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wargowsky wrote:quit school, sell 90% of your stuff, and live out of your car or a tent. get a seasonal job, work for a few months while climbing, quit job, climb/travel full time for a few months, repeat.

If I may add....

Learn to enjoy scarfing and eating out of garbage dumpsters.

Climb now while you're young. You can always go back to school later when you're older, but it's a lot harder to climb like a 19-year old when you're 54.

Just do it. Be a climbing bum.

Post this question on the SuperTopo talk forum which has a lot's of posts by full-time climbers & outdoor folks. More than a few of them managed to finish higher education as well as pursue their climbing & outdoor dreams.
Good luck !

Shit --- wish I could start out at 18 again. I would have read more books.

Hey Brianna,

First let me tall I've graduated quite some time ago and I still ask myself the questions you just asked.

What I may be able to contribute is this though (and some people already said it), instead of thinking about getting a great job that allows you to climb eventually, do the other way around, climb a lot and get a job that simply gets you the money to survive.

And since you're a woman (such as myself but me being older) I can advise that having a "standard" relationship and eventually kids will surely get in the way of your plans, now or later, if they're long term.

In the end, you don't really need as much money as it looks you need to climb a lot, or year around. You need to get rid of things that are unnecessary, and the independence and freedom you get from it has been the greatest achievement in my life. Eventually you will run into people that respect and accompany you in that lifestyle.

Whenever this issue comes up I always remember this quote from Mark Twight in Kiss or Kill: "(...) and I don't own property. I spend my disposable income on compact discs, camera gear, and climbing mountains. I was a "no future" kid, and I hope it comes true because I don't plan ahead for fishing holidays on Social Security. The future will be what it is whether you have insurance or not."

I think Daria solved this problem.

Here are some quick thoughts;

- ER Docs seem to get plenty of time to climb.
- Andy Embick says he climbed 100+ days/year while in med school at Harvard and did big expeditions every summer. He then moved to be the town doctor in Valdez and basically pioneered the ice climbing there, then became a world class kayaker, etc, etc. He was an exceptional human.
- George Lowe climbed bigger and better than all the bums and had a PhD and a real career.
- Mark Richey built a big company over his climbing career and still earned the Piolet d'Or.
- I know a lot of college professors who climb very hard and active through the years.
- The biggest faux job possible to feed a climbing habit seems to be elementary school PE teacher.
- Find that old back page Alpinist article by Jim Sweeney if you want encouragement NOT to become and aging alpinist.

I let me career slip to feed a climbing addiction in my 20's. Marriage and kids eventually pulled me in the opposite direction. After years of floundering I finally found work that gave me the same mental thrills of alpine climbing but at much better pay and without frozen bivies. To me the only career that looks comparable in challenge and thrills would be surgery.

I now realize that I didn't climb to climb, I climb for what it gives me - and if I can find that through other means, i should embrace them as well. I'm crazy passionate about my work and think I can enjoy that far past the useful life of my body.

Good luck

I got a job in the outdoor sports industry after college, I now interact with tons of climbers for work and travel often...this often allows me to mix business with pleasure and climb at cool spots around the country on work-related trips. Just some food for thought