Andrew Joyner

Once upon a time in a land far, far away, High-Clip was a boulderer.

Take a second to soak in that statement…I know it’s a lot, but I can’t deny it.

One of my best friends is this amazing, kind, and thoughtful human being. At the time, she was dating this guy who recently moved back to our area (spoiler: they’re married now). Nonetheless, I had to make sure this guy was good enough for my homeslice. I didn’t want to be too upfront about it, so, as one does, I decided to slide in this guy’s boulder session.

On my way to the boulder mat, I hear this shriek somewhere between a Yeti call and a “tsa.” Concerned for the well-being of my fellow climbers, I rush over to the boulder to see what was up. I can’t seem to find a leg facing the wrong way or a blood river running across the mat, but I can see this strong boulderer with the most luxurious curls I’ve ever seen crushing some climb I could never have dreamed of attempting. After the send, I offer him a fist bump and some sort congrats like “nice job dude” with my internal jaw dropped in awe.

This is how I formally met Andrew Joyner.

Since then, he always keeps me on my toes. I don’t think we’ve had one conversation where I wasn’t speechless after something he brought up. On top of that, with Andrew you can always skip ab day because your abs will get enough work laughing at whatever effortless joke he makes.

It’s hard not to be inspired by Andrew, but I’ll never forget one question he asked me near the beginning of my climbing career. This was before one of my first outdoor climbing trips:

“I mean, why do you climb?”

You’d think this would be an easy question to answer, but when you get wrapped up in so many other aspects of climbing, it’s really a bit ambiguous. As such, I continue to ask myself this question every time I’m training at the gym or projecting at the crag. In classic Andrew form, I ask you and encourage you to ask yourself,

Why do you climb?

Click HERE to listen to Andrew Joyner’s podcast with theDIHEDRAL! If for no other reason, you’ll get your ab workout in for the day.