The following excerpt comes from the chapter "Fear of Heights" in my forthcoming book of climbing adventure stories tentatively entitled Life on the Edge.

The late afternoon sun slanted across the Garden of the Gods as I rappelled down the west face of Montezuma Tower, a tall, skinny fin ascended by a classic route up its north ridge. My partner, already on the ground, had gone to retrieve the packs at the ridge base. Below the west face, I pulled the double rappel ropes and began coiling them. A beer-gutted Texan in a tight western shirt, the plaid kind with pearl button snaps, and a yellow, sweat-stained Caterpillar cap sauntered over and asked, “How ju fellas get yer grappling hook up that mountain?”

On my desk sits a two-inch-high stack of paper: a photocopy of the second edition of Scenic Driving Colorado. I've spent the last couple months fact-checking the entire manuscript--making changes in public land management, revising acreages of state and national parklands, checking those oh-so-important address and phone numbers and websites that my readers rely on to find additioinal information.

Climbing reflects the dichotomy of human experience. It reflects Me versus Us/We; that dance of solitariness and togetherness that is part of every life and every relationship. On the one hand we each must climb alone. It is up to myself as a single individual person to use my hands and feet and experience and judgment to reach the top of a cliff, to reach safety. On the other hand, when I climb with a partner, with a friend, I am a member of a team. Two become one. I forge a partnership, a bond, with another person. We look out for each other. We keep each other safe. The rope between us is not only the physical link, an umbilical cord that connects us together, but it also symbolizes the common thread that connects us. It’s a slender thread that keeps us safe, that stops our falls, that safeguards our passage into an uncertain future.

It's Friday. Almost midday. I just tanked up with gasoline in the old truck and a few cups of coffee at La Baguette, a great French cafe in downtown Colorado Springs, with my elderly folks. Now getting ready to head south to Taos, New Mexico. Four and a half hours on the road, under a cloud-mottled sky that portends a cooler weekend. Sunday, don't forget, I'll be giving my photo program "The Climbers: Life on the Edge" at 11:30 AM at the Taos Center for the Arts.

The show is a collection of 75 photographs of climbers that I've made since 1971. Lots of great shots of famous and not-so-famous climbers, including Earl Wiggins, Jimmy Dunn, Ed Webster, Henry Barber, Eric Bjornstad, Bob D'Antonio, and John Gill...photographs of climbers as people, doing everyday normal things rather than heroic actions. A lot of the photographs will be appearing in my new book "On the Edge: The Climber's Life."

Baltimore, Maryland. It's early August. The heat and humidity are stifling. Outside at mid-day, walking the brick sidewalks at Goucher College, is like being in a blast furnace. Much more uncomfortable than a hot August day in Utah's Canyonlands where the dry air embraces you, a halo of shade lies beneath a scrubby juniper, and a soaring vulture seems to wait for your ripe bones.

I love the West. It's my homeland. The place I feel at ease and know my place and find uncluttered space with lots of elbow room and fine rocks to climb upon. But I am here enjoying Baltimore's uncomfortable weather in August, to further my education, finishing up a Master's of Fine Art degree in Creative Nonfiction Writing that I began two years ago. The low-residency program at Goucher is simply the finest in the country. The faculty is unsurpassed and accessible and skilled at imparting their knowledge of writing gleaned from their own work on books and essays as well as years of teaching writing at the nation's best universities and colleges.

Last Friday, the day before the big Memorial Day weekend and the Indy 500, I climbed Independence Monument in the heart of Colorado National Monument southwest of Grand Junction. The last time I was at Indy, back in mid-April, the fierce wind, plummeting temperatures, and shards of snow flurrying across the canyon conspired to make me bail from Sundeck Ledge a scant 70 feet below the summit. My English mate Dennis, who has his own blog here on cave-digging in the old country, did manage to summit that day along with Joe Cook. But I was cold and frozen; my windbreaker offered inadequate protection from the wind so I took the easy way out and slid down the ropes to shelter and warmth. My last look at Dennis revealed eyes as big as saucers as he clambered up the unprotected chopped steps to the final summit overhangs. Back on the ground he told me, "Bloody 'ell, I had visions of being swept over that vertical east face by the wind." He didn't even sign the summit book, instead contenting himself with merely peering onto the summit from the safety of the last anchors on a ledge eight feet below and placing an "I was there" hand on top.

It's been a rough spring to be a climber in Colorado. The weather: up and down, up and down. Good one day and crap the next. Rain, wind, snow, and then sun. It's hard to make plans or to get out on the rocks. Last week I spent over in western Colorado and eastern Utah with my English buddy Dennis and it was like that.

On Tuesday we ventured into Colorado National Monument to run up Independence Monument, a proud 450-foot-high tower first climbed by the intrepid John Otto in 1911 via a pipe ladder. The sky was clear and the air warm as we walked up the trail with Gwendolyn. Ian and Joe were meeting us in half an hour. We stopped, chatted, made photographs. All was right with the world. But by the time we roped up in the morning shade of the tower's west face, the nice day was quickly disappearing. Clouds scudded across the sky. A persistent wind began to blow. By the time Dennis and I were at the bolts at the end of the long first pitch, it was getting downright cold. After two more pitches, we stood on Sundeck Ledge, a broad airy platform perched on the south ridge just below the summit. The wind gusted. We brought Gwendolyn and Joe up to the aerie. My son Ian, who was going to lead up behind us, had racked and roped up at the route base before his mobile phone rang. Work calling, unfortunately. He had to get back to the drill rig up by Rifle to sort problems with the directional drilling tool.

March came and went like a lamb, well, mostly warm and fuzzy. A few 70 degree days; a few shards of snow; some windy afternoons. But all in all, pretty benign. The last day of the month, last Saturday, I journeyed up to Colorado's version of Sin City and Unabashed Liberalism--Boulder. Or as some conservative wags here call it: The People's Republic of Boulder. The city, of course, is home to the University of Colorado, one of the nation's premier party schools, as well as an huge assortment of spectacular rock climbs.

A few weeks ago my friend Jean Bourgeois, the great Belgium climber and mountaineer, sent me an email: "My new companion Pat will be in Colorado at the end of this month. She'll give a lecture on March 28. She is a notable leader in the field of non-violence. She is a marvelous person. If you are near Boulder, she'd be happy to meet you and perhaps get an opportunity to climb up there." I said yes, of course, I said yes.

Spring has finally sprung here in Central Virginia - almost. The air is warming, trees are beginning to turn green, flowers are adorning just about everything you see in this leafy region. Still it was on the chilly side this morning. We were, nevertheless, determined to head a bit farther afield than our usual trip to local Ivy Creek Natural Area and seek out a little family adventure in the mountains just to our west.

We packed the family into the rig and traveled the barely twenty five minutes it takes to get from Charlottesville to the crossroads on Afton Mountain where one can turn south at mile marker zero onto the Blue Ridge Parkway or north up Skyline Drive into the Shenandoah National Park. Having a choice like this so close to home is just one of the many reasons Charlottesville is regularly listed in the top ten best places to live - so close to world-class outdoor destinations makes this hilly little region of horse farms and wineries a real choice piece of real estate.

Back in early December after two solid weeks of cold and snow in Colorado, I yearned to get down to the barbaric southlands, to the dusty prickly desert along the Mexican border, to the home of the winter sun. "Hey Brian," I said, "we need a trip south and go rock climbing. Get out of this murk."

I was thinking the same thing," he said readily. "In fact, why don't we go down to Arizona and you can take me to all those secret places you know about?" So the plan was hatched and two days later we wheeled south on Interstate 25 like migratory birds.