The Yosemite Triple Crown is a mega linkup that climbs the 3 most prominent big walls in the valley: El Capitan, Half Dome and Mt. Watkins. It is comprised of 71 pitches and over 7000 feet of vertical climbing with around 18 miles of hiking.

Apparently, this past Sunday was National Mushroom day which coincided quite nicely with a single day ascent of "Magic Mushroom" with Brandon Adams and Jim Raynolds. This route does go free at 5.14a but being that we are mere mortals, we opted instead to bring iron, hammers, and a speaker to "aid" us up the route.

One week ago today, Ima and I ventured south from Truckee to huck a day lap on the Incredible Hulk. We left town at 4am and made it to the base of the wall before 9am despite completely losing the trail I’ve hiked in on a dozen times and opting to wade through waste deep water in our shoes… a nice prelude to the saturation levels that would define the remainder of the day.

I met Colin Haley for the first time on a bivy ledge about two thirds of the way up Cerro Chaltén during the previous weather window. Jacob Cook and I were traversing from Paso Guillaumet to the summit of Cerro Chaltén via the Care Bear Traverse and Colin was soloing the route with the best name in all of Patagonia… Mate, Porro, y Todo lo Demás.

The night we sent the South African Route , Cedar, Ima, and myself stayed up late listening to music and smoking cigarettes in our portaledge in a mood of pure bliss. I

After a week or so of bad weather, Ima, Cedar, and I hiked back up to our base camp with the help of our friends Oche, Pablo, and Anouk who graciously carried 5 liters of wine up to our bivy boulder. After a night of minimal sleep due to extreme wind, we packed up and crossed the glacier to the base of the wall prepared to commit for 14 days.

I just got back home to Truckee today after nearly a month on the road with my Basque brother Imanol Amundarain. It’s been a nice change from work life and a needed time to reflect after spending 5 months building vans and climbing minimally.

I woke up in the early morning on my plane ride to El Calefate and peered out my window at the landscape to my first glimpse of the Chaltén Massif. I landed in El Calefate and purchased a bus ticket to El Chaltén.

Yesterday morning I woke up at 5:30am on a ledge 1/3 of the way up a 1000 meter wall called Cerro Capicúa in Cochamo, Chile. The stars were out in full force as I collected my gear, tip toeing around Hayden Jamieson, Danford Jooste, and Bronwyn Hodgins in order to not wake them.

In anticipation of another bad fire season, I made it a goal to get out of the country for the month of September. In late July, I texted four friends about the idea of heading to Kyrgyzstan

I took my brother out to the Diamond just over a week ago and we managed to climb D7 in 15 hours car to car for his first trad route and one of his early multipitch climbs. He was destroyed by the end but totally crushed it, which is how I felt when he took me out mountain biking a couple days before.

It was around a campfire in Joshua Tree this past November where I met a dude from the Basque Country who went by Ima, short for Imanol. Ima claimed he was an avid climber interested in big walls of the remote variety, but I was a bit skeptical being that he had nothing climbing related on him other than a pair of brand new climbing shoes and a chalk bag that was so small a single hand could barely fit in it.

Free climbing El Capitan has been a goal of mine ever since I started climbing but one that I assumed wouldn’t happen for years to come. Most people aren’t aware that 99% of the people who climb El Cap don’t even attempt to free climb it, since such an endeavor was historically only accomplished by the elite of the climbing world.

Two days after linking up El Cap and Half Dome in a day, I partnered up with Lance Coley and we set our sights on a route called Sunkist left of the Shield Headwall on the Southwest Face of El Cap. My friend John Bolte had first told me about the route, and we had talked about potentially climbing it wall style over multiple days.

Three days ago Even Mann and I went to go climb a route called Pegasus on Quarter Dome, a formation tucked deep into Tenaya Canyon past Half Dome. We cruised the first part of the approach getting within a few hundred feet of the base in four hours but spent an additional three navigating sketchy snow slopes using nut tools as ice axes and moving slowly up wet/icy rock slabs before getting to dry rock.

I opened my eyes and peaked at the clock to see that it was almost 7 am. I lied down again for an extra thirty minutes of rest and opened my van door just as Ima opened the window to his van. “What up big dawg” is what I heard, and I proceeded to the bathroom after we exchanged the classic questions, “How did you sleep?”

Almost 3 years ago, I walked pass this rock formation on a backpacking trip in the Sierra and looked up in awe at a team of climbers making their way up the steep face. This 1200 foot piece of stone is called the Incredible Hulk and a picture of it has lived as the background of my phone ever since that trip.

I’m finally back in California after a two week escapade in the Pacific North West where I climbed for 10 days straight. The climbing in Washington was super inspiring and I managed to send some of the proudest lines I’ve ever tried as a result.