Shirley (my wife) and I started climbing in 2002 after moving to Portland. Being young, enthusiastic about the new activity and inspired by some friends, we toyed with the idea of leaving our jobs and taking a prolonged climbing trip.
Then, during one of our marathon 4-day road trips to Cochise in 2006, I badly sprained my ankle on the approach to the first route of the outing. After investing 24 hours of driving, we got back in the car and drove back home. Angry and disappointed with lots of time in the car, the event turned out to be a fork in the road.
We decided that being full time drifters was not really our thing. Instead, we settled down and sold our souls to the corporate gods. The downsides of this decision are obvious (we’re going to hell). On the upside, however, we’ve been able to expand our climbing horizons beyond North America.
A trip to the Dolomites and Meteora in 2008 got us off to the races. Since then, we’ve been lucky enough to climb in some two dozen countries spread across six continents. Our main fixation now is looking for interesting and adventurous places around the world and then seeing if they hold some climbing appeal.
For the last 8 years, we’ve been posting most of our climbs on our website, chossclimbers.com.
Common Climber Articles:
Then, during one of our marathon 4-day road trips to Cochise in 2006, I badly sprained my ankle on the approach to the first route of the outing. After investing 24 hours of driving, we got back in the car and drove back home. Angry and disappointed with lots of time in the car, the event turned out to be a fork in the road.
We decided that being full time drifters was not really our thing. Instead, we settled down and sold our souls to the corporate gods. The downsides of this decision are obvious (we’re going to hell). On the upside, however, we’ve been able to expand our climbing horizons beyond North America.
A trip to the Dolomites and Meteora in 2008 got us off to the races. Since then, we’ve been lucky enough to climb in some two dozen countries spread across six continents. Our main fixation now is looking for interesting and adventurous places around the world and then seeing if they hold some climbing appeal.
For the last 8 years, we’ve been posting most of our climbs on our website, chossclimbers.com.
Common Climber Articles:
- Photo Essay: Classic Climbs Sampler of Rio de Janeiro - From classic climbs within the city of Rio de Janeiro, to huge climbs just a few hours away, Radek takes us on a beautifully visual and descriptive climbing journey.
- The Sinai Sampler: Climbing Egypt - Radek Chalupa and his wife take their climbing vacations in remote areas of the world. Despite COVID's grip on the world, they were able to sneak away to Egypt. Here they take us along for the climb, sharing some of the highlights in this photo essay.