how to turn your hobby into a career with professional rock climber Jordan Cannon

meet Jordan,

a professional rock climber. he’s accomplished more in his career than most people ever dream of, which is a testament to his work ethic, vision, determination, and attitude.

though if you ever get a chance to talk to Jordan, you won’t just want to talk about climbing.

he’s the kind of person that you want to ask a million questions to - not just because he’s got solid advice, but because you want to know his perspective on everything. he emulates this type of reassuring optimism that everyone needs and should have in their lives.

this conversation taught me so much, and i hope that it inspires you as much as it did me.

Growing up, I read that you didn’t really have access to physical climbs, but you didn’t let it stop you. 

It’s common in climbing, especially for people at the higher-end of the sport, to have started pretty young. But there is also a good number of people who start later in life - in their early twenties or whatever - and become quite good as well. So yeah, I’m one of those. I didn’t really start rock-climbing until I was eighteen when I moved out to California. But I say that I’ve been a climber basically as long as I’ve been alive just because I always had the proclivity and desire to just climb on whatever I could get my hands on. I climbed out of my crib at an early age. I was always up on the counter tops. I used to stem up the doorway and eventually made my way onto the roof and would climb trees. In high school I would climb buildings and bridges. I just liked climbing on things. For a long time, I didn’t know rock climbing was a sport or that people climbed rocks, even. A lot of people have the desire to climb things and rock climbing is kind of the most legitimate pursuit if you have the climbing bug like I did.  

Did you move to California for climbing? You’re from the east coast but you’re kind of more west coast-y at heart.

Totally, yeah. People often think based on what I portray online, I guess, that I’m from California, which makes me really happy because I wish I was. But I was born in Tennessee and I lived there for a year. My parents liked to move a lot; I don’t know why, they just liked to move, no real job or reason or anything. I lived in New England for about eight years in various states – Maine and Connecticut and Vermont. And then we lived in South Carolina for maybe another seven or eight years. That’s where I graduated high school and I did my first year of college, then I transferred to a school in San Diego for the rest of university. . 

What were you studying? Did university lend itself to your climbing career?

I didn’t really have any direction going into college; I didn’t know what I wanted to do out of high school. Basically, I kind of followed the path that I think a lot of people do, [where] you’re like, “Well, I’m told I should go to college, so I guess I’m gonna go to college and hopefully figure it out.” The one thing that I was excited about in the whole college thing was playing soccer. I played soccer my whole life, and that was kind of my athletic pursuit. I really thought for a long time I wanted to be a professional soccer player, so I was mainly going to college to play soccer. I was on scholarship and everything, so that was what got me in college, and then I was hoping to just figure out the education aspect along the way. I didn’t really like being in Charleston, where I went to high school; I really wanted to get out and had always wanted to go to California. And as far as soccer goes, California is like one of the biggest states for soccer, especially college soccer. I was majoring in English and Philosophy, and my roommates used to always ask me, as a joke, whenever we were hanging out with other friends, “Jordan, what are you studying again?” And I would tell them, because they’d be like, “Oh, so unemployment and homelessness?” And I was like, “Well, they’re not far off.” One of them was from LA and one of them was from San Diego, and on Christmas break I flew out to visit them because I was just obsessed with wanting to live in California. And after that semester, I was like, “I gotta get out here.” So I transferred for my sophomore year to play soccer, but I also knew I was kind of just relocating and that it would open me up to climb in all of these places I’d heard about growing up but didn’t have the opportunity to go to yet.

You climbed as a kid, and I think when you grow up pushing your limits, you know the parameters a little bit better. Did it come natural to you, once you really dove in? 

It did. I was a really weird kid with a pretty wild imagination. I was, like, the weird one running around in the woods pretending I was Frodo from The Lord of the Rings. I really liked dressing up as movie characters or story characters and just acting them out, you know? So I even did the same thing with rock climbing, where I had seen some photos in like a climbing catalog that I got at the mountain shop and I’d even seen a few clips and some cheesy, totally inaccurate Hollywood movies but they had just a little bit of climbing in them, where it just captivated my imagination. And then when I moved to South Carolina, my grandparents lived in North Carolina in the mountains and there’s this one formation there called Looking Glass Rock and that was the first time I saw climbers outside and it blew my mind. When I saw all of these things, I don’t know, I was just able to have an analytical mind with it and a curiosity to try to figure it out and understand what was going on. I would try and act it out as best as I could with the resources I had - just for fun, just to entertain my imagination. What that looked like was climbing up my tree with a rope and pretending to place gear for protection, even though I knew it was all not legit. But the point is that by the time I actually was exposed to real-life rock climbing and real gear and everything, I was already way ahead just because I was like, “Oh, I know how this works. Now that I have the real thing, I can figure it out.” And so, it did come fairly naturally in that sense.

How did rock climbing transition to free climbing?

So that’s where there might be some misunderstanding. Tell me what your understanding of free climbing is; this is common.

It’s just you and the mountain, the rock. 

So that is called free soloing. Free climbing is a little different. It’s different in the sense that, um, just imagine a fifty-foot ladder, right? And you would probably be comfortable climbing the ladder without any protection, right?

Yeah.

Let’s call that free solo climbing, where if you were to fall off the ladder, you would fall to the ground and you probably wouldn’t die because it’s not that high, but you’d get hurt, right? But you can imagine the physical act of actually climbing the ladder. So let’s call that free soloing - you have no protection, you’re by yourself, right? But free climbing, the climbing moves are the same. I’m free climbing the ladder and I’m climbing the same moves – you know, left hand, right hand, step up one – I’m doing the same thing as you, it’s just that I have protection in case I fall, that I’m not gonna fall all the way to the ground. That’s the best way I can describe it, I think. Does that make sense?

Yes, that makes sense. 

So, in the mainstream media, people hear free climbing and they think free soloing because that’s what the general public is most interested in, I guess. But, 99% of climbers, let’s say, are all free climbers. So, any climbing you’ve ever seen – whether it’s climbing at a gym, if your friend is bouldering - it’s all free climbing. And a very small percentage of people free solo. Likely whenever you do go climbing, whether it’s on a rope or bouldering, it’s all going to be a form of free climbing. What free climbing means is, I don’t want to get too in depth… but climbing as it is now didn’t always used to be the athletic pursuit that it is. Basically because we didn’t have the equipment for it to be what it is now. And so, in the past, just imagine very archaic gear like in the 50s, you know, a lot of the climbing that was being done was aid climbing or mountaineering. Mountaineering, just imagine climbing a snowy peak in the mountains.

Everest.

Yeah, totally. Big mountain stuff. But in aid climbing, you’re relying on your gear to hold your weight whereas free climbing, you’re using your hands and feet, and the gear is in place just to protect you if you fall. And so what the free in free climbing means is free of aid, meaning you’re not using aid to physically climb. Free soloing is just free climbing without a rope. So you can see why free climbing and free soloing, they both have the word free in them, so it’s easy for them to get mixed up. So, say this after me:

Free soloing is free climbing without a rope, but free climbing is not free soloing.

It’s kind of like the one where a square is a rectangle but a rectangle’s not a square, kind of thing. I get this a lot. Somebody will be like, they’ll find out I’m a climber and they’re like, “Oh, you climb? Are you like that Alex Honnold guy?” And you’re like, “No,” I mean of course, he’s the only person that they’ve heard of before so they think that if I’m a climber then I do what he does. But that’s not the case. I have free soloed - this is a little complicated. A lot of people, especially say other climbers like me who are interested in the style of climbing I do, have free soled at some point in their life, but just not to, like, a really high level like Alex has. Does that make sense?

Yes. 

The best way I could describe that is… let’s compare it to driving. Say there’s this drive that you’ve done hundreds of times, and you’re a professional driver. It’s like a race course that you just know you’re not gonna crash on. It’s possible, but like 99.9% sure you’re not going to crash on it, so you don’t buckle your seat belt. Versus you’re doing a really hard course, you’re like, “I’m gonna buckle my seat belt.” So, I have free soloed on things that are easy for me, and it makes sense. But not to an extremely difficult degree like Alex is known for.

Would you say that when you do free solo it’s kind of to stretch another part of your brain, or is just recreational?

It can be, because there is an appeal occasionally. I kind of personally lost it for myself, but it can be appealing to want to climb something hard without a rope because it does require a heightened level of focus and commitment that can be really rewarding. But sometimes the whole goal of free soloing is just to move. It’s like going for a jog, you know? It’s simple. You don’t have to have a partner. Because it’s so easy, it doesn’t take much thought. It’s just the enjoyment of moving over easy terrain. 

I think easy terrain or not, with climbing and what you do, there are so many logistics to it. You think about gear, weather, everything like that. As someone who doesn’t do it, the idea of climbing at night does not sound fun.

We do a lot of crazy things that seem reckless, right. I remember thinking similar things and then I become a climber and certain goals require climbing at night and then all of a sudden climbing at night becomes normal, you know? But yeah, there are a lot of things in climbing like that that take time to adjust to. So that is the appeal of free soloing is just how simple it is. You don’t have to worry about a partner or worry about gear. You don’t have to worry about stopping. It’s kind of the simplest form of climbing, but it’s also the highest consequence, right? There’s a risk-reward ratio that you have to calculate for yourself. And then you actually have to have the scale and mental fortitude to be able to pull it off, too. And a lot of people just don’t have that. Even if they have the desire, they can’t actually keep themselves calm when they’re faced with such a dramatic consequence if they don’t climb well.

Right. And how do you reconcile that? What you do is physical, but it’s so mental at the same time. 

Climbing is pretty equal parts. I’d say climbing as a whole is pretty equal parts physical, mental, and then, technical or skill based. There are some forms that are maybe more physical than others, there are some forms that are more technical than others, and then there are some that are more mental than others. I definitely am better at the styles that require more mental and technical skill than just physical strength. That’s another misconception with climbers is they think that if you’re a high-level rock climber, that I can like, do a one-arm pull-up, for example. And I’m like, “I can barely do, like, eight pull-ups normally.” But my skill and my technique allow me to climb pretty hard stuff that’s not just about strength. 

I imagine the mental breakthrough would be more rewarding, like you said, than the party-trick of a one-armed pull-up.

I think mental breakthroughs are the biggest in climbing.

Because a lot of times, a mental breakthrough unlocks a new level of potential, even though you didn’t physically get any stronger. It’s like a new idea, a new approach, or a new way of climbing, or a new way of thinking about climbing. It can totally just open up new doors when nothing physically changed; it was all just your mindset, your attitude, your understanding, or knowledge. The mental breakthroughs paired with, say, steady physical progression just unlock so much more. They’re really, really rewarding. 

And the mental breakthroughs are really internal, but what you do, there’s also partners and the overall sense of community. So much of climbing seems to be in your head, and like you said, it’s mental, it’s technical. It is also a physical thing at the end of the day – you can get hurt, no matter what style you’re doing, and there can be an adrenaline rush. When you’re working with a partner, do you find that they push you but also keep you from doing something too extreme?

You can get adrenaline pumping through climbing, but for the most part, climbing is really slow and climbing is really controlled. And if you have an adrenaline spike, typically [it] means that something went wrong or is about to go wrong. And so say you’re fighting really hard on a climb trying not to fall, because that’s kind of the objective is to climb these things without falling. We can fall because we have gear to protect us, right?  

But when you fall, it’s not so much like, “At least I have something to catch me,” because you still have to do it again. 

Exactly. Yeah. It’s arbitrary, but sometimes you might get a rush when you climb something at your limit where you were really close to falling, but you just pulled it off. And you’re just like, “Ugh, the stress is gone,” and you’re just elated. But we’re not seeking out that rush. We get adrenaline when something goes wrong, and typically, we don’t want things to go wrong. And yeah, climbing is an individual sport and we each have our strengths and our weaknesses and goals that I want to do and places I want to go, and really, unless you are a free solo climber, you need a partner to climb with, you know? 99.9% of the time I’m going climbing, I’m with another person. I’m dependent on them to climb. Therefore, in climbing we call it “the brotherhood of the rope” basically because it’s [a] pretty intimate thing when you’re like, trusting each other’s lives in another person’s hands because they’re there to catch you when you fall. And if they don’t, you’re gonna get hurt. You have to have trust in your partnership and that’s why climbing partners can form such strong bonds together is because of how serious it is just to trust another person with your life. But that’s what makes climbing partnerships great: these people we go out with enable us to do the goals that we want to do and go to the places we want to go, and climb what we want to climb. 

And another question that I have – we’re going to circle back because you were in college climbing on the side, but now it’s your career. You turned a hobby into a career, and that doesn’t happen by accident. What was that like?

So I told you I transferred to San Diego to play soccer and go to school, and I ended up getting injured at the start of my junior year. I tore my hip flexor and it was the first game of the season and I was pretty bummed, but I’d also just driven my car across the country, and so I had a vehicle to explore more of California and Nevada - what I was thinking was going climbing in more places. So when I got injured, that’s what I started doing. My team would fly to San Francisco for the weekend to play a game, and I would go to Joshua Tree. But the administration would see photos on the internet of me rock climbing and they didn’t take it well because they didn’t understand. They’re like, “How can Jordan climb but he can’t play soccer?” So they thought I was, like, lying to everybody and just didn’t want to play. I was like, “I want to play; I just physically can’t.” And for whatever reason, climbing I can do. So not only was I bummed I couldn’t climb, but my teammates and my coaches thought that I was being dishonest with them. That kind of put up a wall between us and I eventually quit the team because of it. I was kind of turned off to soccer, being like this sport I loved for so long, that all of a sudden was not being kind to me - whereas climbing was being nothing but kind to me. I was meeting so many cool people and I was having a lot of good experiences and going to new places and just really, really loving that. I was like, “Well, climbing is giving me a lot. Soccer is kind of stalling out, so I’m just gonna listen to that and start climbing as much as I can.” And so I quit the soccer team and started climbing and transferred my athletic scholarship to an academic scholarship to enable me to stay in school. I moved out of my apartment and bought a van and lived in a car for my last two years of college. I wasn’t really thinking about how to make it a career, just in the sense that I was doing what I wanted to do the most. But at the end of the day, you have it in the back of your mind where you’re like, “You gotta make a living somehow.” And like I said, I wasn’t going to college for any particular reason, so I was kind of just waiting to graduate so I could go climbing. But I knew I couldn’t do that for forever, and so I got into working seasonally, just basically odd jobs – nothing relative to my major or career at all, really. Throughout this time, the main goal for me was just to climb all the time; that’s basically what predominated my life. I think that mentality, not having anything else even close to second or third place, kind of put me in the position with the right amount of desire and motivation to climb as much as I needed to, to basically get good enough and grow my network enough to turn it into a career. I was definitely taking notes. I was like, “Okay, you can make a living through climbing by working at a climbing gym, or being a guide or you know, being a pro.” So I worked at a gym in college – did not like it. I started getting my guiding certification out of college so that I could get paid to take people climbing, but I didn’t really like that whole process because it took away from my personal climbing, and then there’s just a lot of hoops to jump through. So I kinda had a feeling. I was like, “I think I can do this. I think I have the potential and ability, I just need to be patient and give myself enough time to like, get good.” During that time, I was just working seasonally, where I would work for three months, and then take off for three months. So, I’d work six months of the year, and then take off for six months of the year. And during those six months off, I was just climbing every day full-time, traveling, and spending all the money that I had saved up until I needed to get a job again. But even while I was working, I would try and strategically work in a place that had access to climbing so I could still climb on my time off. 

It’s interesting because you telling me that, it sounds simple, in a way. 

It kind of is, I guess. 

But people get in their heads, or don’t think it’s realistic for them, and yet, you kind of chipped away at it, step by step, it seems. 

To turn your passion into your career you have to fully commit to it.

Know that it’s not gonna be easy in the beginning, but that it’ll pay off in the long run. Versus, say somebody has the same dream as I do of becoming a professional climber but at the same time, [is] not willing to leave their 9-to-5… that lack of commitment to make that next step to quit a job to pursue a passion, I think, is what’s ultimately gonna prevent that person from becoming what they want to become.

When you do achieve that professional status, though, it isn’t the end-all, be-all. You posted recently that you were kind of feeling a little bit of burn out lately. 

Yeah, which was new for me. So the schedule I told you where I would work three months, and then take three months off, that’s like a pretty consistent schedule. You work and you’re anticipating your next three months off climbing vacation, and then when that starts, you’re like, “Oh, yeah, I’m freaking going,” and you just like, charge, because you also know, “Okay, this is gonna end in three months and then I’m gonna go back to work,” so it’s kind of like an up and down thing. I was pretty used to that and pretty good at that. But then when I went pro two years ago and, all of a sudden, I have the resources and the ability to climb full-time with nothing to stop me, it’s hard to know when to stop. Because all of a sudden I’m not going up and down, I’m just going [at] kind of the same pace. So it was a little challenging for me the past two years to try and figure out what that looks like for me and how to do it most sustainably. Because, if I was playing professional soccer, you know, I have coaches, I’m playing in a league, and the games are on these days and then we have an off-season - there’s structure to it. Now, the only person that structures my life is me, really. And no high-level athlete can sustain top level performance year-round; they all have to take breaks. And I guess I just never thought about it before, but now it seems kind of dumb. It’s like, “Duh, like, of course I have to take a break at some point,” you know? Whereas I looked at my climbing journal the other day and I realized I hadn’t taken more than like four days off in like a year and a half. I was like, “Ugh, no wonder I’m tired.” This past year was like the biggest climbing year of my life and I achieved big lifetime goals and I just never really gave myself a chance to kind of sit back and revel in it, I guess.

You bring up a good juxtaposition there, because earlier we were talking about physical versus mental limits, and burning out is natural for everyone, but It’s more of a mental limit than a physical limit. You don’t know you’re mentally sore until you’re on or over the edge.

And in an activity like climbing where you’re pushing yourself and challenging yourself a lot, there’s always internal dialogue. You’re like, “Ugh, I’m too tired, I don’t want to go anymore,” but you block it out because you’re like, “I gotta keep going.” So you get pretty good at kind of shutting up that little voice in your head that’s maybe limiting you. Like the voice in my head last week that was like, “Jordan, you need to take a break,” I shut him up for a long time because I was like, “No, that’s just one of the voices that’s just trying to limit me.” But no, sometimes that voice is right. And so you can't totally shut it out.

You have to know when to listen to yourself and when you’re trying to limit yourself. 

Do you think that’s something you’ll get good at? I think that’s something I will have to keep learning over and over again, myself.

Totally. I think for everybody, it’s probably a continuous thing, like most things in life - just a continuous learning process. I think we’ll have to keep learning it but we’ll definitely get better at it at the same time. Sometimes, I’m sure we’ll nail it; we’ll know exactly. We’ll listen to ourselves. Other times, we might be more hesitant. It’ll ebb and flow. 

Right. That being said, you are your own boss. Every day is different, but what does a day in your life look like?

Good question. It kind of depends [on] the time of year and where I’m climbing, which is what I like so much about my lifestyle is that I’m not stuck in one place for very long, you know? By the time I do start to get tired of a place, I typically have already planned to like go somewhere else. And then all of a sudden, I’m in a new place, I’m with new people, I’m doing a different style of climbing. It kind of is constantly refreshing and therefore keeps it exciting and fun and interesting. Whereas if I was just climbing in the same place all year, I probably wouldn’t have the same enthusiasm year-round. In the most basic way, a day in the life for me looks like waking up fairly early in the morning. I like to make coffee and read in bed, and then I do a warm up routine and I go climbing all day. And then I come back and make dinner and maybe watch some Netflix and read some more and then go to bed. That’s the most basic form, but like I said, it depends on where I am and where I’m climbing.

It’s interesting that you can still have habits and routines and rituals even though your external environment changes so much. 

Not as many things last, or not many of the routines stick when the environment is changing, but there are a few. That’s important to me: regardless of the environment, to stick to a few key things. But, for example, I’m not climbing right now and I’m staying at my friend’s house in Moab. I’ve been loving having the opportunity to do the daily routine that I can’t do when I climb, you know what I mean? There are times when I’m not climbing [that] I get to fit more into a day, because climbing takes up a big portion of the day. Very rarely do I climb for just a few hours or like half the day. I’m typically out from nine to five, basically locking in. Sometimes more. Whenever I get the chance to do a lengthier routine, it’s really fun for me.

You’ve mentioned looking back and recognizing that you’ve had a really great year. And in your entire career, you have had all of these accomplishments. You are successful; there’s no questioning that. But what gives you the biggest sense of accomplishment? Is it the things we see on paper, or is it something else? 

I guess I would say the thing I’m most proud of is not letting other people or myself prevent me from doing what I want to do. I am really happy that I have figured out how to make climbing my career, even though a lot of people told me that I was just going into a dead end, basically and wasting my time. I guess I’m most proud of following my intuition. We all have our doubts and as I was just saying, sometimes I don’t listen to myself or know when to. But for the most part, I think I have and that’s probably why I am where I am today. But I’m also proud of the friendships I’ve made in the process and all the people that make climbing and the pursuit of the selfish thing more meaningful.  

Can I ask you a random question? This was not on my agenda, but it came up.

Yeah, yeah. Sure, I like that.

I’m not too hippie I swear, but I do believe that people are extroverts or introverts. 

Totally.

Do you know what you are?

I’m an introvert, 100%. 

Really? I feel like you would be – do you know the Myers Briggs test?

Yeah, yeah. I know what I am. 

I totally feel like you’d be an extroverted-introvert. 

Do you have a code you think I would be?  

I think… the INFJ? 

I’m an INFP. 

I was close! 

That’s really close. Yeah, good job.

That just made my day.

Because the P and the J is that perceiving versus judging. Which those are pretty close, I think they could go either way. Yeah, you were really close. That’s crazy. 

I’m not a good guesser in anything, by the way.

A lot of climbers are socially awkward I think. We’re just kind of cut from a different cloth, a lot of us who don’t wanna live life the way most people do or tell us to. There’s definitely a ton of climbers that are extroverted and are really social, but at least for myself, I like to spend a decent amount of time by myself. I’m really comfortable being alone. I don’t like going to parties. I like having a small, close-knit group as opposed to a big party that’s a little less personal. And yeah, I kind of feel really awkward in any situation that is more than like five or ten people. 

I’m with you. That being said, extroverted or introverted, what is one thing everyone should know how to do?

The first thing that came to mind was how to change a tire. I guess my mind immediately went to struggles on the road and you know, if you live in your car the whole year, it’s inevitable you’re gonna have some mechanical issues. And so know how to fix your car.

I mean, circling back to the start of this, they should teach that in school.

They totally should. I know. They should teach so much more in school. I don’t know - how to budget, how to like, live below your means. I don’t know. How to go a week without showering. How to go to the bathroom in the woods, I don’t know.

How to navigate in the woods. 

How to get around without GPS, you know?

And your cell phone.

How to navigate the world without a cell phone. Yeah, things like that, that you might encounter. Like imagine taking a city folk and putting them in the outdoor world and the things that they would like, wig out over. 

Isn’t it interesting how people can get so used to – I don’t want to say bubble, but their homes and routines? I’ve spent a lot of time in Philly, where the streets are numbered. And someone would stop me to ask, “Where’s Sixth Street?” And we’re on Fourth, so I’m like, “Two down, just keep walking.”

Like, literally, just count. Yeah, there’s definitely a lack of thought it seems. Like, basic, critical reasoning, you know?

Right. Obviously, we’re still in the new year and you’re a little burnt out right now, so it doesn’t even have to be related to climbing, but what is something you still want to do or accomplish?

My current goal for the new year is to strike a better balance, like we were just talking about. But the main one is, I’ve been waiting to do this for a long time. I’ve lived in my minivan for almost six years. I haven’t lived in an apartment since college. I’m staying in my friend’s guest room right now, but that’s just for like a few days. So, I’m pretty legitimately full-time in the minivan, and I’ve been wanting to upgrade for a while, but I’ve just been trying to be patient and ride out the life of my minivan. That’s partially why I’m taking a break is to transition because I’m buying and building a new van in like, a week. That’s gonna be my next project that is gonna take away some time from climbing, but it’s coming at a time when I’m feeling burnt on climbing anyways, and then when it’s done, it’ll enable me to climb full-time more comfortably. And have a better routine and stuff like that. So, I’m really excited.

Being in the van for so long, do you ever miss having roots or things like that? Or are you just so adjusted to it that you could never see yourself?

I’m pretty adjusted to it. Like I said, I like being mobile and moving around throughout the year because it keeps it interesting. It’s standard for people to live in one place year-round. I don’t know why, though; I don’t think it should be. Maybe financially, probably, but it would be cool culturally if it was standard for people to migrate, you know? Because say I live in Colorado but I don’t like the snow. Well, then the winter months are gonna suck and like, how about when it gets shitty in the winter, I’m gonna go to Mexico, you know? Or like move to San Diego or something. I think people would be way happier if they were more mobile in the circuit like that and they can go where they want when the seasons are good. And that’s gonna be different for different people. So I like being mobile, but it would be nice to have a home base at the same time. I have a lot of mini home bases that are basically just my friends’ houses, you know? But I’m taking notes. I have a lot of friends who are ten, fifteen years older than me who also have vehicles that they’ve lived in for longer periods of time. And they'll kind of do my work schedule – three months on the road, then three months at home – so they have a home base where they can go back to and settle into that routine. So that’s the goal at some point, to figure out where to have the temporary seasonal home base. But then when I think of climbing, there’s no point in a thing like this, I don’t think – like saying a specific climbing goal, like a route I want to do. But I think about this a lot. All the people I’m most inspired by in climbing have contributed to the sport in some significant way and pushed the sport forward, and so I guess at the end of the day, if I had a goal, it’s basically – and there’s no way of knowing what that is, typically you’re not gonna know until it’s already done, right?

But if I can make an impact on climbing and influence the sport or others in a way that’s meaningful, then that’ll justify it all to me. It’ll make me really happy.

seven questions with jordan cannon:

I can’t go a day without… coffee.

Everyone should read… Why We Sleep. That’s the book I’m reading right now. It’s pretty interesting. And watch… Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade because it’s my favorite movie of all time. He was my first hero and where I kinda got the ideal of adventure and all that.

Life is better with a little… partnership. Or companionship.

Everyone in their 20s should… live in their car

One thing to do in Yosemite Valley… hike to Taft Point at sunset.

What the world needs right now is… compassion.

One way to spread love is… through selflessness. Not thinking about yourself. 

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And a major thank you to Jordan’s sponsors, Arc'teryx, Metolius Climbing, Friction Labs, SCARPA, and Maxim Ropes. Please check them out!

Photo by Abbi Hearne.