LETTER FROM THE EDITOR I am a total sucker for climbing literature. I spend countless hours reading of past ascents, and flipping the pages of whatever journal, magazine, or book has grabbed my attention. In a way, working on this year’s journal seemed like an inevetible progression of my obsession. It was five year’s ago when I picked up one of my first climbing publications: Alpinist, issue number 22. The Mountain Profile on Ben Nevis blew me away with its pictures of the world’s greatest climbers tackling sheer walls of thin ice and rotten rock. I was so enthralled that I actually stole the issue from my school library. Its pages became bent and worn with my every pass, and my thoughts more gripped. While the literature captivated me and left me with grand ambitions for
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pursuits in the mountains, climbing was among the least important things in my life. As the years went by, though, something in me kept calling me back to that inspiration I had found in reading about climbing and seeing pictures of such dramatic and rugged mountains. Two years ago, after my first year at CC, I relinquished many of my possesions, and, using a summer’s worth of wages, finally pushed the button on a life long dream to venture into the alpine, unsure of what I would find. At the time, I couldn’t imagine that my decision would propel me right into the world of climbing and deep into CC’s climbing community. I fell in love with alpinism almost immediately. Dreams of just geting to the alpine subsided as I became inspired by hard routes on sweeping walls of
rock, snow, and ice. With the Cordillera Blanca as my playground, I thumbed through old guidebooks looking for lines both classic and obscure, finding partners and packing my load accordingly. Thinking back, I’m not sure if some of my first 5.9 trad leads (with crampons!) at 20,000ft were among the safest decisions I’ve made, but, then again, I’m not sure I would have done it any differently. Like all of those who write to and read the Journal, you all have a story to tell, and I am proud of the narrative comprising my own. As one of the current student editors for the Journal and one who spent substantial time composing this publication, it will reflect many of my own