Climbingpost

While the quality of modern climbing media can be debated (and has been on many blogs lately) climbers definitely have a higher quantity of climbing writing and photos than ever before. Blogger created the "My Blog List" feature, so now it's easy to see what's been updated.

I remember back in the day...
I had to click through a long list of bookmarks just to find out what was updated. I would visit Justin Jaeger's blog and Enlightened Chuffer's everyday, hoping there would be something new. Their blogs inspired me to start this one, and oh how I miss their regular updates. Today it's Facebook this or Twitter that, and I don't like it one bit. Most people don't have the attention span to write, or to even read a full blog post anymore. I'm surprised you've made it this far into this one. A sign that you have more perseverance than the average internet surfer in this day and age. Unfortunately, most of the personal climbing blogs have already died, or are just barely hanging on, with a post every couple months to show they're somehow clinging to life by a greasy mono or two.

One man in Spain has surveyed the entire planet searching for all the climbing blogs that still show signs of life. He's discovered just over 500 blogs worldwide and used the "My Blog List" feature so that anyone can find the most recent updates. He calls his site Climbingpost. With Climbingpost you can hit refresh every few hours, and have a few new posts to look at, or possibly read if you know the language, and are the type that can read a whole blog post.

The climbing magazines still do a fine job, and I'll be keeping my subscriptions. But in just a couple days I've read them cover to cover, and I need even more climbing media. How many times can I reread my old climbing anthologies? How many times can I skim through my collection of guidebooks? What can show me the whole world of climbing as it really happened, just hours after the sessions have ended? Climbingpost can.

The Lloyd Climbing Blog is a personal climbing blog, and I'm planning to keep it that way. Here is the climbing journal entry for last weekend.

Conditions were perfect at Sinks yesterday, and I sent my project "Mo." It felt so good! I was excited to reach a personal goal, one that I consider a new level in my sport climbing ability. And I had a sense of relief. Now I can now move on, and do other climbs, or start bouldering again if the snow keeps melting. The climbing took an intense focus, and gave me a slightly altered state of consciousness. A heightened awareness, which I've started to look for after difficult sport climbs. If only a neuroscientist had been there to measure my blood and brain chemistry immediately after the climb, they might have discovered something. Doug Robinson wrote about the affects of climbing on consciousness and brain chemistry in a couple of articles at the end of his wonderful book A Night on the Ground A Day in the Open. He has been working on a complete book about the subject since at least 1996, which will be called The Alchemy of Action. It's a very interesting topic, and I'm looking forward to learning about the connection in more depth.

One thing I wasn't looking forward to was the possibility of a climbing hangover. They often follow my best climbing days, and I got hit by another one today. Had to wake up an hour earlier for school, physically tired, and a little depressed. That's the way it goes. You lose weight, train a little harder, climb something slightly harder than you've ever been able to climb before, and after the session everything else is the same as it ever was.