Dear Steph,
My name is Carly Bradshaw; I’m a climber and a student at the University of Oregon, traveling and working on my undergrad thesis about climbing. Specifically, I am interested in the explaining the dirt climbing community at large using the microcosm of Hueco Tanks Texas as [...]

My friend Peewee, who has climbed most of the hard cracks around the desert, told me about a nice finger crack at the Pistol Whipped Wall. Peewee told me it was one of the harder splitters at the Creek, and he may have done the first ascent, and since I’ve been climbing finger cracks [...]

For the last month or two, I’ve been pretty motivated for training. In fact, I was liking it so much, I wasn’t really thinking about much else. I tend to get kind of focused on whatever I’m doing, and sometimes need to be yanked out of my groove

Spring! Somehow these are the most moving words I’ve ever read. Every budding tree I see in spring makes me hear them in my mind.
Fyodor Dostoevsky, the Brothers Karamazov:

“Alyosha, my boy, so I want to live and go on living, even if it’s contrary to the rules of logic.

Groove Armada “Superstylin’”

I think there are lots of effective ways to train, and it’s good to use some/all of them at various times. Basically, anything extra you do to train is going to help you, no matter what. I think climbing on plastic helps a lot, and fingerboarding, and also weight lifting [...]

Hi Steph,
Just thought I would add another email to your many emails from the site.
Your philosophy on life is eye opening and just what I needed to read!
I live in Australia but I work a job I don’t like, doing things I am not
interested in, paying a mortgage that feels like a burden – though [...]

Sadly, my email server was not forwarding any messages sent to this site for two months! I hope to catch up with everyone as soon as possible. Thank you to everyone who wrote me after I visited Italy in January!! I really appreciate your letters.
Hi Steph,
I’m the blond girl in the first [...]

I just discovered that my steph@highinfatuation.com email server has been secretly squirreling away all the emails it received since January! Luckily they are still there, and now I can get them.
So I have a big stack of letters from many people to answer. I hope no one has felt ignored! I will [...]

I notice that when I do any sort of training, it does seem to make climbing more fun, so I regularly climb on my wall, do fingerboard workouts, run, do yoga, and lift weights. All these things seem to help with climbing, as well as keeping me active and energetic.

Hey Steph,
I’d like to begin with saying congratulations on a wonderful and inspiring career. I have only been climbing for a year and a half, spending most of my young life running, but now I find myself unable to stop climbing and am almost obsessed with improving and learning as much as I can [...]