In ‘The Wind Will Carry Us’, Pirmin Bertle and his family explore the arid, windy expanses of the Altiplano from Bolivia to Chile The wind will carry us away… maybe. If we don‘t move it probably will. Gusts up to 144 km/h push salty air up the hillsides from Salar de Atacama, the sprawling salt lake covering the plains a thousand metres below. Sand and dust coat our bus and creep into every interstice. Our kids – two- and five-years-old…
Chile-based Australian, Patrick Mikelsons, is absolutely frothing over the desert-delights of climbing in Rio Salado in the Atacama Desert I vividly remember my first glimpse of climbing in Atacama. We were sitting in a cafe in rainy Mendoza after being washed out of Arenales – one of Argentina’s top climbing destinations – dreaming of dry rock and we’d heard various people throwing around comparisons of the Chilean Altiplano crags to Indian Creek. We unearthed a video and some photos of an…
In ‘Australia, It’s Just Not Miserable Enough’, British nice-guy-crusher, skidmark-cleaner and sometime-party-boy, Oli Grounsell, spends a year down under #STRAYA // TL:DR Roped climbing – 5/5 Bouldering – 4/5 People – 2/5 Summer Weather – 1/5 Winter Weather – 5/5 Cost of Living – 5/5 on AUD, 2/5 on GBP Party scene – 4/5 (certain elements could be cheaper) Food – 5/5 (great Asian food in #Melbourne) Booze – 4/5 Pubs – 3/5 (you just can’t beat British pubs) When I…
In ‘Song of the Sirens’ first-time Arapiles visitor, Andy Szollosi, discovers the timeless magic of climbing at the Mount I. Rising on the horizon is the silhouette of Mt Arapiles – a sprawled out giant turned to stone, slumbering on the plains of northwest Victoria. I’ve been driving for hours, and the mountain waits ahead of me, like it’s waited for so many others before. Local Indigenous people knew it as Djurite, and they climbed its steep cliffs to find…
With the release of Will Atkinson’s new short video – titled confusingly given the quality of the stone that it showcases West Coast Choss – the people of Oz may finally have realised that there is a lot of bouldering to do be done way out west in Western Australia Give us the Will Atkinson 101? I’m 32 years old and I’m from Sheffield in the UK, I have been living in Perth, WA for the last 18 months. I’m currently working at…
Want more Vertical Life? Download issue 24 for free here. In Stephen Waa, (woe, woe, woe what is he good for?) Doug McConnell goes back back the future WORDS: Doug McConnell, IMAGES: Kamil Sustiak ‘Yes! The no-hands rest, I can’t fall off now.’ I thought with a little too much confidence ‘Grade 26 at most to the top now and it’s not even 2pm on Sunday – who said I always leave it to the last minute to send my projects? But what’s the sequence…
