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 [...]
Christmas Eve, 2011, I am going to throw up on a spin class bicycle. Sweat is raining off my temples and pooling on the floor beneath my bike. This is my first spin class ever. Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You” is playing, and is now the soundtrack in my evolving [...]
For years, I have known to pee on rocks at high altitudes because mountain goats crave salt, and if you pee on plants, mountain goats will eat them until they’re gone. I have seen goats milling around the restrooms at Summit Lake on Colorado’s Mount Evans, kind of bashfully but definitely intently making their [...]
There’s a reason you clip everything to your harness when climbing long routes: If you drop something, chances are pretty good you’re not going to get it back. Which is why I was less than optimistic that I could find my camera after accidentally dropping it from the top of the third pitch of Kor’s [...]
One Saturday morning last October, my friend Greg and I were running down the North Kaibab Trail in the Grand Canyon, close to halfway through 26 miles of trail. We had run 4 miles and would run about 4 more to Phantom Ranch, where we could double-fist coffee and Lemmy lemonade at the cantina before [...]
“So I was thinking,” I said to Dustin in front of his house in Phoenix, “you can be either Santa or the elf, but I think the elf should lead all the pitches, because trying to see footholds over a huge Santa belly and beard is going to be tough.” And then: ‘Twas the [...]
Every year, my pal Nick and I inevitably have a chat about our goals for the year, at some coffee shop in Denver. In 2009, it was already late February or March by the time it came up in conversation. I probably told Nick about my goals, which usually include sleeping outside at least 30 [...]
“Do you have a Barnes & Noble membership, boss?” I have noticed lately that baristas, waitstaff, and on Monday, a clerk at a Barnes & Noble in Santa Monica, have all been addressing me in terms of endearment like bro, man, and dude. Apparently, I am not yet a “sir.” Which makes me feel good, [...]
On Nov. 25, Black Friday, Patagonia placed an ad in the New York Times, telling readers, “Don’t Buy This Jacket.” As they said in a blog post on The Cleanest Line, they felt it was time to address the issue of consumerism head-on, and laid out how they were addressing their environmental impact — telling [...]
This might be my favorite piece of climbing gear I used in all of 2011: The Wild Things Guide Pack. I got one of these to review back in July, and then spent the better part of two months beating on it over several days and several dozen pitches in Idaho, Yosemite, and Washington. I [...]
Remember that time you took that photo of you and your friend(s) standing on the summit of something and it was the most exciting photo ever? Of course you don’t. Look through your outdoor photo collection. Do you have 100 photos of the same thing, of you and various friends standing in front of various [...]
I have this paper map in my car where I’ve been highlighting every stretch of road I’ve driven on in the past 3 1/2 months, and there’s not a very simple explanation to the 12,000-mile line I’ve drawn. The places I’ve been, driving around, finding a storyline about the mythical American road trip, don’t fit [...]
My profile of the Grand Teton is up on Adventure Journal today — if you’ve ever seen it, or seen great photos of it, you know what I mean when I say, “The Grand Teton was not the first mountain I ever saw, but it might as well have been.” Click here to launch the [...]
My friend Greg had hit the wall about four miles from the top of the South Rim of the Grand Canyon, and every time I looked back, he was a few more feet behind. Greg is a trail runner, but had been sitting at sea level for all but the last 21 hours, and had [...]
A year ago, a friend asked me what I thought of the Street Strider. He had seen it on The Biggest Loser or something like that and was thinking about getting one. I Googled it, and I thought, if I saw someone rolling down the street on one of those, I would point and laugh. [...]
Maybe you only ask yourself this question while bicycling or running: Can I beat up that dog? When it comes down to it and a dog is chasing you, you start to calculate your odds of survival if the dog actually attacks you. Most breeds, you think yeah, maybe I could. Not pit bulls or [...]
City of Rocks, Idaho, early August 2011: Two men in their late 20s/early 30s sit at a picnic table in the shadow of the Upper Breadloves East formation as the sun sets after a long day of climbing. Their dinner is: Red beans and rice One package of refried beans 2/3 of a one-pound block [...]
Not so long ago, my pal Nick made up his mind that he was going to get himself a motherfucking Trek 970 if it was the last thing he ever did. And it was beautiful. Not the bike, mind you, but the pursuit of the bike. It was nothing short of Ponce de Leon searching [...]
This is my friend Jayson. When I’m telling people about him, a lot of times I say, “If you know him, and he isn’t one of your heroes, you need to re-think your values.” I’ve always wanted to write a story about his life, and Becca and Fitz Cahall and I were able to make [...]
Snow is falling in the high country. Be honest. Can you really afford to start this year’s ski season with anything but the best? The best costs money. But it’s worth it. Outfit yourself with all this hella expensive ski gear that I Googled for you — only $125,561.00, plus probably some shipping fees and [...]
One night a couple weeks ago, I ate dinner with my back to a 180-degree view of Titcomb Basin, one of the most spectacular mountain valleys I had ever seen. I suppose when you think about it, it was like going to a restaurant and asking for a table with an ocean view and then [...]
I had a blast writing this profile of Mount Rainier for Adventure Journal, which published today — if you get inspired by mountains, click here to launch it. -Brendan Semi-Rad is brought to you by Outdoor Research.
It was the night before my 5-day backpacking trip with five tough teenagers from East Palo Alto when someone asked about toilet paper, and we discovered we hadn’t been issued any. This was most of the kids’ first time in any sort of backcountry outside the Bay Area, and each seemed to have a different [...]
It’s hard to sell me a water purification device. I’m a lifetime backcountry iodine tablet user, because of its simplicity: The only way it can malfunction is user error, it’s light enough to put in any pack, even if I don’t think I’m going to need water purification. Never have to worry about leaving other [...]
I tried to pull around a corner on nothing, the crux moves of the third pitch of a route on Mary’s Bust in the Big Thompson Canyon near Loveland, Colorado. My climbing partner for the day coached me from about 10 feet away, at the bolts at the top of the pitch. I knew I [...]
It is 105 degrees in this room, 50 percent humidity. Seven of us are standing in the middle of yoga mats with towels covering them. I am sweating from every pore, and when I bend over, sweat pours into my eye sockets. I am in a room full of women, I am wearing nothing but [...]
“Hey, can you take photos with your phone?” I yell down from the belay to my pal Lee, as he works his way up the last 50 feet of the third pitch of Kor’s Flake. “Yeah, why?” he says, as he cleans a cam and clips it to his harness. “I set mine down on [...]
Sometimes men grow boobs. This is just a fact of aging, or more accurately, the lack of priority we give to fitness as we get older and more things take up our time, and our bodies don’t respond the way they did when we were 19. Lots of men accept the development of man-boobs as [...]
By Brian Williams, Southern Gentleman, World Traveler and Hopeful Somebody Sawtooth Wilderness, Idaho -Brendan Semi-Rad is brought to you by Outdoor Research.
A few weeks ago, a friend had stopped her car at a 4-way stop sign in Capitol Hill, and drove forward to proceed through the intersection just as a young woman riding a bicycle rolled up to the stop sign to her right. As my friend rolled through the intersection, the cyclist ran the stop [...]
GoLite makes a lot of things — ultralight backpacking gear, trail running gear and apparel, outdoor performance clothing, even luggage. One of the things they probably don’t focus on is rock climbing. But I’m going to tell you that one of their packs is great, not for ultralight backpacking, as advertised, but for alpine rock [...]
