“My boy is in Mississippi State Prison, been in there four years for beating a cop’s boy nearly to death,” said the stranger on the barstool two seats down from me and Herndie, my old climbing buddy who was out for a few months of R and R in the crisp Colorado air.

“I’m Ted, and you two are?”

We introduced ourselves and I thought that was the end of that.

Herndie and I had been driving around late evening looking for the OU game on a big TV. The University of Oklahoma football team was ranked number one and, both of us having gone to that school, we followed the team when they were doing well.

We ended up at the Crystal Club on the boulevard in Redstone, an enclave of 92 people, mostly retirees or owners of the various hotels and restaurants catering to tourists who spill through town when the weather is nice. The Crystal Club has satellite TV, two screens and I know the owner Billy and he’ll tune to whatever game you are looking for.

“My boy is only 5’ 7” but he can ...

Fred Nicole has established a new V15 called Le Boa, a problem located at … Wait a minute.  Fred Nicole?  Isn’t he twice as old as Daniel Woods?  Could he really be getting stronger?

“I wish I would, but unfortunately I don’t think so,” says Nicole. “But you can still improve in many other things rather than pure power and be a much better climber.”

Still improving at 41 years old, Nicole continues to develop elite rock climbs with his most recent being the 16-move boulder problem Le Boa, which he suggests to be 8C or V15.

[Fred Nicole on Le Boa.]


Fred Nicole learned to climb in his native Switzerland as a teenager and it wasn’t long before he began to push the boundaries. Nicole is responsible for establishing the world’s first V13, V14 and V15. In 1992 he made the first ascent of Les Danse des Balrogs (V13) in Branson, Switzerland. In 1996, he established Radja (V14), also in Branson. In 2000, he completed Dreamtime (...

Between juggling four part-time jobs and single motherhood, Lynn Hill has still found time to send Living in Fear (5.13d) in Rifle, Colorado.

“I just turned 50 so I wanted to try something hard," says Hill. "Living in Fear addressed my weakness because you can’t recover easily on the route.”

Hill tried the route last spring and returned to Rifle this fall extremely motivated, climbing the route on September 14.

She says, “I’m really psyched to climb more.  My 8-and-a-half year old son Owen started school again so I have a little more time to focus on climbing.”

Hill had fallen from Living in Fear’s notorious "5.8 Dyno" four times the previous weekend.

“Having the power, precision, and timing for the dyno was challenging,” she said, “but the biggest thing for me was learning to relax on the route and recover" on the poor rests available.

Impressively, Hill managed to send the route on her third redpoint burn of the day, when many would be tired or giving up.

Always moving forward, Hill, who has climbed 5.14a in ...

The  scene seemed  familiar, as if I was at a bar on this Saturday night, dressed in my newest jeans and designer boots, waiting for the perfect guy. But instead of a bar I leaned into a vertical wall and instead of holding a drink, I held cold granite. Nevertheless, on the granite face of a solo climb, I heard the words, “Do you want a drink?”