Photo: Elodie Saracco
Kalymnos, a Greek Treasure IslandI went to Kalymnos five years ago for the first time and keep going back. This place amazes me by its fantastic panorama, its tasty food, and the many beautiful routes, whatever the grades you're looking for! The potential is enormous and new lines are steadily bolted. You won't be idle! Rock climbing there is different: you experience 3D climbing on stalactites and tufas, a stunning sea-view all around. Kalymnos is definitely a climber's paradise.

Photo: Elodie Saracco
Kalymnos, a Greek Treasure Island

It's one of the places you never forget, a powerful magnet that brings you back, again and again, thanks to a climbing community that makes you feel that you're part of something and the hospitality of the locals that helps you feel at home.

Words and photos by Elodie Saracco.

See the entire gallery here, via UrbanClimberMag.com.

Photo: CatchingReality.com
Road trips are an odyssey on and off pavement, and we've all been fortunate enough to leave our daily routines behind on a white- and yellow-lined journey through unfamiliar cultures and down unknown backroads.

Photo: CatchingReality.com
Here's a teaser for 'Catching Reality', a road trip journey into Morocco's Gorge du Todra, Atlas Mountain Range and the fringe of the Sahara Desert. Directed by Emil Sergel and featuring the climbing and inspirational narration of Said Belhaj, this short film showcases a compelling perspective of travel, climbing and music within the Arabic culture.

cPhoto: CatchingReality.com
"For last 10 yrs, I've been traveling around world to climb new areas, seek new experiences and meet new people," says Belhaj. "Climbing and music are my two passions, they both have the same rhythm. Music is a big inspiration for my climbing, and climbing inspires my music. Here in Morocco I can get both."

According to Belhaj, his life is inspired by exploring and travel, which he injects directly into his passion for climbing. "It's all about pushing limits, to get the best experiences. To climb nice and hard routes. To catch the reality."

Check out the teaser below, via myUCTV.com.

Wyoming is the least-populated of the United States, housing a mere 532,668 souls scattershot across 97,818-square-miles. Great expanses of its terra are truly incognita. Its vast windswept range-land and high peaks are ruggedness incarnate, magnets for the imagination that dare us to enter the marrow of raw wildness. But as lost Teton hikers, bear-mauled Yellowstone tourists, hardscrabble miners, frozen-solid cows and their long-suffering, laconic drivers attest, Wyoming is a harsh land.

Photo: Routavelo, via Flickr
It's not just the land that's harsh. Whatever its mood windy and cold, windy and hot, windy and raining, windy and snowing, windy and sleeting Wyoming's weather will drive sane people away. The Cowboy State's topography and climate mix a cocktail of badness that's as irascible and ornery as the hard-drinkin'est, card-cheatin'est, stock-thievin'est old outlaw.

But Wyoming gives answers. There is something telltale in the ocean of sage stretching across central Wyoming, lapping against the foothills of those inimitable Rocky giants. If we listen, we will hear.

I needed answers a few Augusts ago, so I knew I needed Wyoming. My mother had just fallen from life. She was gone, and there was a sudden emptiness. After the initial whirl of numbed socializing and funereal ritual, I wanted the total opposite: openness, solitude and starkness a meeting with death's meaning. A solo ride on the Continental Divide through Wyoming's uncaring, unsparing, unpeopled harshness was the prescription.

Photo: Routavelo, via Flickr
The first moments of any tour positively drip with possibility, and this one was no exception. I felt the simple release of a world wonderfully bounded by two wheels, a road ahead, wind and sun. I delighted in the circular monotone of pedaling. I ignored the dusty pickups buzzing by much closer than they should. I reveled in the sights: raven, hawk, eagle, cows and deer sharing the sageland. And one frickin' enormous cloud...

Read the rest of Aaron s story here, via MountainGazette.com.

Aaron Phillips lives in Salt Lake City and is currently making the yearly transition from free heels to two wheels. He teaches writing at the University of Utah.

Once a year, we pay homage to the unique funky wild gloriousness of mountain bars by asking our readers to send in stories from or about their favorite altitudinous watering holes, or, for that matter, whatever thoughts get their creative juices flowing when they hear the words mountain bar . Herein we include a wide-net smattering of the entries we received this go-round. Feel free to drink heavily while or after reading them.

Read the top seven submissions, here. From Mountain Gazettte No. 160

By M. John Fayhee.

Photos by Dawne Belloise.

The Mountain Gazette is a flat-out magazine legend. For eight years, from 1972-79, Mountain Gazette was considered by many people to be the best and most influential outdoor publication in the Known Universe.