About The Climber's Chronicle

Staff

• Brendan Houlihan

  Founding Editor

  Brendan has written about exactly one thing for eleven years: conditions. Temperature, humidity, barometric pressure, skin moisture, friction coefficients, psych levels, lunar phase — if it might affect whether you send, Brendan has an opinion backed by a weather station he bolted to his van. His 'Send Forecast' column is the most superstitious thing in climbing dressed up as the most scientific.

  Read full bio

  Brendan has written about exactly one thing for eleven years: conditions. Temperature, humidity, barometric pressure, skin moisture, friction coefficients, psych levels, lunar phase — if it might affect whether you send, Brendan has an opinion backed by a weather station he bolted to his van. His 'Send Forecast' column is the most superstitious thing in climbing dressed up as the most scientific.

• Declan Firth

  Standards Correspondent

  Declan's entire brand is disagreeing. If the climbing internet says Font 7A is the perfect grade, Declan writes two thousand words on why 7A is a statistical anomaly propped up by sandbagged benchmarks. A former competition climber who aged out of the circuit and into opinion writing, he treats consensus as a starting pistol. Readers either skip his column or read it twice.

  Read full bio

  Declan's entire brand is disagreeing. If the climbing internet says Font 7A is the perfect grade, Declan writes two thousand words on why 7A is a statistical anomaly propped up by sandbagged benchmarks. A former competition climber who aged out of the circuit and into opinion writing, he treats consensus as a starting pistol. Readers either skip his column or read it twice.

• Juno Papadimitriou

  Civic Affairs Desk

  Juno came to climbing from professional skateboarding and writes about movement, style, and body mechanics with the vocabulary of someone who thinks in tricks, not grades. She covers comp climbing, parkour crossover, and the eternal gym-vs-crag debate from the position that both sides are wrong and also right and also overthinking it. Her video breakdowns of competition finals have been called 'the most annoying and insightful thing on climbing YouTube.'

  Read full bio

  Juno came to climbing from professional skateboarding and writes about movement, style, and body mechanics with the vocabulary of someone who thinks in tricks, not grades. She covers comp climbing, parkour crossover, and the eternal gym-vs-crag debate from the position that both sides are wrong and also right and also overthinking it. Her video breakdowns of competition finals have been called 'the most annoying and insightful thing on climbing YouTube.'

• Lin Zhao

  Culture Columnist

  Lin is a materials engineer who started writing about climbing holds, wall design, and rubber compounds because nobody else would. Her 7,000-word investigation into why one specific Kilter Board hold was reset across 340 gyms simultaneously is the longest article The Climber's Chronicle has ever published, and somehow every word was necessary. She disappears for weeks, then surfaces with something exhaustive.

  Read full bio

  Lin is a materials engineer who started writing about climbing holds, wall design, and rubber compounds because nobody else would. Her 7,000-word investigation into why one specific Kilter Board hold was reset across 340 gyms simultaneously is the longest article The Climber's Chronicle has ever published, and somehow every word was necessary. She disappears for weeks, then surfaces with something exhaustive.

• Malcolm Creed

  Field Reporter

  Malcolm has climbed 5.13 on four continents, guided on Denali, and torn both labrums. Now fifty-three and climbing 5.11 on a good day, he writes about the long arc of a climbing life with the bruised tenderness of someone who knows exactly what he's lost and wouldn't trade any of it. His monthly column 'The Long Send' is the only thing in climbing media that regularly makes people cry.

  Read full bio

  Malcolm has climbed 5.13 on four continents, guided on Denali, and torn both labrums. Now fifty-three and climbing 5.11 on a good day, he writes about the long arc of a climbing life with the bruised tenderness of someone who knows exactly what he's lost and wouldn't trade any of it. His monthly column 'The Long Send' is the only thing in climbing media that regularly makes people cry.

• Rodney Fulcrum

  Letters Editor

  Rodney learned to climb on gritstone in 1994 and hasn't forgiven indoor climbing for existing since. A former gear reviewer for Rock and Ice who quit when they started covering bouldering gyms, he now covers trad ethics, bolt wars, and access politics for The Climber's Chronicle with the righteous fury of a man who still places hexes on principle.

  Read full bio

  Rodney learned to climb on gritstone in 1994 and hasn't forgiven indoor climbing for existing since. A former gear reviewer for Rock and Ice who quit when they started covering bouldering gyms, he now covers trad ethics, bolt wars, and access politics for The Climber's Chronicle with the righteous fury of a man who still places hexes on principle.

• Saskia Blom

  Institutional Memory Desk

  Saskia started climbing fourteen months ago after her bouldering gym replaced the spin studio in her building's basement. She writes the 'Fresh Off the Mat' column, where her genuinely confused questions about climbing culture — Why do people hate volumes? What is an 'eliminate'? Why does everyone lie about their onsight grade? — consistently expose the absurdities that lifers can no longer see.

  Read full bio

  Saskia started climbing fourteen months ago after her bouldering gym replaced the spin studio in her building's basement. She writes the 'Fresh Off the Mat' column, where her genuinely confused questions about climbing culture — Why do people hate volumes? What is an 'eliminate'? Why does everyone lie about their onsight grade? — consistently expose the absurdities that lifers can no longer see.

• Tomás Bernal-Orozco

  Weekend Editor

  Tomás grew up bouldering in Hueco Tanks before it was permitted to death and now chronicles climbing history with the obsessive detail of someone who once spent four months tracking down the original FA logbook for Midnight Lightning. He covers first ascent disputes, lost crags, and the oral histories that get smoothed over when magazines need a clean narrative.

  Read full bio

  Tomás grew up bouldering in Hueco Tanks before it was permitted to death and now chronicles climbing history with the obsessive detail of someone who once spent four months tracking down the original FA logbook for Midnight Lightning. He covers first ascent disputes, lost crags, and the oral histories that get smoothed over when magazines need a clean narrative.

• Zuri Okafor-Barnes

  Public Records Fellow

  A sports psychologist turned climbing writer, Zuri covers the mental game — performance anxiety, projecting psychology, the social dynamics of the spray wall, and why everyone becomes a different person when a camera appears. She coined the term 'beta-splaining' in a 2024 piece that got screenshotted so many times she had to lock her Instagram.

  Read full bio

  A sports psychologist turned climbing writer, Zuri covers the mental game — performance anxiety, projecting psychology, the social dynamics of the spray wall, and why everyone becomes a different person when a camera appears. She coined the term 'beta-splaining' in a 2024 piece that got screenshotted so many times she had to lock her Instagram.