, I changed advisers.

Off to Yosemite I went. It was the first time I had traveled west of Washington DC let alone flown in a plane. I climbed some of my first 5.10 routes along with the South Face of Washington Column. I attempted the Triple Direct on El Cap with the friend who had asked me to go but we got snowed off. A few days later, I spent 4 days climbing the Salathe Wall with someone who I knew from NH but had never climbed with before.

I spent a year in college majoring in Art with minors in Climbing and Drinking. After that first year I figured I should just cut to the chase. I moved out West to pursue climbing as much as I could.

In the winter of 1975-1976 I worked as a maid at the Ahwahnee Hotel. That was the spring I met Max Jones.

Max and I climbed together for only 4 years, though those days were intense and just as amazing. We rocketed to the top of the climbing hierarchy, culminating with an almost free ascent of the Salathe Wall minus 300 feet of aid climbing. We also had the second ascent of the first 5.13 in the world, The Phoenix.

I had moved to Truckee, CA, by this point and was working as a carpenter. I still climbed a lot but it wasn’t my only passion. I downhill and Alpine skied in the Lake Tahoe area. When mountain biking started to become a thing, I bought a bike.

The bolt wars were raging in the mid 80’s. I became disillusioned with the sport and took up windsurfing. On January 1, 1989 I moved to Hood River, Oregon, the windsurfing capital of the world at the time. I got married, started the Hood River Coffee Roasters Company and had a child. I got back into climbing, starting my 2nd climb career when I discovered that Smith Rock was only 2 hours south. The bolt wars were over and Sport Climbing had won. I became rabid sport climber and visited Smith every weekend I could. I eventually reached my level of incompetence at 5.13c. Climbing my most difficult sport route, French Connection 13c, took 15 days spread out over 2 years in 1997. I switched course from difficult sport routes to long trad climbs. I quested off to climb the West Face of El Cap, the Rostrum and The Diamond in Colorado.

In 2009, I started longing for an El Cap experience and set my heart to climb the Nose in a Day. I started training in January. A friend and I rented Hans Florine’s house in West Yosemite in October of that year and we climbed in the Valley for 3 weeks. We accomplished the NIAD in our last week there; I led the whole route in 15.5 hours.

In the Spring of 2010 I soloed Grape Race to Tribal Rite. That fall, I climbed the Shield, the start of my 3rd climbing career. Since then I’ve climbed 26 El Cap routes.

In 2018 I met Jordan Cannon. He offered to support me to free climb Freerider on El Cap. Arc’Teryx’s film “Free as Can Be” is the story of that partnership based on a quote that Max and I wrote for Mountain Magazine in 1979, “States of the Art”. This two part article depicts the state of free climbing in the US at the time that provides the backdrop to our effort to free climb the Salathe Wall.I have been living in a small Van/RV for the last 8 years, traveling the US, climbing and mountain biking. I spend the winter months parked on a beach in Baja, taking Spanish lessons and kiteboarding every day I can.

My goals are to keep climbing and keep having fun doing it!

Notable Climbing Achievements