Professional Climbers

There has been some blog talk lately of whether or not climbing will ever be able to be a "professional" career. Carlo Traversi had a nice, well thought out post about some things that need to change for this to happen. He brings up a few ideas that need to be talked about within the industry.

Carlo is in a pretty unique position right now in that he's right on the cusp of being a pro climber. He's starting to show his all around skills by repeating hard routes pretty quickly and he's been a very strong boulderer for a while now. His latest interest in routes is starting to cement him as an all around talent and it'll be interesting to see if he can join the likes of Sharma, Graham and Andrada in the pro ranks.

Peter Beal also had a nice post, from a different viewpoint. I tend to agree with Peter about all of this. As much as I would like to see climbing grow, I'm also pretty realistic about it. I don't know if I'll ever see professional climbing become a viable proffession in my lifetime. Climbing is a fringe sport, at best, and sponsorships don't give out enough money incentives. That's the price of being a small industry with a smaller user group.

I've been lucky enough to combine climbing with my job and I definitely realize that. There are very few people out there that can make a living doing what they love. This is probably as close as I'm going to come to being "pro" at anything. That'll have to do, I guess.