Climbing

I mean, I've had tons of rejections and I don't actually have any writing in any of the big outdoor magazines, like outdoor or outside magazine.

I, you know, I published something in Climbing Magazine, Canadian Geographic, but, you know, I would love to... work for, like, National Geographic or, you know, some of the big names like The New Yorker and things like that.

That, it's not like I have those credentials.

But, you know, so...

And so through that, and I think that was called the Mountain Gazette.

I probably published a handful, if not a dozen articles through them, which I could then, you know, put on a resume or send as clippings, because this was way back in the 90s, early 2000s.

I could send them to someone like Climbing Magazine and be like, hey, you know, here's some of what I published in the past.

And then, you know, that I... you know, I got kind of like a leg up there.

But natural gain, it ain't going to go well for you.

It's cool that you had the foresight to do that because a lot of these people – and these are all people that I revered when I first started climbing.

When I was thumbing through Climbing Magazine and Rockin' Eyes or you're looking through guidebooks and who put up first ascents – all these names, right? Like they were the upper echelon of the climbing world.

And yeah, these are the people that you were hanging out with, that you were friends, that you were lifelong friends with.

And at this point, some of those people, for whatever reason, you know, whether they, you know, Climbing is an extreme sport, and it's a numbers game.

And some of those people have passed in the process of pursuing the sport.

Other people have passed from other things, health reasons or what have you.

And he worked with John and man, I guess they worked everybody at basically a climbing magazine or rock and ice magazine worked really hard for like three months and came in with the manuscript.

Hello and welcome to another episode of Mountain Voices, the podcast brought to you by the UIAA, the International Climbing and Mountaineering Federation.

This is the podcast where climbers, alpinists and mountain lovers lead us into the mountains to the places and climbs that first caught their imagination, got them hooked and continue to inspire them today.

I'm Tarquin Cooper, and in this episode, I'm talking to an American climber and writer who has been at the heart of American climbing for almost four decades, both as a front row witness and also as a leading climber himself.

He started climbing aged 15, and for a while into his early 20s, he was a sponsored climber, sending hard routes at every possible opportunity.

In the early 2000s, he started writing for Climbing Magazine, rising to become editor in chief in 2007.

He's also held editorial roles at Rock and Ice and Alpinist, as well as Outside Magazine.

And most recently and very excitingly, he's become the editor of the all new American Climbing Journal, a new publication from the American Alpine Club, which sets out to chronicle feats in the climbing world in a way the journal covers alpinism.

It will be the journal of record for the most significant rock climbs each year, covering sport climbing, single pitch trad, bouldering and shorter multi-pitch climbs.

That's one.

Then you get mentioned in Climbing Magazine, published October 18th, 2017.

The article headline, "News Brief: Quinn Brett Seriously Injured in a 100-Foot El Cap Fall." A little later down in the article, "A witness report rapidly drew Yosemite Search and Rescue, YOSAR, to the scene.

Two rangers, Aaron Smith and Brandon Latham, were helicoptered into the site of the accident on the end of ropes.