Last week, I made my first real climbing tick list. For those of you who follow this blog, you may have realized that my climbing background was fairly limited to bouldering and sport climbing (until I started working here, that is). The list is quite long and it's just for the Cascades.

The Fifty Classic Climbs Of North America is a climbing guidebook and history written by Steve Roper and Allen Steck first published in 1979. (If you've never heard of this, click here to see it.)

Mark and Janelle Smiley have a pretty big goal: To be the first people to climb all of the routes on that list. No married couple has attempted such an endeavor to climb over 164,000 vertical feet of technical terrain on a road trip that will cover over 25,000 miles.

Kudos to them for making it happen. I hope to do the same (but for my list.)

Fifty Classic Climbs of North America from Mark Smiley on Vimeo.

Smileys Project Committed: Castleton Tower (1 of 50) from Mark Smiley on Vimeo.

-Dyan Padagas, Program Coordinator