Dave is from Hobart, Tasmania, Australia and has been climbing for over 30 years. He regularly writes on social media climbing sites and is currently writing a book with a collection of stories about climbing and the senses. In July 2019 Dave joined Common Climber as an Associate Editor. Check out his welcome letter and extended bio.

Dave can be reached through Facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/dave.barnes.984

Common Climber Writings:
 

• 2023 - Reflection (By Dave Barnes) - Dave Barnes shares his reflections on 2023. Read about some of the First Ascents he put up and his observations about the climbing world of 2023. 
• Andrew Penny - A Blue Mountaineer ​(By Dave Barnes) - Andrew Penny is a legend  in the Blue Mountains of Australia. Andrew rode the wave of change in the Blue Mountains ushering in sport climbing But, he also made sure to bolt easy to moderate climbs that are accessible to all climbers. Dave Barnes gives us a tour of this Australian climbing legend. 
• A Climber's Hands (By ​David Barnes) - A climber's hands are conductors which earth us as we climb. Our feet back them up.  A climber’s hands are the touch-stone of our climbing lives. If you’re into tender and supple hands, don’t take up climbing.
• Blind Ambition Builds a World Class Climber: The Story of Jesse Dufton (By Dave Barnes) - United Kingdom climber Jesse Dufton has Rod-Cone Dystrophy, a genetic disorder where his eyes do not have the structural support for the light sensitive cells at the back of the eye. This has slowly eroded his vision, taking him into the world of climbing blind. Jesse, who has been climbing since a young age, has adapted - and he still leads trad.
• BOOK REVIEWS:
  
  
  • A Light Through The Cracks: A Climber's Story (Book By Beth Rodden) - Review By Dave Barnes - A number of books come across my desk each year.  I saw that Beth Rodden had completed her Climber’s Story and I had a vibe that this one would be something extra.  I was not wrong.  
  • Climbing Wild: A History of Rock Climbing in Tasmania (Book By Gerry Narkowicz) - Review By Dave Barnes​ - Delving into its pages, it feels like you are resting by a campfire, the author with a brew, the fire glistening off of his eyes, sharing what seems a malt-whisky-breath of wisdom for the future. 
  • Freiheit (Book By Thomas Huber) - Review By Dave Barnes - In FREIHEIT, Thomas Huber tells his life story, and it is like a speed train that is close to derailing. Each page kept me thinking, how does this dude keep his engine coaled up and his carriages buckled in, while proceeding with furious velocity up that mountain track he so often finds himself on? Thomas has swung ten lifetimes of ice axes, unfurled that BASE canopy, survived more rock fall, seen more tragedy, burned up more frequent flyers, and danced with transcendence, more than most intrepid folks do in one lifetime.  AND HE LIVES AMONGST US, STILL.
  • HOOKING UP: The Ultimate Big Wall and Aid Climbing Manual (Book by Fabio Elli & Peter Zabrok) - Review By Dave Barnes - I have just finished reading Fabio Elli’s and Peter Zabrok’s Hooking Up –The Ultimate Big Wall and Aid Climbing Manual. I am now in need of a stretch and my whiskers need pruning. This is no normal climbing manual; this is a biblical testament to all things big wall climbing.
  • More: Life on the Edge of Adventure and Motherhood (Book by Majka Burhardt) - Common Climber Assistant Editor Dave Barnes reviews the book "More: Life on the edge of Adventure and Motherhood" by Majka Burhardt - a raw exploration on how becoming a mother of twins impacted her mentally, physically, and as a professional climber. 
  • Royal Robbins - The American Climber  (Book By David Smart) ​(Review by Dave Barnes) - Royal Robbins' name is iconic, like, who names their kid, Royal? If you were that kid, how do you live up to a name like that? David Smart has authored a comprehensive history of the iconic climber, author, businessman, husband, and father - illustrating how Royal did, indeed, "live up."
  • States of Adventure: 30 Outdoor Adventure Stories About Finding Yourself by Getting Lost (Book by Fitz Cahall) - Review by Dave Barnes - Adventure has it’s pull in a myriad of ways, each of you chase it for your own set of reasons. Embarking on a mission requires determination and completing it requires resilience. Fitz Cahall angled his collection of stories not so much about the adventure itself, in all the stories in States of Adventure it is what the adventure does to the person and their mindset.
  • Sydney Climbing: Selected Climbs  (Book by Neil Monteith & Simon Carter, Review by Dave Barnes) - ​It's been a long time since Sydney, Australia has had an updated guidebook, and Dave Barnes (who put up a number of first ascents in the area), reviews this new, soon-to-be released gem.
  • The Greater Fool - Brad Gobright and the Blinding Shine of Originality (Book by Lucas Roman) -  Review by Dave Barnes - "The Greater Fool is a climbing biography done differently. It would not be a stretch to say it is a hagiography. The author writes about Brad like a Benedictine Monk prays to the Lord Jesus in hush tones with words spoken in vespers."​
  • The Art of Climbing (Book By Simon Carter) - Review By Dave Barnes - Simon Carter has come to be one of the foremost climbing photographers throughout the world. In this day and age that is a serious accomplishment, every climber with a phone takes happy snaps of their vertical adventures. To rise above that static through progressive generations of climbers, to keep images fresh and enlightening, to capture the leaders in our game doing incredible feats in amazing locations, well that takes discipline. Few of us have that. Simon Carter does and his new book, The Art of Climbing captures a lifetime of his work.​
  • The Mountain Path: A Climber's Journey Through Life and Death (Book by Paul Pritchard) - Review by Dave Barnes - Common Climber Assistant Editor Dave Barnes reviews Paul Pritchard's new book (which was released December 2021) The Mountain Path: A Climber's Journey Through Life and Death. Dave, who is a climber and trained theologian who suffered from a brain injury himself, shares a special connection and reflection about this book. ​​
  • Uncoiling the Ropes (Book Author: Clare Sheridan) (Review By: Dave Barnes)  - Clare Sheridan is an Irish climbing trailblazer, putting up hundreds of first ascents over five decades. Dave Barnes shares a review of Clare's autobiography that describes her life of climbing (and raising kids) with husband and climbing partner Calvin Torran, as well as other's with whom she has shared a rope. In Dave Barnes' words, "As a climbing biography and a story in general you will not be disappointed in opening the covers and diving in. It is engaging throughout, thought provoking at times, and often had me laughing out loud..." Learn more about this book and Dave's thoughts on the content. 
  • Valley of Giants - Stories of Women at the Heart of Yosemite Climbing (Book Edited By: Lauren DeLaunay Miller) - ​Review By Dave Barnes - "Lauren is like a jeweler chipping away at a diamond. In Valley of Giants you will come to realise the inequality experienced by womxm over the years. It is not a put-down on men, just an acknowledgement that this has been part of a climbing womxn's journey."
  • Yosemite Bigwalls – The Ultimate Guide  (Book by Erik Sloan, Review by Dave Barnes - What do you do in the middle of a global pandemic? How about dreaming of or escaping to the promised land of climbing, Yosemite.  Well, maybe it will be the former rather than the latter for the time being, but the time will come when the big wall rack will be dusted off and your eyes will seek out reading that will give you the latest route beta, the illustrious history, and something that will inspire you to live large again. 
• Connor Herson - Clark Kent or Superman? (By Dave Barnes) - Californian climber Connor Herson is like the Clark Kent of climbing. He has an innocent charm and is an academic nerd but come the weekend, he leaves his PC and Stanford textbooks on the desk, puts on his cape, and whizzes off to some crag housing routes of kryptonite and dispatches them with what seems effortless aplomb. Who is this kid and what motivates this modern marvel to make comic the hardest cracks and big walls North America has to offer?
• Demented Dirt Bag (By ​David Barnes) - The scruffy looking peeps who have darkened hands from anodised carabiners, weird looking toes from being cramped in climbing shoes for way too long and blunt everything’s, from ice axes to pocket knives. They have scavenged hands from getting their jam in cracks. These climbers have given up on normal and live for the climb. These demented ones are The Dirtbags. ​
• Everyone Needs a Lawyer: Profile of Climber and Photographer, Jim Lawyer (By Dave Barnes) - ​The mountains of Jim Lawyer’s youth forged the man he is today. The hills have called him since he was a boy and as the tides of life have ebbed and flowed, he has stayed in proximity to them. Being amongst the crags keeps his spirit fresh and his body agile. Jim has lived a full life and climbed widely. Folks know him for his refreshing climbing photography, others for his drive to climb as hard as he can for as long as he can. Either way as a base line of life, climbing has given him purpose. This is Jim’s story.
• From Gortex to Camouflage: The story of climber, Irina Galay and climbing’s responses to the war in Ukraine (By Dave Barnes) - In 2021, Irina Galay climbed K2. In 2022, ​she swapped Gortex for comouflage and is serving in the Home Guard in defense of her people in Ukraine. This Common Climber feature by CC Assistant Editor Dave Barnes is a dive into a climber's life in this war. It reflects the history of climbing and war and examines the climbing industry and climber's responses to the war in Ukraine. It presents questions that each of us has to answer for ourselves. Learn about the impact that the war in Ukraine is having on the greater climbing community - particularly in mountaineering - and be moved by Irina, who shares her experience and what can be done to defeat tyranny and to stand in solidarity with the people of Ukraine. 
• I Am My Father's Son: Layton Bridwell (By David Barnes) - Jim Bridwell (aka. The Bird) is a well-known Stonemaster of Yosemite. Jim passed in the summer of 2018 and now his son Layton is doing the emotional task of sorting through all of his father's things. Common Climber Assistant Editor Dave Barnes joins Layton on a cell-phone tour of Jim Bridwell's garage and goes down memory lane of a life-long belaytionship between father and son. 
• It's All Up From Here: Ian Elliot ​(By Dave Barnes) - Ian Elliot is doing some of his hardest climbing at the age of 70. In this extended version of a joint publication with Vertical Life print magazine (Winter 2022 Edition 39), Common Climber Assistant Editor Dave Barnes takes us into Ian's world. 
• ​It Was His Time: Brad Gobright (Interview May 2019) (By David Barnes) - Common Climber Assistant Editor Dave Barnes shares a tribute to and his May 2019 interview with the late Brad Gobright. 
• John Middendorf : A Big Man for a Big Stone (By David Barnes) - Suffering from hypothermia on the side of Half Dome in Yosemite during one of the worst storms of the decade, John Middendorf became life-threateningly aware that there were no storm-proof portaledges available at the time. Middendorf, an engineer and big wall climber, resolved to change that.
• Little Red Riding Hood: The Extraordinary Story of a Climber & Survivor -Sabine Pratt Hunziker (By Dave Barnes) - ​Sabine Pratt-Hunziker is a rock climbing force with a fighting spirit. She fell about 20 meters in a climbing accident and was put in a coma to survive. Her determination has brought her back to climbing. ​​
• Mirage - Profile of a Climb and Photograph (By Dave Barnes) - ​Midweek I sat down for a video chat with Simon Carter, climbing photographer, guidebook author, and climber. Behind him were blue files, references for the thousands of shots and business files catalogued in metal drawers. There is a lens on the shelf. I had requested a meeting to discuss a photograph, that of Malcolm Matheson (HB) on Mirage (27/5.12d), on that Grampians cliff of monumental uberness, Taipan Wall.
• Mother Earth ​(by Dave Barnes) - Mother Earth: Jacques Beaudoin’s epic project becomes one of Australia’s hardest natural lines. 
• Meteora: The Sacred Mountains (By Dave Barnes) - Dave reflects on the pull of climbing -  "History records and legends recall how people have gone to the mountains to escape their demons and to understand who they were. Everybody runs from somewhere sometime in their lives - the mountains just make you look brave doing it."
• Remembering Common Climber (​By Dave Barnes) - I came to Common Climber as a reader. I was in hospital for a significant amount of time recovering from a brain injury and piecing my life back together. Swiping through climbing pages online I came across this cottage site that focused on every day climbers...
  
• Rising (By Dave Barnes) - Dave Barnes sustained a severe brain injury from a diabetic coma. Dave shares the role climbing has played in his life and recovery.  ​​
• Snakes and Ladders (By ​David Barnes) - Australia – the land where walking out your front door means you may be bitten, stung, or even killed by any number of critters. Now try it on a climb...
• Supreme Jumbo Love: The Story of Seb Bouin Establishing the Hardest Route in the United States (By Dave Barnes) - On November 1, 2022 Seb Bouin sent "Supreme Jumbo Love" (5.15c/38), the U.S.'s hardest line. Common Climber's Assistant Editor Dave Barnes and photographer Clarisse Bompard take us on the journey of the uncommon send. 
• Sydney: Growing Up ​(By Dave Barnes) - Nothing much happened in the burbs of Sydney growing up in the 80’s. Shoplifting, cheap wine and smoking bongs was culture as was going to the vid shop to grab a movie. Life was cheap and pre-internet the world was small. Climbing entered this time and space for me hence forth, life changed.
• The Taste of Climbing: The Third Sense (By David Barnes) - A climber describes climbing from a unique perspective - taste. 
• ​Things of Stone and Wood (by Dave Barnes) - A tree is lodged smack-dab in the middle of Dave’s new climb. The author struggles with whether to remove the tree of leave it, taking us on a thoughtful journey of trees and climbing. 
• ​Tim Macartney-Snape: A Legend from Sea to Summit (by Dave Barnes) - Australian climbing legend and Sea to Summit founder Tim Macartney-Snape is known for his first ascent line and sea to summit climbs on Everest, but he is a climber who also embraces moderate lines in his Australian backyard.  ​​