When i was a kid i was not good at sports and as such i tried obscure sports that didn't involve teams. I eventually tried rock climbing and.... it was ok....i went to the climbing gym a hand full of times, starting at pseudo rock in Austin Texas. But i wasn't hooked, i was just the kid who climbed on the wall on a cruise ship once (not that i have ever done that). Anyway, i moved a lot so soon i was living in Atlanta, Georgia attending school at
Riverside Military academy, a boarding prep school in Gainesville
( the home of the KKK) not a lovely place..... Anyway, i then climbed at
Atlanta Rocks, a gym near our home in atlanta. At this point i still didn't know how to belay or follow a route or in any sort of manner look like i knew anything, really. But it didn't stop me from buying a used rope (sketchy) and talking my mom into buying me shoes (which she insisted on buying way to big because i was going to grow). And so it began.
Matt in the early years, doing something that probably resulted in poor decisions. In africa. I did land up in prison. In africa. Sorry, Mom.
Next thing you know my folks moved to Denver and i went to
boarding school at CRMS, a small expensive hippy-ish school in Carbondale, Colorado. There i met other white kids that liked recreating and spending money and time on futile endeavors like climbing and i officially caught the bug. By my senior year it was all i did, with the guidance of my history/climbing teacher Dave Myers i found ways to climb more and more and go to comps.
It was about this time i met Gabe Craviero, the Brazilian kid who climbed in socks at the competitions i was attending. He was weird, and so was i, so we naturally became friends.
this is old gabe
this is new gabe, he looks like a terrorist with a beard.
When i came home from boarding school Gabe took me to Rock'n and Jam'n. I watched him campus (climb without feet) the steepest and longest wall in there and i decided that i would start climbing with him in the "kids School," which was started by Aaron Prouty.
Aaron looked like Bevis, from MTV. Well, he had the same hair. He also had gargantuan forearms and could climb extremely well.
this is aaron and i on the nose, he looks happy. i look like i'm going to sneeze.
When i joined up i climbed 5.11- and when i stopped i climbed 5.13- and in the process met my life long friend and accomplice in all thing illegal and dangerous, Josh Lieninger.
Josh bouldering in Hueco (he now claims to have never bouldered as its only for weak sissys, but here is proof)
We all climbed all the time, at least 4 days a week, solely in the gym. And we sucked, well except for Gabe, who was good with his years of pre-Kids School experience climbing away from monkeys in Brazil. Gabe was friends with this ultra weird kid Adam Mckenzie, he climbed hard for a kid that wore a chalk bag around his shoulder like a string of bullets and an upside down hat, not backwards, but upside down. Adam was pretty rad despite being weird, he still crushes today. Gabe on the other had is rich and has a pretty wife, see what happens when you stop climbing.
Adam Mckenzie
Adam on free willie v10 (he couldn't do the dyno, so he static the crux on the single worst hold i have ever seen anyone climb on)
Anyway we can call this time "the gym years." We climbed and trained all the time. It paid off when we went to nationals a couple of times and competed all over Utah, New Mexico, and Colorado. But we were soft. I never climbed outside for a period of two years.
at RJ1 before there was an RJ2
Matt in the early days of rock climbing. Notice the five ten mocs and the short prana pants, both staples of early rock'n and jam'n.
this is me climbing in africa, i was like 19 or 20, but i looked 12 on a good day
The next period of my life can be labeled "rifle" but it could also be labeled "a fucking disaster." When i discovered sport climbing outside i took to it like a stripper takes to cocaine. I drove to Rifle at least twice a week to climb its steep limestone. I even managed to climb some hard routes, but i also destroyed my grades at college (which i soon dropped out of ) and my car. Rifle was 400 miles round trip and I once made the trip seventeen times in one month.
The Bride Of Frankenstein 5.13d
the crew, Ry Warshom, Josh and myself
my car after hitting a deer.
About this time i met Nelson, he was crazy and a skateboarder and into books and climbing and discussing life, we also made videos.... about climbing and dancing, but not together, that would be weird.
Anyway, after a year or two of this i was tired of the same old place so i hit the road. I lived out of my car and climbed in Hueco, Bishop, the Creek, and anywhere in between. I was still into sport climbing and bouldering but it was harder to find "it,"you know, happiness. So i would drive around by myself. I once drove from denver to San Francisco, then to Vegas, then back to SF, then back to Denver in a week. The environment and my car hate me.
these pictures are from bouldering on the beach in SF.
but this is from hueco....
this is the Melon patch in hueco one of the best V0 in the world.
This period lasted a long time, but after a few years i landed up working at The Wilderness Exchange.
There people were into trad climbing..... weird. So i gave up my wicked sport climbing ways and began climbing in Eldorado canyon in my typical OCD style. This kind of climbing was like sport climbing, but with the extra added fear that goes along with possible death. I loved it. My buddy Josh loved it too. We became partners in crime, bolting and searching for first ascents. We climb big stuff and small stuff, but mainly we got in over our heads. We almost died many many times, then we laughed.
Trad climbing turned into Soloing somewhere along the line, not sure where but it happened quicker that i would have imagined.
I would leave the house with rock shoes and a chalk bag and climb 20 routes with out a partner or a rope, onsight soloing a couple times a week. Needless to say just about everyone i know began complaining , saying i was stupid, which i always thought was a bit rough. Stupid implied i didn't understand what i was doing, but the truth is i lived.
smart may have the brains but stupid has the balls.
