If Rock Climbing Is Your Thing...

Now I'll admit, rock climbing really isn't my sport. I did it a few times in college, but it just didn't blow my hair back.

But there are some of you out there who LOVE it and are quite good at it.

So I'm letting you know that Katie Brown, former world champion, well known climbing writer and one of the best rock climbers in the world, has started writing a blog about her climbing life and adventures for YourClimbing.com. "Katie Brown's Rock Talk" debute this month on the new online community site for climbing enthusiasts.

The blog can be found at www.yourclimbing.com/blog/katie

I found something rather ironic in one of her blogs. Katie talks about how she doesn't like hiking that much (which I'd rather do any day than climb a rock wall) and how she hated it as a kid. You can read it at: http://www.yourclimbing.com/blog-some_kind_of_rest_day In the same year when Katie's mother finally didn't make her go with her on her hikes anymore is when Katie really got into climbing and quickly gained international attention.

About Katie Brown

Based in Boulder, Colorado, Katie is a professional climber and a Rock Climbing Ambassador for outdoor clothing company Patagonia. In addition to serving as enthusiast-in-chief for YourClimbing.com, she writes a regular climbing column for the Boulder Daily Camera newspaper and her writing regularly appears in the pages of climbing magazines. She is currently finishing up a book about the top climbers of her generation, for Falcon Press.

Katie started climbing in a gym at age 12, and quickly gained international attention for her talent by winning the Junior Nationals in 1995 and the World Junior Championships in Laval, France, a few months later. She's well known as being the first woman to on-sight a 5.13d, Omaha Beach in the Red River Gorge of Kentucky, in 1999. As a teenager, she won both the World Cup and the prestigious ARCO Invitational and was considered by many climbers to be the "world's best female sport climber."

In her 20s, Katie has traded competition for traditional climbing. Recently, she freed Yosemite's West Face of the Leaning Tower (5.13b A0) with climbing legend Lynn Hill. She was one of the climbers featured in Chris Sharma's film, Pilgrimage, about a bouldering pilgrimage by Sharma, Katie and Nate Gold to a sacred village in India where thousands of unclimbed boulders sit amid ancient Hindu temples. Other recent exploits include a trip to the Mediterranean island of Malta for deep water soloing, climbing sheer cliffs over the ocean with no protective gear.

Katie is a strong advocate for environmental protection and sustainability, and she believes in the importance of climbers doing their sport responsibly. "Climbing involves a careful balance between us and the environment, so we want to always be sure to take care of our resources so that we can continue to climb in areas that we love best," she says.