Published

Like I do, I was fooling around on Mountain Project.  I spend an awful amount of time on that website, pouring over routes I'd like to do, checking in on gossip, and daydreaming about climbing.  I hate it and, simultaneously, I love it.  I hate it because I'm daydreaming about something abstract and external, and I end up wasting time where I could be more productive with the rest of my life.  But, I admit, that then I love it because I have a genuine connection with positive, proud memories in my brain that are inexorably linked to that one particular activity, climbing.  

And then I came across this story:

http://www.alpinist.com/doc/web11f/newswire-oops?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+alpinist%2FEFcn+%28Alpinist+Newswires%29

Basically, Alpinist screwed up their cover printing and, in explaining their embarrassment, offered the blemish covers for sale.  It piqued my interest because, frankly, I appreciate good writing, and certainly good writing about climbing.  As I get older, I'd like to be more supportive of things I really care about, and thought I should get them some money to further that cause of good prose with a mountain backdrop.  That's my ultimate goal for this site, instead of the daily correspondence that it typically becomes.  I was interested in the idea of buying one of the covers for my barren walls in my bedroom.  Walls that really need some adult ornamentation.  

The idea came to me that perhaps I'd frame an Alpinist cover and hang it.  Then, my mind wandered to the most recent issue of Rock and Ice that is on my table.  I figured I might put that one up, too, and have a little theme for my would-be art exhibition.  I opened the pages and, as any magazine does, a postcard begging for my subscription fell into my hand.  "It's a Big Deal!" the sales pitch read.  But my mind mistook the message, reading it for irony.  Andrew Bisharat was telling me it was ok to accept the fact that I was looking at that cover, thinking of framing it on my wall, and It's a Big Deal.  I published my first article.  

A write up of Pervertical Sanctuary isn't the most inspiring piece of climbing lore you'll ever read.  It's a short write up about a non-cutting edge adventure up a modern day moderate.  But to me, it's a story that connects my dad with climbing, and hopefully hints at my relationship to both he and the hills.  

I kind of like being proud of those achievements, and hanging them on the wall.  They'll look great next to my error-Alpinist, No 36.