Alpinist

When Kelsey Gray tells people he grew up in Houston, they immediately think he's talking about the city in Texas. But he's actually referring to Houston, Alaska. Though he spent a lot of time outdoors as a kid, he didn't venture into the mountains until later.
He started rock climbing when he was a student at the University of Alaska Anchorage. Around 2008, Gray serendipitously overheard a conversation about how Alaska needed a new rock climbing guidebook. He volunteered for the task. As part of his research for the first edition of the Alaska Rock Climbing Guide, Gray climbed more than 340 routes in one summer. He realized many of them were riddled with old, unsafe hardware and has since dedicated a lot of time and money to replacement.
He's now published several guidebooks and books of poetry while climbing and developing routes around the world. We connected with Gray while he was in Thailand.
You can learn more about Kelsey Gray in the Local Hero section of Alpinist 92.
This episode brought to you by Patagonia
Host: Abbey Collins
Producer & Engineer: Mike Horn
Guest: Kelsey Gray
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In the film Guerreras, Alita Contreras is shown preparing for a long, traversing rock route on a cliff in Colombia. Her dog by her side, Contreras mimes the moves, headphones on, eyes closed, meditating on what she's about to climb. 
Contreras was born in Venezuela, but her Colombian father made sure to keep traditions from his home country alive during her upbringing. Today, she lives and climbs in Colombia and works as a translator and climbing coach. 
In this conversation, she discusses the challenges of navigating identity after living in seven countries, and speaks to the incredible biodiversity and climbing communities found in Colombia. We also talk about her involvement in the making of Guerreras, a documentary that takes an intergenerational look at women climbers in Colombia. 
Alita guides us through her tactics for visualization, and speaks to how being engaged in a climb is often the only way she can clear her mind of mental clutter. 
This episode brought to you by Patagonia
Host: Abbey Collins
Producer & Engineer: Mike Horn
Guest: Alita Contreras
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Climbing documentarians Peter Mortimer and Nick Rosen are known for films such as "The Alpinist" and "Valley Uprising." Now the directors are out with a four-part documentary series "The Dark Wizard," which premieres on HBO Max on April 14.
The documentary traces the life of Dean Potter, who was well known in the world of climbing for his bold free soloing, BASE jumping, and highlining. But the human behind those efforts was quite complicated, something that is illustrated through interviews with friends, family, and climbing partners—and archival interviews with Potter himself.
Mortimer and Rosen reflect on their own relationships with Potter, whom they filmed with often before he died in a BASE jumping accident in Yosemite in 2015. The pair share why they felt this film needed to be made in an honest way and how Potter's journals, provided by his sister, presented a lesser-known side of him, one that was quite vulnerable.
 
This episode brought to you by Patagonia.
Host: Abbey Collins
Producer & Engineer: Mike Horn
Guests: Peter Mortimer and Nick Rosen
 Watch "The Dark Wizard"
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New York City might seem like an unlikely place for a climber of Will Moss's caliber to hail from. And yet, he managed to find his way from the climbing gym, to boulders in Central Park, to runout trad routes in the Gunks and big walls in Yosemite. It was there that he recently made headlines as being the first person to flash a big wall free route on El Cap in just one day. 
Moss started climbing in his neighborhood gym when he was ten. For some perspective, that was only a decade ago. It was love at first climb, and he hasn't looked back since. At first, he mainly focused on indoor competition climbing. But when gyms closed during the COVID-19 pandemic he started getting outdoors more. A friend introduced him to the Gunks when he was sixteen, and, as he says, "that's where the dream of trad climbing began."  
Now twenty years old, Moss's 22-hour push on El Cap this May was the culmination of more than two years of planning. In this conversation, we talk in depth about the historic climbs Will is ticking off at a young age, and what he's planning next as he takes a semester off from pursuing a degree in mechanical engineering to chase his climbing dreams.
This episode is brought to you with support from Rab Equipment.
Host: Abbey Collins
Producer & Engineer: Mike Horn
Guest: Will Moss
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When Sonnie Trotter was a teenager, he discovered a portal into another world. Entering the local climbing gym he found challenge, adventure and passion. By sixteen, he was all in, and he made it up his first 5.14 within just a few years. 
The climbing seemed to come naturally, but figuring out how to make a living doing it took a lot more time—and some trial and error. Early sponsorships covered gas money for traveling to competitions, but it took him a decade to start generating real income as an athlete. He knew that his happiness was directly connected to climbing and so he did whatever he could to do it as much as he could. 
Looking back at the last thirty years of climbing, Trotter says he's most proud of his willingness to listen to himself and commit to his passion. He recently published "Uplifted," a memoir chronicling those many years of climbing, his role as a father and how he manages to tie it all together. 
In this conversation, we talk about Trotter's evolution as an athlete, where he finds freedom and why he believes climbing should be fun—even when it's not easy.
This episode is brought to you with support from Rab Equipment.
Host: Abbey Collins
Producer & Engineer: Mike Horn
Guest: Sonnie Trotter
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Purchase Sonnie's book, "Uplifted: The Evolution of a Climbing Life"
Photography courtesy of Patagonia.