Introducing Original Classic athlete, Josh Shepherd. Always one of the first people to call when it is time to get outside. Josh keeps us psyched and motivated. He puts his heart and soul into every attempt; it’s no wonder he crushes everything in sight. CURRENT TOWN: Boone, NC GIVE US A GLIMPSE INTO YOUR WORLD. WHAT IS A NORMAL DAY? Depends on the weather. Throughout my climbing experience bouldering has been my main focus, and over the past few seasons I’ve become passionate about development. Even though all of the lines here are amazing, there’s something special about cleaning and sending new lines. It’s more intimate. Recently I’ve gotten really into hard sport and trad, and I’m inspired to be a well-rounded climber. I’m in nursing school, so a typical day that doesn’t involve labs or classes or patients consists of an early start to catch the morning conditions. I’ll climb until work or until I can’t pull down any more, preferably the latter, and we’re big fans of big communal meals at the end of the day. The goal is to have as much fun as possible. I’m also a big fan of spending time down in Linville Gorge, so sometimes we’ll drive out there after work and camp out by the river so we can climb all day CURRENT PROJECT THAT YOU ARE MOST PSYCHED ON: I can’t narrow it down to one! Right now my friend Bill Hebb and I are training to each send the Glass Eye at Looking Glass. It’s basically 2 pitches of 5.11+, 2 pitches of 5.12, and one 5.13. We’re going for the full-on free ascent, with the climber leading all five pitches in a row without falling. My other more long-term goal is this boulder problem 5 minutes from our front porch. It’s an extension of Comfort Arete (v10), an amazing arête Jimmy Webb put up this spring that climbs to a jug halfway up the steepest face of this beautiful 25-foot boulder. My vision is to take the line past the jug and up a thin seam and crimps all the way to the top. When it goes it will be the proudest line I’ve ever done, so psyched! PROUDEST SEND: Proudest sport route so far is Ride the Lightning (.13a) at the Dump. It was an awesome experience because it’s the first harder route that I’ve ever worked on, and my first of the grade. It was also a pretty fast send, with 8 tries over 4 days, so it got me really excited about the kinds of routes I’m capable of in a season! Proudest boulder problem is difficult to narrow down, especially considering FA’s and danger factors. Up there would be Third Rail (v9) at Grandmother Mountain, Blunt Mentality (v9/10) at Blowing Rock, and Aquaman (5.12b/v4) at Little Wilson. Aquaman has 3 bolts, but I’ve always considered it to be a tall boulder problem, and it turns out that I (probably) got the first ropeless ascent. FAVORITE CLIMBING AREA: Boone!!! Just look at what we’ve got…absolutely incredible trad, mix, and sport climbing at Ship Rock, Linville Gorge, The Dump, Moon Rocks (among many others). Ship’s my favorite for trad climbing for sure, because it’s much cooler at the elevation, the rock is very pure, and the exposure and views are phenomenal. World class bouldering is everywhere, and we find new boulderfields all the time!  Sometimes it’s hard to decide whether to go to an established area or to choose between all of the new boulderfields we want to develop. Not to mention the incredible vastness of boulders and cliffs in Linville Gorge.  YOUR ORIGINAL CLASSIC: That has a tendency to change, as each new line is so good. My favorite FA’s are The Evil Monkey and Tuesday Night Mac.  Both are a short walk from our house, and are unique, aesthetic, and have great movement. And of course, you can’t leave out Joey Henson’s Original Classic, one of the best moderates in the high country. NOTE: We agree. The Original Classic problem kicks ass. Josh made light work of it.  PERSONAL HERO(s): Tommy Caldwell WHY DO YOU LOVE CLIMBING? I love the whole package. I love the community that I can connect with anywhere in the world, the beautiful places it takes me and the adventures that I have there. I love how the texture and style of climbing is unique to the rock in every area. Most of all though, I love movement on stone. It’s really cool how people have their own individual styles which can be expressed with different sequences on the same lines. My style is more dynamic and powerful, and I really enjoy compression, pinches, arête climbing, and hard moves on decent holds. There’s a euphoric sense of focus when a sequence is dialed in, and it’s incredibly satisfying to execute a climb in the exact way that you envisioned it. I could go on and on…   CRIMPS OR SLOPERS? No preference really. I think the most classic lines tend to have all kinds of holds; pinches, crimps, slopers, underclings…the more variety the better MUSIC IN ROTATION:  A Tribe Called Quest, Quantic, Bonobo, Fat Freddy’s Drop, Ratatat, People Under the Stairs, Roots Manuva, Martin Sexton, Josh Ritter, The Black Keys, Masta Ace, Jamiroquai, Amos Lee, Leftover Salmon, Tony Rice, Galactic, Medeski Martin & Wood, The Wood Brothers, and Mofro, to name a few. FUTURE? I’ll be in nursing school until May 2012, and I’ll continue climbing and developing around Boone as much as possible. Afterwards I want to use Nursing to travel around the world, provide a good service, and climb! Some areas I’ll definitely be heading to include the Rocklands, Bishop, Smith Rock, the Gunks, Yosemite, Hampi, and Mallorca. I prefer not to make set plans, so I’ll go where I want to go, and we’ll see what happens! Best of luck to you and Bill on Glass Eye! Keep us updated bud! 

Introducing Original Classic athlete, Josh Shepherd. Always one of the first people to call when it is time to get outside. Josh keeps us psyched and motivated. He puts his heart and soul into every attempt; it’s no wonder he crushes everything in sight.

CURRENT TOWN: Boone, NC

GIVE US A GLIMPSE INTO YOUR WORLD. WHAT IS A NORMAL DAY? Depends on the weather. Throughout my climbing experience bouldering has been my main focus, and over the past few seasons I’ve become passionate about development. Even though all of the lines here are amazing, there’s something special about cleaning and sending new lines. It’s more intimate. Recently I’ve gotten really into hard sport and trad, and I’m inspired to be a well-rounded climber. I’m in nursing school, so a typical day that doesn’t involve labs or classes or patients consists of an early start to catch the morning conditions. I’ll climb until work or until I can’t pull down any more, preferably the latter, and we’re big fans of big communal meals at the end of the day. The goal is to have as much fun as possible. I’m also a big fan of spending time down in Linville Gorge, so sometimes we’ll drive out there after work and camp out by the river so we can climb all day

CURRENT PROJECT THAT YOU ARE MOST PSYCHED ON: I can’t narrow it down to one! Right now my friend Bill Hebb and I are training to each send the Glass Eye at Looking Glass. It’s basically 2 pitches of 5.11+, 2 pitches of 5.12, and one 5.13. We’re going for the full-on free ascent, with the climber leading all five pitches in a row without falling. My other more long-term goal is this boulder problem 5 minutes from our front porch. It’s an extension of Comfort Arete (v10), an amazing arête Jimmy Webb put up this spring that climbs to a jug halfway up the steepest face of this beautiful 25-foot boulder. My vision is to take the line past the jug and up a thin seam and crimps all the way to the top. When it goes it will be the proudest line I’ve ever done, so psyched!

PROUDEST SEND: Proudest sport route so far is Ride the Lightning (.13a) at the Dump. It was an awesome experience because it’s the first harder route that I’ve ever worked on, and my first of the grade. It was also a pretty fast send, with 8 tries over 4 days, so it got me really excited about the kinds of routes I’m capable of in a season! Proudest boulder problem is difficult to narrow down, especially considering FA’s and danger factors. Up there would be Third Rail (v9) at Grandmother Mountain, Blunt Mentality (v9/10) at Blowing Rock, and Aquaman (5.12b/v4) at Little Wilson. Aquaman has 3 bolts, but I’ve always considered it to be a tall boulder problem, and it turns out that I (probably) got the first ropeless ascent.

FAVORITE CLIMBING AREA: Boone!!! Just look at what we’ve got…absolutely incredible trad, mix, and sport climbing at Ship Rock, Linville Gorge, The Dump, Moon Rocks (among many others). Ship’s my favorite for trad climbing for sure, because it’s much cooler at the elevation, the rock is very pure, and the exposure and views are phenomenal. World class bouldering is everywhere, and we find new boulderfields all the time!  Sometimes it’s hard to decide whether to go to an established area or to choose between all of the new boulderfields we want to develop. Not to mention the incredible vastness of boulders and cliffs in Linville Gorge. 

YOUR ORIGINAL CLASSIC: That has a tendency to change, as each new line is so good. My favorite FA’s are The Evil Monkey and Tuesday Night Mac.  Both are a short walk from our house, and are unique, aesthetic, and have great movement. And of course, you can’t leave out Joey Henson’s Original Classic, one of the best moderates in the high country. NOTE: We agree. The Original Classic problem kicks ass. Josh made light work of it. 

PERSONAL HERO(s): Tommy Caldwell

WHY DO YOU LOVE CLIMBING? I love the whole package. I love the community that I can connect with anywhere in the world, the beautiful places it takes me and the adventures that I have there. I love how the texture and style of climbing is unique to the rock in every area. Most of all though, I love movement on stone. It’s really cool how people have their own individual styles which can be expressed with different sequences on the same lines. My style is more dynamic and powerful, and I really enjoy compression, pinches, arête climbing, and hard moves on decent holds. There’s a euphoric sense of focus when a sequence is dialed in, and it’s incredibly satisfying to execute a climb in the exact way that you envisioned it. I could go on and on…  

CRIMPS OR SLOPERS? No preference really. I think the most classic lines tend to have all kinds of holds; pinches, crimps, slopers, underclings…the more variety the better

MUSIC IN ROTATION:  A Tribe Called Quest, Quantic, Bonobo, Fat Freddy’s Drop, Ratatat, People Under the Stairs, Roots Manuva, Martin Sexton, Josh Ritter, The Black Keys, Masta Ace, Jamiroquai, Amos Lee, Leftover Salmon, Tony Rice, Galactic, Medeski Martin & Wood, The Wood Brothers, and Mofro, to name a few.

FUTURE? I’ll be in nursing school until May 2012, and I’ll continue climbing and developing around Boone as much as possible. Afterwards I want to use Nursing to travel around the world, provide a good service, and climb! Some areas I’ll definitely be heading to include the Rocklands, Bishop, Smith Rock, the Gunks, Yosemite, Hampi, and Mallorca. I prefer not to make set plans, so I’ll go where I want to go, and we’ll see what happens!

Best of luck to you and Bill on Glass Eye! Keep us updated bud! 

— 9 months ago
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