“Send me a list of gift ideas for you.” Why do we do this around the holidays now? I mean, have you ever really said, “That was so thoughtful of you to buy me all the things on that list I sent you”? Have we taken the custom of gift-giving, and removed the heart from […]

When you dismount a mountain bike going uphill, you end up doing a sort of bow. As you step off and swing a leg over the seat, your head naturally points down as you are admitting that the trail has you beat, this time. After years of saying “I suck at fast/gravity/downhill sports,” I bought […]

A few years ago, I climbed Drift Peak near Leadville, Colorado, on Presidents Day with my friend Aaron and my friend Lee. Lee had started up the peak a couple times before in the winter, but bailed for different reasons. He had promised if we made it to the summit with him on what would […]

My friend Mick’s heart stopped working last Sunday. He died at the age of 54, not knowing that the night before, I had sat around a campfire in the desert, telling a friend, Of course you can ride a bike across the country. My friend Mick borrowed my bike trailer two years ago, hitched it […]

I haven’t had a “proper” Thanksgiving dinner since 2002, somehow managing to be anywhere but watching football and eating an oven-cooked turkey. When people say “Thanksgiving,” I think of being somewhere in the desert with two of my closest friends, Nick and Jayson. Three out of the last four years, the three of us have […]

I was trying to start a campfire a couple weekends back and grabbed a fat piece of wood with a crack at one end, ripe for splitting into two smaller pieces that would burn more easily. I searched my van for something to split the wood with, and came up with: A 55 cm mountaineering […]

When he hit the ledge, I was sure he was dead. He was a young college guy, and we had exchanged maybe five sentences as he climbed past, and then from 20 feet above us, I heard his cam pop out of the crack, the taut rope make a sickening twang like a plucked guitar […]

Maybe you’ve heard this one: Ski resort patron approaches lift ticket kiosk on Powder Day of the Century and demands a refund for his/her lift ticket, citing “too much snow.” Or the guy who wants to return a 20-year-old headlamp to a store because it has a “lifetime warranty,” which he assumes means his lifetime, […]

You, outdoor recreator, are quite probably quite educated: Bachelor’s degree, possibly a master’s degree or Ph.D. You wore a cap and gown and were handed a number of certificates decorated with fancy letters saying you went to college and finished — maybe even college for adults, which is called graduate school. But you climb rocks, […]

Five summers ago, I met this guy named Lee Smith while climbing with a big group of people at Castlewood Canyon. At the end of the day, I think he said something like, “Give me a call if you ever want to do some trad climbing.” What he should have said was, “Wanna be friends? […]

I walked onto the Pearl Street Mall in Boulder last Friday and a Denver Voice vendor looked down at my sandals, laughed and said, “Oh man, you must be from Colorado.” Hey, it was October 5th, far from winter, and it was still 35 degrees outside. Lots of people talk about fall being their favorite […]

“You know, I was just thinking that three bumper stickers changed my life,” Dan said as we tromped down the trail a couple weeks ago. I laughed because I knew what he was talking about. Not “Obama/Romney/McCain/Bush for …” or “Nuke a Gay Whale For Christ,” but the time someone says something and you hear […]

I always get sandbagged by guys in gear shops. I will stop in somewhere to pick up a cordelette, or a stuff sack, or a guidebook, and they inquire about my plans. Like you do when you work in a gear shop, because that’s the good stuff, talking to people about their dreams and climbs […]

As the USA Pro Cycling Challenge was working its way around Colorado and into the Front Range in August, I saw this Facebook status on my friend Rebecca’s page: I thought, Hell No that’s not bad. And kind of a good question. A long time ago, after two years pouring drinks in a sports bar, […]

2:39 a.m., August 11, 2012: Packs packed, Chris and I are about to shut the tailgate on my van and start walking the Garnet Canyon Trail to try to climb the Grand Teton in one day, one of the biggest, most daunting days I will ever have in the mountains. I tell Chris I have […]

Sometimes I like to fantasize that I have some sort of backcountry suaveness and culinary instinct, and that I will someday take a special lady somewhere beautiful and make a nice dinner for her and it will be really romantic. But the reality is that this is pretty much the best (only?) trick in my […]

Ever fantasized about being a fire lookout, or living in a cabin high in the mountains, or deep in the wilderness somewhere? It’s romantic, calming. Our world feels hectic—which is our own fault—and we think of a place like that, out in “the middle of nowhere,” as a place to escape, to get away from […]

When you tell the story later, you are a little less descriptive of the moment you experience pure dread and barely-controllable fear. You say things like “I was totally pissing my pants.” If you even talk about being scared at all. We had assumed the finger crack was part of the route, or some route […]

I’ve been a fan of Chris Kalous’ still fairly-new and incredibly rad podcast, The Enormocast, ever since my friend Josh gushed about the interview Chris did with Craig DeMartino back in May and said, “Anyone who climbs should listen to that show.” So I was very excited when Chris invited me to be a guest […]

I think there’s nothing that feels more rad than picking your way up a ridgeline, trailing a rope, pulling your hood over your helmet and having the wind whip your backpack straps in your face while you’re watching clouds form to the west and you know you have to climb fast and efficient or risk […]

Maybe you haven’t spent much time lately thinking about how awesome bears are. That’s OK, if that’s the way you want to live your life — but I don’t think it is. I am sure you are familiar with bears. They live in many places in the world, and come in many colors and sizes. […]

My friend Jesse was about five miles east of Dighton, Kansas, a little over 200 miles from the start of his 500-mile bike ride from Wichita to Manitou Springs, Colorado, when the skewer on his bike trailer broke. The acorn nut holding the end opposite the quick release lever had flown somewhere onto the shoulder […]

Staying hydrated is important. Perhaps equally important is subtly communicating your identity by decorating your favorite water bottle with the proper stickers to project your outdoorsy/adventurous identity. Here at Semi-Rad.com, we want to make it easy for you. For just $29.99 (or just three easy low monthly payments of $9.991/3), we’re now offering pre-stickered CamelBak […]

When did you visit Japan? Someone at the table asked Mike during our late dinner after bouldering in Central Park last Friday. It’s funny, Mike said, I ended up in Tokyo one time in college because I went for a walk. And everyone at the table laughed. Oh, so you just walked to Japan, someone […]

In the weeks leading up to my wedding in 2007, my hair was a little long for my parents’ taste. I stood fast against weeks of subtle suggestions that maybe I should get it trimmed a little before the ceremony, until my father got on the phone one Sunday evening and said, “Your mother wants […]

In a conversation a few weeks ago, a climber friend of mine described herself as “not super-girly.” Her expanded definition of that was: I like cute clothes as much as the next girl, but I’d rather spend my money on new rock shoes, or spend my time hiking somewhere rad to go climbing … so […]

Climbing is fun. But at the top of a route, everybody gets all serious. Which is good, because lots of accidents happen while rappelling. But that doesn’t mean it has to be all business. Have fun out there. But pay attention. It’s all fun and games until someone threads their belay device wrong and … […]

I have a copy of this children’s book that I take everywhere I go. It’s called An Awesome Book, and everyone I know who’s had a baby in the past six months owns a copy, because I bought one for them. It’s a kids’ book, but I think the message is for adults too. I […]

There’s nothing better than some shit-hot new gear to spend your hard-earned dollars on, is there? Technological advances in apparel and outdoor hardgoods are fun and exciting, and we love to celebrate them. Like a lot of folks, I have my favorite pieces of tried-and-true gear, and here are my favorites for 2012: 1. Hoods […]

You have approximately one million different travel mugs at home. I know this because I have previously owned approximately one million travel mugs. You buy one, it works OK, but you think maybe you’d like one with a handle, or a new one without a handle, or one from a coffee shop you visited on […]

As of May 1, I am donating half of my personal profits from the sales of all Semi-Rad products to Mountain2Mountain, a nonprofit dedicated to creating education and opportunity for women and girls in conflict regions. I met Mountain2Mountain founder Shannon Galpin in 2011 at a slide show about her mountain bike ride across Afghanistan’s […]

“A man does not climb a mountain without bringing some of it away with him and leaving something of himself upon it.” —Martin Conway On May 11th, 2012, Chris El-Deiry and I made what we believe is the first ascent of the direct west face of Suicide Rock, a 1,491-meter summit kind of near the […]

You have to crawl through 50 feet of mud. You have to jump over a flaming car. You have to slither under electric wires that will shock you if you don’t stay low. You get a helmet with horns if you finish. Obstacle racing—the Warrior Dash, Tough Mudder, Spartan Race, and the others—it’s all so […]

Get over here. Come on in and let the big bear get his paws on you. Sometimes men are afraid to hug each other, aren’t we? I am not, and I don’t think you should be either. If you and I have met before, and interact more than five times a year via any social […]

I showed up to meet my friend Becca at the bouldering gym in Seattle on a Monday afternoon. When we discussed what time to meet, she said something about needing an hour’s notice with the baby and all. I figured she meant that she had to arrange things so her husband could watch the baby […]

A handful of Saturday mornings, I have driven out of Denver’s Capitol Hill neighborhood juggling a bowl of granola on my lap, trying to rub the sleep out of my eyes and asking myself if I packed everything in my pack— harness, shoes, rack or rope, headlamp, food, water. It’s 2 a.m., and people are […]

I picked up these sweet-ass rigs after I finally wore out my last pair of trail running shoes after 2 ½ years (the tread was gone and one of the laces finally snapped). As you can see, there’s all sorts of technology and shit in them—there’s some plastic stuff on the side, and there are […]

There are many good strategies to use when running the New York City Marathon. Throwing up at the start is probably not one of them. My friend Syd was in for a long day after he puked early in the 2011 race last November. He never got back the nutrients and water he’d lost, but […]

Click here to see the shop at Adayak with these and other designs for men and women. There is an extremely high chance you’ll be the first kid on your block to own one. Unless you live on the same block as my friend Alan, who already bought one. -Brendan Semi-Rad is brought to you […]

It’s a singular feeling when you’re 33 and talking to your mother and she says, “You know what I think you should try? Match.com.” Then there’s another feeling when you say to your mother, “Well, Mom, I had this weird feeling about meeting women and telling them I live in a van full of climbing […]

I’m hanging sideways from the rope going through my belay device, body completely parallel to the ground, one Chacoed foot pushing on a knob out to my left as I reach a full body length trying to flick the rope free all the way out to my right. All I want is for the rope […]

I asked my friend Nick to drive from Denver to Seattle with me a couple weekends ago, since we hadn’t spent several hours alone in a car together since 2008. After 21 hours in the van, I think we got sufficiently caught up. Basically four years later, neither of us have much of anything figured […]

I had this idea in early 2011 to make a web site about “normal” outdoorsfolk, those of us who are fairly average in ability when it comes to climbing, skiing, cycling, and other outdoor pursuits — but exceptional in our love for them. That became Semi-Rad.com, which I see as a celebration of that passion […]

Remember when you first started climbing, or skiing, or mountain biking, and you went out and bought all the gear, and then you immediately sped to a car dealership to purchase a reliable $45,000 sport utility vehicle so you could drive to all places you needed to go? Me neither. I do remember, in 2006, […]

The trail up and out of the South Park area of the Ouray Ice Park is maybe a five-minute walk, if you have full use of all your limbs. It is not typically the site of anything amazing — just a way for ice climbers to get up and down from the rim of the […]

One of the things about telling stories is you think you should always know where the story begins and ends, and I hope I have a million stories, but I have this one that keeps going and I’m not sure where it started or where it ends. Sometimes I tell it and the beginning is […]

Here’s a little tip to curb the spread of disease, illness and other microbial things when you’re in the backcountry with friends: -Brendan Semi-Rad is brought to you by Outdoor Research.

I remember flipping through 5280 Magazine‘s 2011 “Top of the Town” issue to the section where “Best Bike Shop” appeared, and seeing a full-page photo of my friend Scott Taylor sitting on a bike in front the south wall of Salvagetti Bicycle Workshop, and I started giggling like a little kid and pumping my fist […]

  -Brendan Semi-Rad is brought to you by Outdoor Research.

I am a disappointingly unattractive drag queen, but I don’t feel so bad about it when I am surrounded by 40 other equally homely drag queens. Each year at the Snowsports Industry Association SnowShow, there is a fundraiser called “Ramp It Up,” and during this fundraiser, 40 to 50 “industry veterans,” all men, dress up […]

When you go on a climbing or backpacking trip and someone says, “I’ll bring the coffee,” do you secretly bring your own stash to supplement whatever they’re bringing, because you know you’re going to drink double the amount of coffee they think you’re going to drink, and then some? I do too. This is not […]

This year’s Outdoor Retailer Winter Market marked many things, not least of which was the first time I got a pro deal while standing at a urinal. Thanks to the QR code on the SOLE ad pasted above the toilets and in the men’s restroom stalls at the Salt Palace, premium footbeds may soon be […]