“Change, shit. I guess change is good for any of us”-Tupac Shakur.

the last 2 years have basically just been that. Jobs, life, reinjury, new injury, nagging finger injury, starting a new thing, and realizing things I had never thought possible in my climbing life.

I love writing. Some people say routesetting is a creative outlet. For me, nothing compares to writing. I can say things this way that I would never be able to capture as well with words and it makes a lot of emotional things so much easier to convey.

Got a new job. For a long time after I did, I had a lot of crazy thoughts that would have me second guess my decision all the time. I’d think “do I really want to be a fucking hold sales guy?”and for a while I would miss my routesetter self, my entire identity was wrapped up in that. I would say to a certain degree it still is. Over time, that voice started to quiet, and throughout 2025 I completed the hardest route I’ve ever done in my life. It took more mental, physical and emotional energy than I ever thought was possible for me to have, and throughout up until the literal try before I sent, I wasn’t sure I was ever going to do the route. I think I talked about this at some point, about finding a limit and actually getting there, is a scary thing as a climber and therefore person who’s entire life is wrapped in climbing because it makes you truly face real failure.

Somehow, I still feel like I’m getting better, and also have some capacity to gain strength. I’ll be 44 in May, and I actually can feel and not lie to myself when I think I have a pretty decent shot at doing Warpath this fall or spring of 2027.

Man, some of the other memories and things from 2025 are all coming back…crazy year when I start remembering all of it. I worked from a Starlink from Riggins for like 4 weeks last year with Merto Asuncion, one of my best friends, someone I’ve climbed with a lot, set a lot of competitions and have had such fun times in the mountains with over the years. He definitely played a huge part in sending the project….cause someone’s gotta hold the rope.

Kaiya has made a ton of progress with her celiac diagnosis, she had whiplash from a bouldering fall in 2024 that went undiagnosed for like a year, and once she started in on rehab, its taking a long time to get back to where she needs to be, and in that time she developed elbow tendonitis from using a computer mouse all the time at work!!!! The dangers of the corporate world….reminds me of an Office Episode. She’s making a ton of progress and has recently shared a really cool goal for herself and I’m really excited to help her get there. I know that she is very capable of making it happen, and I’ll be so happy to see the process and work pay off in the end!

this one is going all over the place. Man. I want to get up to date and work on this regularly and trying to summarize the last year is so easy and so hard at the same time because the things I have realized this year in the last few months tie back to when I was 21, 22 years old. I’ll try to be quick. I also just thought about maybe putting a photo or two in here every now and then.

I spent from age 19 until age 42 in some form of a manangement role at a job. from running a construction crew to a routesetting program to a program for an entire country, I’ve had some many different encounters where I’ve had to give and receive feedback, and learn about other people. in that same time, I also did a lot of coaching of kids wrestling and baseball and enjoyed it a lot, but at the time I had no idea how much I enjoyed it. I did both of those sports as a kid, some for longer than others and so I had a lot of connection to what they had to do, and how it felt to do so. I started coaching climbing in Boise Idaho in 2010. That and the routesetting has taken me in such crazy places since then. I coached on and off, making training plans and such for people that were friends, programmed for the team that I coached (sorry kids some of those training days were A LOT but my heart was in the right place and ya’ll seemed to have turned out pretty OK) and helped Kaiya send her hardest boulder ever.

all of the things that have happened in the last years have really changed who I am as a person. Seeing and dealing with some of the things that I’ve had to and been fortunate enough to have fundamentally changed me, for the better.

I’m in a position now that I’m doing something that has made me come to realize that for a long time I never knew how much gratitude that I got out of someone else allowing me to be invested in their goals and the outcome of them. I coach two climbers now, and I’ll start working with Kaiya as soon as shes ready, probably in the next 2-4 weeks and I found out the other day that I am starting to care about other peoples climbing as much or more than my own. That was one of the craziest things I’ve ever come to know in my life, and its making quite the impression. 27 years ago I climbed for the first time, and up until about a year ago I had only cared about my wife’s climbing as much or more than my own and let’s be 100% honest here, most people will always be that way. I’m shocked frankly that this has happened. I never thought it would because it wasn’t even something I’d ever thought. Age, me getting soft. maybe. fucking knows.

what I will say, and as eloquently as possible since I can draft and delete here 100 times if I need to. but I won’t cause I think it’s better unfiltered since it comes from more truth and honesty this way.

being around people that are this invested in their climbing and take it as part of their life, and having it define them, not all the way but some for sure was something that I don’t know if I’d felt before. That doesn’t mean it wasn’t there. all that means is that I wasn’t ready to care about the outcome that someone else was interested in more than my own. Now. we are in the current day. that is a completely different story and I can’t for the life of me figure out why. Is it because I sent a lifetime project at a level I never thought I could get to and I have peace? I doubt it but that might be me telling myself that? Shit. Now I’m digging a deeper hole of feelings and I hate it.

i care as much or more for these people’s successes as much or more than my own. 25 year old me would have laughed me out of the room if I’d said that. look at me now.

there’s no reason for this. like I said. I like writing. but it’s all 100% true, and I’m ok with that. when i said that i don’t like to edit I meant it. There will be typos. because for some reason part of my process that I like with this is that when i get tto the last word, and I never really really really really really really really (to quote the GOAT himself Adam Ondra) know what that word is until I just know. then I hit publish. it’s like a writing version of a grenade. really keeps the site on track and theme…