The Return. Translated from Italian.

Been a long time since I even realized that this existed, and if there was anyone waiting with bated breath, you can exhale. I’m back.

For a long time, writing for me was a therapy of sorts. I would express feelings about everything. Climbing, non-climbing, life events and all. As one could imagine, there have been a lot of things that have happened in the last 11 years since I wrote here last. I won’t bore you with the details, but a short update.

Kaiya and I are living in Salt Lake City Utah, I work for USA Climbing where I am the Routesetting Director. That entails a lot of different things, but mainly administrative duties, teaching routesetting clinics, and working with the National and Olympic team as a setter and providing some feedback to the athletes. As we speak, I am sitting in Sportrock Climbing Center in Alexandria VA with a good friend, teaching a Level 2 Routesetter clinic. Overall life is good. 2024 on the other hand has been trying.

Towards the tail end of 2023, I was feeling incredibly fit. I’d spent almost 6 months rope climbing, mostly in the pursuit of sending an open project at one of my favorite cliffs, Riggins Idaho. I got super close, falling on the last hard move of the crux boulder a few times, but no send. Was a very mentally and emotionally challenging process. Coming to grips with the fact that I might NEVER send, and letting go of the result and focusing on dialing in each move, working to make sections more efficient and climbing them faster was a great experience for me. It opened my eyes to how hard I could climb on a rope, and really brought my interest level up for high end sport climbing. As weather cooled and I turned back towards boulders, I began to slack a bit on my PT. I had a massive shoulder reconstruction in 2019, tore my subscapularis tendon off the head of my humerus, tore the muscle, tore my long bicep tendon and injured a few other components of the shoulder. Working through that injury took time, but I was able to come back and climb at full strength, and it’s possible to stay there, if I am diligent with my PT. Which I wasn’t. And it bit me in the ass in December. I wasn’t able to lift my arm without pain for about 3 weeks, unable to climb, train, hang or anything overhead. Once I got my PT back on track it slowly came back to normal strength, once the shoulder got back to the position that it is supposed to sit in. As the time went by, my shoulder was operating at about 80-90% and I went on a trip to Bishop to try and finish Spectre. I’d tried it a lot between 2009 and 2015, doing the big jump move one time from the start, only to break a foot and fall off the slab…not what you want. Wasn’t able to do the jump again, after it taking close to 100 attempts to do once. Pretty low percentage.

Skip to February, I went to London to set the GB Team Selection bouldering event, and met an awesome group of setters who I now can call friends. Got to spend a week with them, setting, testing, talking lots of shit and meeting new folks. Overall a great time. Once I was back, I got right back into outdoor bouldering mode. I have some projects at Castle Rocks Idaho, somewhere that has been a special place for me over the years. I went there first in 2003 and have spent time there almost every year for over 2 decades. It’s sometimes shocking to think that I’ve been climbing in areas for longer than a lot of the athletes I set for have been alive. Starting to become the old guy. Couple days of climbing there, and a gym session one day the next week. Went to use a hangboard, weighted my right hand about 50% and felt a feeling like someone smashed a tomato under my skin. FUCK. Felt around, sometimes there can be little popping sensations that are tendons skipping over calcification, but this immediately felt painful, and only got worse as time went on. Finger injury. Ended up being one of the worst I have had in at least 10 years, and only in August did I start climbing and training a little bit. Starting to feel better now, and able to go for it and climb without large amounts of apprehension and not as tentative.

Long story short, 2024, which was shaping up to be “my year” (at least I was playing that up in my mind) ended up being anything but. Frustration mounted and I tried my best to cope with it. When I was younger, injuries had less of an affect because I was so busy working and hanging with friends. As one gets older, and life becomes less varied, at least it has for me. When I remove one part that is such a pivotal piece of the puzzle, I feel somewhat lost, and don’t have as much direction and drive. I didn’t even realize how much I missed the fun feeling of just climbing at the gym with some homies, talking shit and having a good time.

To wrap this up, I’m very excited to start writing again. It’s such a good outlet for me, and I feel like some of the bullshit stories that I have are mildly entertaining. Hope you enjoy, and check back in weekly for new posts, photos, videos and for sure some rants about climbing, competitions, routesetting and the industry overall.