My name is Grant Horner, and I've been climbing since 1979. I started at Carderock, a tiny, slippery bump of a crag near Washington DC. My first climb was a 30 foot high TR and I was terrified -- and hooked. Since then, I've done just about anything you can do in the world of climbing in North America. Rock, trad, sport, ice, alpine mountaineering, big-wall speedclimbing including four 'Nose in a Day' ascents (I'm on Hans Florine's NIAD list). Some days I have been incredibly bold: I did the first-ever lead of an 80 foot 12b R/X route called 'Superbulge' in Maryland at Rocks State Park in 1991, AND have also excelled at being a total weenie: I bailed below the third pitch 5.7 roof of 'Westpole' at Seneca Rocks in 1984, leaving half my precious rack of Chouinard hexes and one-inch webbing. I hammered in pitons (!!!) on new crag routes in the early 80s and also placed bolts on rappel with my Hilti TE10A hammerdrill in the 90s. Before I got old, I led 5.12 in the 1980s, up to 5.13c in the 1990s, did about 200 first ascents, and built hundreds of routes in rock gyms on the East and West coasts -- but now I can't boulder anymore due to A) bad knees that can't survive a landing, and B) fingers made weak from writing scholarly essays ... so hard rock is out. I can't pull V2 if my feet are three feet off the deck. I start imagining crutches, wheelchairs, and IV drips of morphine. I now spend my time tradding on long mellow routes, sporting up to 5.12a (on a good day), and mostly cranking out long alpine solos in the Sierra. Lone Pine is three hours from my driveway on the north side of LA county; I regularly do house-to-house 20-hour turnaround climbs as far north as the Palisades. I post videos of my Sierra adventures at 'High Sierra Climbing' on YouTube. http://www.youtube.com/user/clangrant/videos I normal daily life I am a Professor of Renaissance and Reformation studies, and since I do not teach May-September I spend a lot of time at Tahquitz and the Sierra east side...