Craig Luebben
climber, author, guide, photographer - very late June, 2009

FRB: Name?

Craig: Craig Luebben.

FRB: Age?

Craig: Forty-nine, seven sets of seven.

FRB: Height/Weight?

Craig: 6 feet. 170 lbs.

FRB: Location?

Craig: Lookout Mountain, Golden, Colorado.

FRB: Ape Index?

Craig: Never measured it. But it is +.

FRB: Web site.

Craig: A new web site is coming this summer, craigluebben.com.

FRB: You are very well known in the climbing world
          but some folks might not have heard of you.  
          Who is Craig Luebben?

Craig: That’s tough, I’ve done so many different things that my identity changes with the seasons. It all centers around climbing. My business card calls me a climber, author, guide, and photographer – in that order. And I’m a Dad and husband. Someone will have to read the interview to get an idea of who I am as a climber.

FRB: What are some of the sacrifices you've
          made to live a life of climbing?

Craig: I joke that I’ve sacrificed a million dollars from the engineering career that I would have had, but I’ve had five million worth of fun. Last year the million would have devalued to 600K, so I’m way ahead.

FRB: Tell us something about you that
          most people don't know?

Craig: I was born in the flatlands of Iowa. Fortunately my Dad got a job at The Denver Post when I was seven, or I would have become a prisoner or pig farmer.

FRB: How did you get into climbing, Craig?

Craig: At age 13 I saw The Eiger Sanction. I instantly knew that I was a climber. In 1978, at age 18, I acquired a rope and some pitons and Titons. I studied Royal Robbins’ Basic and Advanced Rockcraft books and taught a buddy and myself how to climb. We did the Third Flatiron first. I led all the pitches in big kletter-soled boots and a one-inch tubular webbing diaper harness. I was banging home pins, because the book told me to, until someone yelled, “hey, we don’t use those anymore!"

Without a mentor it took a whole year to get solid on 5.6. When I moved to Fort Collins and started bouldering at Horsetooth Reservoir, it took two more years to reach 5.11. Things were way different then – no climbing gyms, bouldering pads, sport routes, hardly any climbing females. And 5.12 was world class.

Watching good climbers, and training on the boulders at Horsetooth drastically jump started my progress. A comment by a friend that my footwork sucked, which hurt my feelings at the time, probably did more for my climbing than anything else ever. Those boulders set a great foundation for my future climbing.

FRB:  Who influenced you in your early years climbing?

Craig: In my first year I was only influenced by mountains and rocks. Later I read the book Climb! Rock Climbing in Colorado by Godfrey and Chelton probably 25 times. Thirty years later, I still remember the stories. The climbers in those stories influenced me the most. My ultimate heroes were Layton Kor and John Gill.

FRB:  What famous climbers do you admire?

Craig: All of them, especially the ones who are kind to others.

FRB: What about the other parts of your life?
          What do you like to do?

Craig: I used to pretty much just climb rocks and ice for fun. I burned through some partners because I wouldn’t let them go home until dark. Now I love skiing, so I don’t ice climb much anymore.

My favorite thing to do these days is anything with my (almost) 6-year-old daughter Giulia Maria (aka Jumar). Last year she climbed the First and Third Flatirons, and we ski and ride bikes a lot. Some mountain boy is gonna owe me big time one day.

FRB: What are some of your favorite moments
          in your climbing career?

Craig: Making the first one-day winter ascent of the Diamond with Topher Donahue, onsighting Lucille for the second ascent, soloing Bridal Veil Falls and Ames Ice Hose one day, and any time that I was climbing in Cuba, Madagascar, or China.

Climbing Nose-in-a-Day with Derek Hersey was my most fun climbing day, but that trip bottomed out hard when he fell soloing three days later. I drove home alone.

FRB: Do you have any early epic stories or events
          you can share with us, Craig?

Craig: I’ve tried to avoid epics for the most part by being conservative. Whenever I did anything that seemed crazy to others, like free soloing, I felt in complete mastery of my movement and mind. Well, most of the times.

I have, stupidly, ridden in two avalanches. I have to admit, over three decades I’ve had lots of close calls, most of which are blanked out of my memory. I’d be too gripped to climb otherwise. Maybe someday I’ll undergo therapy to recall them all and write a story.

The biggest epics have happened to my friends and climbing acquaintances. 70 of them have died climbing or skiing since 1993. It breaks my heart every time. The recent avalanche in China that took some of our best is particularly hard to deal with.

FRB: You invented the Big Bro tube chock climbing protection.
          Tell us about the genesis of the Big Bro.       

Craig: In 1984 I needed a design project to serve as my senior honors thesis in mechanical engineering at Colorado State University. I’d sweated it out on a few off-widths -- they’re inevitable if you like long routes and desert climbs. I didn’t want to cross classics off the list just because they had – an off-width. Necessity is the mother of invention, so I decided to design protection for wide cracks.

My professor, Jaime Cardenas-Garcia, worked me like a dog. I had to come up with ten different ideas, design and build seven prototypes in the machine shop, and write a 110-page thesis paper.

I had ten ideas drawn and ready to submit when I headed up The Sabre in Rocky Mountain National Park one weekend. These two guys, Kent Wheeler and Chuck Grossman, soloed the first three pitches and caught us at a belay. Wheeler looked at me and said, “I’m not sure if we’re on the right route. In fact, I’m not even sure if we’re on the Petit Grepon.”

We both gave him the look. He knew the answer before I said, “You’re not. You’re on The Sabre.”

They had brand new hexes, and The Sabre is a much harder, more serious alpine spire than Petit Grepon. All I could think was: these Gumbies are in trouble.

To our surprise they were good climbers. We took parallel routes that criss-crossed up the face, and topped out together in a lightning storm. On the hike down I told them about my project. Chuck, who was one of the best crack climbers in Colorado, but was off the radar, said, “I’ve had this idea about an expandable tube.”

I added the idea of camming the tube across the crack like a tri-cam to make it work in parallel cracks, and the Big Bro became the eleventh idea. The tubes in the first prototypes could be rotated 180 degrees so they’d jam in constrictions or cam in parallel spots.

Since it was 1984, I pulled the name from George Orwell’s literary classic 1984, and it’s theme (which has frighteningly come true) “Big brother is watching you.”

That quirky day, meeting Chuck and Kent because they were pathetically far off route, and coming away with the money idea for light, compact wide crack protection, changed the direction of my life. Instead of staying in grad school to become a mechanical engineering professor, I ended up starting a guide service, and a climbing gear and apparel company called Mountain Hardwear. Warren "Batso" Harding was our first investor. I sold the name Mountain Hardwear later for $1500. Brilliant move, huh?

Rock & Ice wanted to review the Big Bro, but they didn’t want to lead any off-widths. God forbid. That’s been a constant theme. Everyone runs away from off-widths, so I still drive a Subaru instead of an Audi or a Beamer.

I climbed with Rock & Ice publisher George Bracksieck and editor Sally Moser at Castle Rock and showed them the Big Bro. This led to an assignment to write Understanding Your Friends, a little article that explained how cams work. Other articles for Climbing and Rock & Ice followed, and then the opportunity to help John Long with technical information in his how-to books. Now I make books that compete with some of Long’s books. From that I learned: make your protégé your partner instead of your lackey.

Not to diss Largo. He’s delivered up some climbing and literary masterstrokes, no doubt. We did partner on one book, Advanced Rock Climbing, and I was slow getting him content. He left me messages on my answering machine like: “Aye ca rumba Luebben, where the hell are you this time?” And “Luebben, you’re as slow as moving a glacier with a shovel.” The final message was: “Craig Luebben? John Long. You’re fired.” I buckled down after that one.

All of that enabled me to travel the world and climb and open routes and hang with cool people, giving me the best experiences of my life, outside being a Dad.

The downside of the Big Bro was all the good climbing that I missed while I was mucking around in off-widths and squeeze chimneys. I got a reputation as a really good off-width climber. But the hard off-widths always had their way with me, even if I did manage a free ascent. I never thought I was all that good at off-widths. I just thought everyone else sucked.

FRB: You were involved in the Horsetooth Hang in the early years.
          Tell us about that.       

Craig: John Shireman, who is now the sales and marketing director at New Belgium Brewing, and I would toprope sandstone routes on the back of Washington’s Bar and Grill in Fort Collins where he was a manager. He talked the bar into sponsoring the first Horsetooth Hang, which was like a locals competition, in 1991. We organized it together.

The next year we got big bucks from Budweiser and the Horsetooth Hang became a national competition that drew the best climbers. To even out the local advantage we set some hard, overhanging routes on a portable wall and gave them big points. The night before the comp I slept under the wall to guard our life savings of gear rigged in the cliffs. A huge thunderstorm came in. I stayed dry under the overhang, but worried all night that the wall would blow over. I imagined them finding me flattened in the morning.

A few of the top climbers were incredibly arrogant, cocky, and nasty to the volunteers. It felt really raw giving thousands of dollars cash to big-name climbers behaving like jackasses. And Budweiser, seeing the toddler-like behavior of the sport’s “elite”, walked away from sponsoring climbing events. The climbers shot themselves in their own foot on that one.

Of course, I have to add that some of the best, like Scottie Franklin and women’s winner Bobbi Bensman, always conducted themselves with class.

We cancelled “The Hang” the next year, and reinvented it as a bouldering festival two years later. Instead of giving prizes and money to the winners, we raffled prizes to volunteers and climbers who gathered a bag of trash.

Cameron Cross took over organizing the Horsetooth Hang a few years ago. As a result he revamped the Northern Colorado Climber’s Coalition, which has become a great resource for Fort Collins/Loveland area climbers, and has helped build a climbing community which is becoming increasingly split between boulderers, sportos, tradsters, and alpinists. I’m really proud of what he has done.

FRB: Tell us an insider story about some funny or
          interesting event that occurred at a Horsetooth Hang, Craig.

Craig: At the first Hang we had a really primitive computer program for tallying up the scores. It took four hours instead of one like we expected. By then most of the climbers, who were out climbing for six hours on a hot day and hadn’t eaten much, were hammered from loads of donated beer.

I had cut up a list of names for the raffle and left them onstage in a pitcher. A bar back, just doing his job, cleared the pitcher. When we got onstage to give out $6000 in swag, everyone was loud, unruly, tired, and impatient. And The Pitcher was gone. We freaked. We’d worked so hard, and everything went so great all day, and now it was falling apart.

I quickly cut up some blank paper and put it in a pitcher. I’d identify someone in the crowd, pull out a blank piece of paper, and say their name. My friends did pretty well that night. Sorry to everyone else, but what else could I do?

One more story, a climber was fussing about not wanting to use the toprope on the Mental Block, saying, “I don’t want to use a rope on a classic John Gill route.”

Little did he know, John Gill was standing right behind him. John replied, “I used one on the first ascent.”

FRB: What about first ascents.
          What f.a.'s have you climbed?
          Tell us about them. (bouldering & trad).

Craig: Bouldering-wise, I did a lot of FA problems at The Tropics, so-named because it was a wind-sheltered solar collector that was fantastic for winter bouldering. I practically lived there during grad school because it was only 400 yards from the Engineering Research Center where I did research on ion thrusters for NASA. I found the bouldering a lot more interesting and fun than the ion thrusters.

We got pretty contrived at that place to keep it interesting, even climbing one route -- The Thumb Punisher -- thumbs-only. Committing one of the biggest environmental crimes in the Front Range, the Bureau of Reclamation blew up The Tropics, thereby destroying a great training, recreational, and social center for Fort Collins climbers. Mark Synnot and I both met our wives there.

Climbing-wise I’ve done new routes in a lot of states and countries. A favorite was Life in a Fairy Tale in the Tsaranoro Massif in Madagascar. In 1600 feet there were only 4 opportunities for gear protection, so we bolted the whole thing, ground up, of course. We had a solar panel to charge the drill batteries. My wife Silvia wanted to try lead drilling. She drilled the first 3 bolts and I drilled the next 145.

We also found a valley in China with 125 unclimbed frozen waterfalls, and got to make first ascents on several of the best ones. That felt great after only repeating ice routes all my life in Colorado. The coolest one, and the hardest and scariest ice climb I ever did, with a Chinese partner to boot, was called Dragon Breath WI7 M8.

Craig drilling Life in a Fairy Tale, Tsaranoro Massif, Madagascar	Craig and Cameron Cross beneath Flyin' Hyena, Vinales Valley, Cuba

FRB: You are one of the early explorers and developers
          of the climbing in Cuba. Craig, please tell us about
          climbing in Cuba.

Craig: I’m excited that the doors to Cuba could open soon. Anyone interested in going should check out cubaclimbing.com for information. A Cuba climbing guidebook by Armando Menocal and Anibal Fernandez will be released by Quickdraw Publications before the next climbing season (winter).

I made five trips there, and if I could only keep one set of my climbing adventures, it would be those trips to Cuba. Skip Harper convinced me to go the first time. When we arrived in Vinales Valley in 1999, only one route existed. I felt like Layton Kor in the early days of climbing in Eldorado Canyon. The most beautiful, aesthetic lines were just waiting to be climbed. The walls are crazy-steep and covered with large pockets, tufas, and stalactites like Thailand or Kalmnos, with the 3-D climbing that is so fun. Unlike Layton, we had a power drill.

I got really obsessed and kept returning to open routes up the biggest, steepest walls we could find. Cameron Cross, only 18 then, was my best partner in Cuba. We were constantly amazed that we could make our routes go free, and we were continually devising new strategies for rappelling the overhanging multi-pitch routes so we didn’t strand ourselves in space.

One of our routes, now called Mucho Pumpito, has often been called the best 5.10 pitch in the world. It’s hard for me to claim that it’s the best, but I’d say that it’s definitely among them. The second pitch is a wildly overhanging arête with crazy exposure and the biggest holds ever, for a long ways.

The place, Vinales Valley, is beautiful and serene. It’s like going back 100 years with all the oxen-pulled plows, hand labor in the fields, and rustic houses. The people are amazing, very warm and friendly. I’d always have this exchange where someone would ask me, “You live in the United States?” And then declare, “My cousin lives in the United States.”

“Really?” I would reply. “In Miami?”

A confused look, followed by, “Yes! How did you know?” was the standard reply.

We got real tight with the Cuban climbers, they became like our best friends. And we’d see live music almost every night. By the end of every trip we were exhausted from drilling and climbing all day and partying late each night. But we wanted to experience every moment possible.

FRB: Favorite all-time boulder problem? (in the U. S.)

Craig: It’s hard to choose, but I’d say The Arete at The Tropics if that would bring it back.

I was never able to do really hard boulder problems, but I used to do big circuits of easier ones at Horsetooth. I easily spent a couple thousand days climbing there over my twenty years in Fort Collins. I did always have a particular affection for classic John Gill problems. But I never really “got” bouldering as anything more than fun, training, and a great social activity until I went to Hueco.

FRB: Favorite all-time routes.

Craig: Whatever route I am on at the moment. Some of the best for me are Naked Edge, Wunsch’s Dihedral, Astroman, The Nose, The Shield, The Rostrum, Air Voyage, Scenic Cruise, any route on the Diamond, Life in a Fairy Tale, Flyin’ Hyena, Cuba Libre, and Mr. Mogote (the last three are routes we opened in Cuba). I like cragging but it’s funny that no short routes make my top list (and no offwidths do either).

FRB: Favorite all-time areas?

Craig: Squamish, Yosemite, Red River Gorge, Black Canyon of the Gunnison, Rocky Mountain National Park, Indian Creek, Vedauwoo, Vinales (Cuba), Madagascar, Chamonix, Sardinia, Kalymnos, Mona Island, Shuanchiao Valley and Yangshuo (China).

FRB: Hardest sends?

Craig: My hardest sends have been off-widths, funny enough, which are usually extra grueling for the grade. Lucille was graded 5.13 when I did it, but I had to downrate it because I don’t onsight 5.13 (or even climb it). I’ve never been into projecting routes unless it’s a first ascent or a hard off-width.

My highest graded route is an off-width called Thai Boxing that I put up near Chamonix. After I flashed it Stevie Haston, a hard-climbing big ego Brit who showed me the route, refused to get on it and declared, “that’s the last time I’ll show a good crack to a Yank!” I gave it 12 a or b (Vedauwoo grades), and later Stevie climbed it and called it 12d. Then some French guides bolted it and I’m told that it’s graded 8b+ (13d). I can only imagine the insane Gastoning that must be going on.

A sport route that we opened in Cuba called Have a Cigar might be 12d. That was about my upper grade for sport climbing.

Craig sends Lucille, Vedauwoo. photo by David Vartanian	Craig sends the f.a. of Thai Boxing, Chamonix. photo by Stevie Haston

FRB: You've written several books on climbing.
          Where does your inspiration come from, Craig?       

Craig: I like to write and take pictures, and organize my thoughts and ideas on paper. I am motivated to help make climbing safer for others. Having some royalty-based income is a long-term way to help support my family, climbing trips, and freelance lifestyle.

I'm lucky that I don't have to do much research for the climbing instructional books. It's all in my head from the decades of climbing, guiding, and training guides. I've never been the best climber, but I've gotten to climb with many of them, which also provides solid techniques and ideas.

FRB: You wrote a book on how to off-width, Craig.
          How do you off-width?

Craig: Well I haven’t done a book on that (yet), but it’s covered a bit in some of the books I have done.

To climb a wide crack you basically turn outward pressure against the crack walls into upward movement, using the least energy possible. The harder off-widths can require the most complex, bizarre, physical, and often painful techniques in all of climbing.

My favorite off-widths are thinner ones where you can get hand stacks and knee locks. Contrary to popular belief, it can be elegant. (wink)

One of the main things is to be patient, because you often only move one to three inches at a time. I’ll make a few moves and then stuff my body hard in the crack to “rest” and lower my heart rate. As soon as you redline (go anaerobic) it’s over.

Pain control is essential – taping and wearing adequate clothes and hightop shoes can reduce the pain so it’s not so hateful.

The main idea in bigger off-widths is to heel-toe or foot cam with your feet. The outside foot usually drives the body upward, and then the arms, inside foot, ass, elbow, and/or hip lock the body in while you advance the outside foot for another move. I teach off-width clinics if anyone’s interested.

Craig sends Tooth Fairy, Indian Creek	Craig sends Texas Finger Crack, Indian Creek

FRB: You're a American Mountain Guides Association
           certified rock guide. Tell us about that. Can you drag
           me up XM to Outer Space in Eldorado?

Craig: Well, I separated my shoulder skiing in January, and after that I cracked some ribs in another ski crash. So I just had my biggest break from climbing in 31 years. The only climbing I’ve done this year has been in the three 10-day AMGA guides courses that I just taught.

Let me recover my flow and head and then we’ll head up XM to Outer Space, cuz that’s a little spicy. For now I can take you up the Bastille Crack or Rewritten.

FRB: You operate Desert Ice Mountain Guides.
           Tell us about that?

Craig: I don’t call it that anymore but I have many guiding jobs. I work some for Colorado Mountain School, and I teach AMGA rock guide courses. I also work occasionally for random guide services around the country, and I do my own private guiding. I am poor at marketing so I don’t guide as many days as I should.

My best guiding job was working for the Lynn Hill camps where we had a chef, great beer and wine every night, and awesome clients in six of the country’s best climbing areas. And Lynn paid me well.

I also enjoy taking the kids in Robyn Erbesfield-Raboutou’s ABC Competitive Team on their outside climbing days. Those kids can crank -- a bunch of them just qualified for nationals.

FRB: You've product tested for Climbing and
           Rock & Ice magazines. Tell us about that.
           Is it as fun as it sounds, Craig?

Craig: Breaking gear is fun for about two hours, and then it’s a job like any other job. The free swag is nice though. I always liked cam and ice tool reviews the best.

FRB: Your list of accomplishments in your
           climbing career is enviable. Does it feel as
           good as it seems? Where do you get
           the energy and inspiration?

Craig: I don’t know, but being a freelancer and not having a real, full time job since I was a kid has given me lots of time to do different things. And after you complete a project it’s always anti-climatic, like, “okay, what’s next?”

It’s hard to be as inspired and energetic about climbing as I was when I was younger. After climbing for more than three decades I don’t need to climb as much anymore, and my priorities have changed a lot. But that doesn’t mean that I’m done. I still dream of getting really fit again and pushing my boundaries.

FRB: What would you say to someone who wants
           to have such a varied, creative climbing career
           like yours, Craig?

Craig: Work hard in school.

If it’s too late for that, marry well, (or stay single and live out of your truck).

Find your niches and build a network of key people in the business.

Unless you have exceptional talent and business savvy, or a sweet trust fund, be prepared for some financially gripping years that you wouldn’t trade for anything.

I didn’t try to have the life that I did, I just kept following the open doors that were most interesting.

FRB: What would you do for thrills if you didn't climb?

Craig: For thrills I guess I would ski and travel the world and maybe scuba dive and kayak. In another crazier life I might get into base jumping and bird suiting.

FRB: How do you spend your down time, Craig?

Craig: I like to drink a good beer with friends.

FRB: What can we expect from Craig in the future?

Craig: Valley God Steve Schneider asked me to go to Cerro Torre this winter. I am psyched for that, it’s been a dream since I started climbing. Steve has made 103 El Cap climbs, sometimes three-at-a-time. He’s as solid as they come. I know I will learn a lot and have a ton of fun, and I finally get to see that mythical place. It feels great to have a climbing goal again.

My publishers haven’t been too receptive to my new book ideas, so I am being forced to self-publish, which should work out better in the long run anyway. That’s where much of my energy is going now. Look for some new books in a year or so. Anyone have ideas for a great climbing book publishing name?

FRB: Thanks for the interview, Craig.

Craig: Thank you, mb. Great luck with Front Range Bouldering and kudos for your service to our climbing community.

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