I call myself a climber because climbing made me who I am. I started in 1980. The more and harder I did it the better I became.

Ian Parnell profiles one of American climbing's more colorful characters, the influential alpinist Mark Twight.

If someone goes lighter they can climb it faster. Have at it.

I thought one might climb ice in those conditions and I had ice tools, just no experience. It was winter, in Wyoming, waterfalls were surely frozen somewhere.

Snow had begun to fall and I was concerned that the rapid accumulation made the couloir more dangerous by the moment.

When I first saw Mark Twight, he had just started climbing. A skinny, intense kid, he moved easily between rage and humor, contempt and the need to be recognized as superior.

If you look into yourself clearly, without casuistry, does everything that stares back at you make you happy? I hope not.

Details about attempts to traverse the summits above Little Cottonwood Canyon remained vague since it had yet to be completed in a single push.

Digital is time (and money) thief. I spend now a lot of time in front of the computer and I have to admit that I don't like to spend so much time indoors.

I tried to be casual about it but the diarrhea hit me at the same time. My Patagonia Baggy Pants could not conceal my loss of control.

One role-models what he sees daily and if it's shit he sees it is shit he becomes; unless he is really strong and I'm not.

When these articles were first published, Mark introduced a controversial new style for mountaineering literature that caught the staid climbing community off guard.

I used to think I went through life talking to two people at a time. I think the web multiplies everything 100x, both the bad and good.

The closest piece of protection is 20 feet below, meaning you'll go 40 feet minimum - IF your belayer is paying attention.

I defined myself as a climber during the rapid evolution of the 1980s, when Bohigas and Lucas climbed Annapurna's massive, technically severe south face in Alpine Style ...

Improving sport performance is a question of attention, discipline, and effort. Practice makes habit. You become what you do. Do it right and evolve. Do it wrong and stagnate.

I was going to have a few beers. Knowing better but doing it anyway, I bought Denis a shot of tequila.

On movie mountains invisible crevasses open and snap shut, snow and stones rain constantly, and 100-year storms kill once a week.

I realized the shelves were full of books on mountaineering but none reflected the way people actually climbed on the world's hardest routes.

Give me the hammer or the winter storm that kills