Do you long to travel the world and climb hard at your dream destinations? One lifer ticked the travel project of a lifetime after he turned 50. But the difficulty of the sport climbing was the least important part.
Jim Lawyer turned climbing into his lifestyle in a different era. In the mid-1980s, the upstate New York native was a college student, working a few jobs at once, and taking whatever came his way.
Fast forward a few decades, and Lawyer is climbing at a high personal standard worldwide. His recent “Project 13” was a challenge to himself and a capstone to a lifetime of climbing.
Over 5 years, Lawyer ticked 13 5.13 routes in 13 countries worldwide. He also climbed a lot more than that — he estimates the project entailed over 60 routes 5.13 or harder, among countless others below his limit.
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To him, though, the travel meant more than the sport climbing.
“I’ve been trying to put words around why travel is important to me,” he said. “Sure, it makes you a better climber, but it also exposes you to the world. You realize that you’re a member of a global community.”
His travel stories range far and wide. Epics include an episode involving monkeys in Colombia, crawling through a climber’s toilet to recover his partner’s lost lunch, and the time strangers in a shantytown in South Africa selflessly repaired what would have amounted to thousands of dollars in damage to his rental car.
Early Days and ‘Schwaggy’ Crags

Parlaying Work Into a Sport Climbing Life
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Sport Climbing in South Africa: Not So Black and White
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‘Citizens of the Planet’
