James Lucas has been climbing in Rifle Colorado, and submitted this trip report to the Touchstone Blog along with some great photos. Rifle Colorado offers some of the best sport climbing in the United States. The two mile canyon hosts hundreds of steep limestone routes. The approach to the crags vary from a short […]
Stacks of stones line the trails in Yosemite. Piles of rock often mark the summits of mountains. These groups of rocks, called cairns, are found all over the world, varying in size from small stone markers to enormous conical rock piles. For climbers, cairns often mark turns in the trail. Cairns are indispensable for finding […]
Every Spring and Fall, Great Western Power Company, our Oakland location, hosts “Girlz Climb On”, a climbing adventure program for young women, administered and organized by GirlVentures. Since they have another session coming up this Fall, we decided to check in with the GirlVentures Team to learn more about this amazing program! Can you describe […]
There was something profoundly terrifying about watching my climbing partner’s left shoe float away from his twisting body and fall a thousand feet onto the boulder field below us. The nut Will Skinner was standing on had just pinged out of the crack and Will was falling backwards in what seemed like slow motion. After […]
The 2014 Touchstone Climbing Series is winding down.. with a triumphant roar! Here is everything you need to know to prepare for the Rope Climbing Finale at Mission Cliffs on October 25th. What it is: TCS2014 is a 9 month comp series that has visited each and every Touchstone Climbing gym. Over 2,000 climbers from […]
Natasha Barnes, a Mission Cliffs climber, and bona fide rock crusher has been climbing for the past 13 years. In between sending 5.13d sport routes, bouldering problems like Thriller and Midnight Lightning in Yosemite, and going full tilt on the Yosemite offwidth circuit, Natasha works as a chiropactor in San Francisco. For the past five […]
For San Jose residents, Late Night Climbing offers a perfect chance to have a fun and healthy evening. Hundreds of South Bay climbers have skipped the clubs and bars for the excitement of The Studio Climbing. The Stuido has held a few Late Night Climbing sessions on May 17th, March 29th and February 15th. The […]
On September 7th, Diablo Rock Gym will be hosting the Educate Ethiopia Climb-A-Thon. Patagonian ambassador Majka Burhardt, a well-known climber and dynamic inspirational speaker, will be presenting a speaker/slide show in the evening. Along with a raffle and silent auction with gear from The North Face, Patagonia, Mountain Hardware, and the AAC, there will be […]
It’s 9 o’clock on an unremarkable Tuesday night at The Studio. The influx of eager climbers has slowed, creating somewhat of a lull for us at the front desk. I take advantage of our brief reprieve and address some of the closing chores, namely taking out the trash. I’ve learned from unpleasant experience not to […]
On Thursday, June 20th, Touchstone Founder Mark Melvin and big wall ace Chris McNamara headed to Yosemite to climb El Capitan in a day. The pair set a speed record on The Lost World via the Squeeze Play Variation, climbing the entire granite cliff in 15 hours 33 minutes. Chris wrote a bit about their […]
