Climbing Out of Bed, July 4th Release

Climbing Out of Bed, the first book from Luke Mehall, will be released on Wednesday, July 4th. It will be initially released as an e-book on Kindle, followed by the printed version. Climbing Out of Bed is a collection of rock climbing and mountain town stories, written over the last 13 years.

The muses of Mehall’s pieces are the people who make up the rock climbing and mountain town culture. Originally hailing from Illinois, Mehall moved to Colorado in 1999 to attend Western State College, in Gunnison. He describes the experience as being a lost soul who floated to the mountains, and then discovered his true self. Many of the stories in Climbing Out of Bed are coming of age tales, especially when the author embarks into the unknown of the rock climbing world.

There are 25 pieces in Climbing Out of Bed, and topics for essays include: friendship, hitchhiking, couch surfing, buildering (climbing buildings), road tripping, dumpster diving, extended camping experiences, dirtbag living, love, loss, wanderlust, and Zen dishwashing

 Mehall lived in the Gunnison Valley, Colorado for 11 years, and now resides in Durango, Colorado, where he is a freelance writer. He is also the publisher of The Climbing Zine, an independent rock climbing publication. His work has been published in Crested Butte Magazine, Rock and Ice, Climbing, Mountain Gazette, foxsports.com, and Patagonia’s blog, The Cleanest Line. He also worked at his alma mater, Western State College of Colorado, for three years, as the assistant director of public relations and communications.

George Sibley, author of Dragons in Paradise and senior correspondent to the Mountain Gazette, says that Mehall’s writing makes him think of Jack Kerouac, on a good day. “I don’t know anyone who writes with more enthusiasm, joy and honest about a life that ranges from pearl diving in restaurant kitchen sinks all winter, to climbing the big walls and spires of North America all summer and fall,” Sibley said.

More information about Climbing Out of Bed can be found at www.climbingzine.com. It will be available on Amazon’s Kindle on Wed., July 4th. The author can be contacted at lukemehall@gmail.com. 

Fire, Burning Desire

I’ve finally got a working computer again, and I’m stoked to get back in the writing zone; my life is incomplete without writing, in many ways. The first benefit is the meditation and head space I receive from writing, the second is that writing is my profession, how I feed myself; writing is my life, what I have to offer the world.

           

Officially it is still spring, but in Durango it feels like summer. It feels like a hot summer is on the way, we’ve already had fires popping up near town. This is my first summer in Durango, and something feels burning inside of me, a burning desire to experience life to the fullest, and manifest some dreams of mine.

I once heard someone say that the most common rhyme in music was fire and desire. After I heard that said, I’ve heard that rhyme all the time. And once a fire is in your heart and soul, there is a desire for it to grow.

My personal fire right now is on many fronts: the desire to become the best climber I can be, the dream to manifest my goal of becoming a successful writer, and that search for love, or as Johnny Cash says it better “flesh and blood needs flesh and blood.”

 Since I’ve last blogged I also have taken a job, a part time gig at my favorite Mexican restaurant in town, called Zia Taqueria. It feels good to be working in a kitchen again, and I’ve realized how much I missed that type of work. Many of my coworkers are Mexican, and I’m stoked to work on my Spanish. Plus there’s just something about the Latino spirit that moves me, the work environment there is really enjoyable.

I love climbing so much, more and more every day, and currently I’ve got a goal in mind, which usually helps me dedicate my energy to a dream. The goal is to do a Birthday Challenge in the next couple of weeks. My birthday is in December, which is a terrible time of year to do a proper rock climbing Birthday Challenge, plus the older one gets, the more difficult the challenge becomes. Recently I was talking with a climbing partner of mine, Badger, and we realized our birthdays are a mere three days apart. We are also only a year apart in age, he’s like a “brother from another Mother”. So, we decided we would do a mid-year challenge. Today will be our first training session at the local Golf Wall, as we build up to doing 34 pitches in day. So psyched!

I can’t overstate how much fire is building is my heart and soul right now, it’s almost a little overwhelming. I feel it leading to living my dreams, which is what the essence of being human is about, right? Please comment below to tell me what you are feeling, what wildfires are brewing in your heart, and what storms are starting to release thunderous bolts of lighting in your world.

peace,

Luke

The Climbing Zine Now on Gunny Love

The Climbing Zine is now part of a new website called Gunny Love. Started by Mallory Logan and Delaney Keating, this innovative site is a marketplace for Gunnison Valley related projects, making it easy to shop locally, when you're not in the G-Spot! Check it out!

www.gunnylove.com

February Motion and eMotion

What else are we but love? I've been staying way out in the hills near Durango, Colorado, actually closer to Bayfield, Windy Ridge to be exact, and this is the first thing I'm driven to write on my bloggie blog since being here.

I love the simplicity of blogging, the channeling of in-the-moment thoughts, into words, out to the interweb, the world.

Are we anything but love? That is what I think out here, all alone, with no way to actually reach out to another breathing human in flesh. All alone I realize how social I am. How I yearn to love thee women. The women, thee women, you are out there, I know, so that comforts me and I move along with my night, light the fire, light one up, drink one down, listen to iTunes. Love you world. Love you.

Freedom Mobile Story in the Winter Crested Butte Magazine: Roll on Freedom

Below is a story I wrote about my car, The Freedom Mobile, which was published in the most recent issue of Crested Butte Magazine. Below is the draft I submitted, surely just a bit different than the finished product. Hope ya'll enjoy, and be sure to pick up a copy of the CB Mag. when you're in the Gunnison Valley. A link to the online version can be found below.

Our vehicles make statements about our lifestyles, and here in Crested Butte we have quite the diversity in modes of transportation. From the high class Hummer SUVs to the old Subaru station wagon that checks in well over 200,000 miles, the car we drive can be a dead giveaway to the activities we pursue. I often wonder what strangers think of my car, an old 1988 Mazda that is spray painted red, white and blue, most commonly known as the Freedom Mobile.

Ever since I saw the classic 1969 American road movie Easy Rider with Peter Fonda and Jack Nicholson, I’ve wanted to paint a vehicle in the colors of our country. I’ve always sensed that us mountain folk are living out our own version of the American Dream up here in the Gunnison Valley, and my car is representative of our unique culture. Adding to the mystique, I also wanted to feature the OM symbol, to show that the east and west can come together, and to show that although I am a proud American, who has been heavily influenced by the ancient, Indian-based art of yoga.

Reactions to the Freedom Mobile have been mostly positive since I graffiti-ed it up with my friend and artist, Nathan Kubes, three years ago. I can count on children smiling and pointing at it, supportive nods from people on townies crossing Elk Ave., and my fellow climbers saying, “I love your car” at various locales across the west. The most predictable response, however, is from hitchhikers; as I slow down to pull over. Their response, with a glimmer of hope in their eyes, is something to the effect of, “I knew you were going to pick me up.”

I’m proud to drive a vehicle that elicits such a response. It took some time to get to this level of pride though. The very next day after we first painted the car, I was pulled over by the police, saying something about my headlights not working properly. I thought they were, and wondered if I’d just set myself up for getting pulled over all the time. It took some time getting used to driving a car that attracted such attention.

A couple months later I had a first date, at the Almont bar of all places. (The woman was living in Crested Butte, and I was living in Gunny; a good mid-way meeting point I thought.) I had the usual butterflies of a first date, and as I walked out to get in my car for the drive I wished to the heavens that I hadn’t painted my car in such an outlandish manner, so I could just present myself in somewhat of a normal way. She ended up loving The Freedom Mobile though, and I learned an important lesson that our inner freak is usually a beautiful thing, and we should not hide it; if someone is a kindred spirit they’ll love what is inside you.

Something I did in the Freedom Mobile, that I never dreamed would happen, was taking it on a major rock climbing road trip, across the Western United States. It all went down like this. I’d just lost my full time with benefits job in Gunnison, with the downturn in the economy, and recently broken up with the first woman I’d ever been in love with. I needed to get out of the valley, and I’d made plans to move down south, to Durango for a fresh start. In the interim my friend Dave and I would make a month long road trip. It would be one of those coming of age trips to do something exciting, and forget about the trials and tribulations of the past.

At the last minute Dave’s truck broke down, and now the trip relied on the Freedom Mobile. With nothing to lose I decided to take Freedom on the trip. We drove to Red Rocks in Las Vegas, Nevada down to Joshua Tree, California, up to Yosemite, to Vegas again, and finally down to Durango. There were many moments of pure bliss, and the country’s reception of the Freedom Mobile was incredible. At one moment, driving in southern Utah a woman sitting shotgun in an old truck, with oxygen hooked up to her nose, pulled up next to us, and gave the biggest grin I’d ever seen, and two thumbs up. Later that same day, pulling into a gas station in the Middle of Nowhere, Utah, some good ol’ boy mechanics were staring us down. We were slightly defensive until they started talking, “Nice car, it looks like something Evil Knievel would drive.”

Durango ended up embracing the Freedom Mobile, and there are more spray painted cars there per capita than any other place in Colorado I’ve been. Work ended up being scarce in Durango, as it is many places in our country these days, and when the spring ended, I found myself returning to this sacred valley for the summer.

The Freedom Mobile made its first appearance in Crested Butte’s Fourth of July parade, and somehow I managed 16 of my closest friends to spell out The Freedom Mobile in body paint across their stomachs and chests. The wildest incident though came later, in the fall, as the deadline for this piece was approaching.

I’d teamed up my friend, Braden Gunem, to do a photo shoot for this article. He rigged up a camera on the front of my car, with all sorts of lighting inside; including a small rag in a bottle he wanted to light on fire to add a wild touch to the photos. While we were keeping our eyes peeled for the police to make sure they didn’t see our shenanigans, I looked up to the last rays of daylight to see a major townie takeover headed our way. I couldn’t believe my eyes. It was the Brick Oven Pizzeria’s softball team, dressed complete with their signature red, yellow and green tank tops, and hairnets on their townies; thirty of them, followed by a police officer.

As we watched it all go down, wondering what was going to happen, the police officer ended up escorting the Rasta Hairnet townie takeover down Elk Ave. Only in Crested Butte! With the police busy escorting the wild Brick Oven crew, we commenced with our unorthodox photo shoot.

I never know what’s around the corner for the Freedom Mobile, and I like it like that. It’s headed back down to Durango for the winter, so it won’t be rolling the streets of Crested Butte when the snow falls. The spirit of Crested Butte lives in the Freedom Mobile, wherever it may go though. Let freedom ring!

Crested Butte Magazine online

Appreciation for Townies

As the snow falls here in Durango, Colorado I'm thinking about townie bikes; my friend and photographer Braden Gunem asked me to write a short piece about townies in Crested Butte, Colorado for a project he's working on. This is what I came up with, and some townie photos.

There could be more comfortable places for a townie to end up than this town way up in the Rocky Mountains, but none of those destinations probably value or appreciate the townie as much as Crested Butte, Colorado. Like their owners they migrated from all across the United States, maybe not for an easier life, but a more interesting one; a life in the mountains.

Maybe they did not even know they were called “townies” before they arrived, strapped to the top of a Subaru, with a destination for a new existence. And they probably didn’t know they would spend winters covered in snow, winters that seemed to last forever, like they would never get their chance to shine again.

Then the day comes, the snow melts away, it is the townies time. Someday around April 20th, the townie takeover is organized. Only the locals are here now, and all the townies awaken from their slumber. No longer a forgotten piece from a past life, they are the stars of the spring, summer and fall; everyone must have a townie in this town.

Some of the lucky ones will be decorated, and improved; some refuse to sit out the winter and beg to be maintained and adapted with snow tires, and fenders. Others, even luckier, will be obsessed over, preparing them for a 24 hour townie race; fully adorned with lights, even a stereo, as if they were about to take off from the coolest place for a townie in America, into the stars.