Judge My Climbing Tattoos

I was reading in the other thread, that there are no good climbing tattoos. Well, as the proud owner of at least 12 climbing related tattoos, I decided to open myself to all the ridicule, praise, harsh and loving comments mountain project has to offer. I really do love all of these tattoos; some of them are subtle, some of them are obvious, and not all of them have any deeper meaning other than “I liked it.” Some of them are beautiful and others are total choss. So here goes, in order of appearance:

This was my first climbing tattoo. It’s a mountain goat. That’s it, the most successful non-human mountain climber. Also an homage to my favorite band,The Mountain Goats.

Lol look at those janky letters. Ground level on the base of the foot. It’s a promise to make it back to the ground. No matter how many years I’ve been climbing, I always feel relieved on the hike out, safe with my partner.

I got this as a matching tattoo with one of my climbing partners. It’s the earth bender symbol from Avatar. I think this may have been done on the same day as “ground level” by the same artist, hence the similar level of choss haha.

Epinephrine molecule, an homage to my first trip to red rocks and my first longer multipitch climb. A Gumby epic death-march I won’t soon forget. 15:01 trailhead to trailhead, a new speed record I think, immortalized forever on my forearm.

Da Vinci’s Anatomy of the Hand. Climbers use their hands, this is the anatomy of it. It’s a little distorted, the pinky isn’t so weird IRL.

Piton + MTN MAN, an homage to the Gunks, who’s cliffs were climbed by true mountain men and littered with rusty piton relics of the past. Both of these tattoos were done by the same artist a few years apart.

This one is self explanatory. Done by Mark Walker from California.

John Muir, Father of the National Parks, general wild man. 

This one is not very subtle at all, but certainly meaningless to non-climbers, and inconspicuously located enough that I’ve only had one person ever ask me about it at the crag. I got this after my 10th RX rated 5.12 lead. Is it corny? Is it badass? I don’t know, but I’m proud of this accomplishment.

A ladder. You climb it lol.

“This Warship is Sinking” a reference to the Listener song “Wooden Heart” and the name of one of the only FA’s I have that I’m really proud of. It’s here on Long Island and has a very tight tide window.

This one is only a few weeks old and is still healing a bit. I got it with another one of my climbing partners on a whim on his birthday. It’s a hammer for crushing strength? Idk, it looks a little like I’m hammering the ground when I walk barefoot haha.

I think that’s all for now. Let her rip MP, and if anybody has any other climbing tattoos I’d love to see them.

fuck yeah

I might try reddit.com/r/climbing/ if you are looking for upvotes, tinder.com if you are looking for a date.

Some of those are nice, but I find the sheer number ot them disturbing.

Marc801 C wrote:

Some of those are nice, but I find the sheer number ot them disturbing.

LOL Ruthless.

I feel like this thread is a humble brag for the OP to show off some ink.   

All the tats remind me of the movie Memento. Eric, did you get lost in the mountains, lose all memory of how you got there, and the tattoos are clues for retracing your steps back to society?

Let’s see what they look like in 30 years, then we’ll pass judgment. 

Cool tats! The ladder? Meh, but hey, you do you. What I want to know, is what’s up with the naked chick with no legs and mushrooms growing out of her cooch?!

Do you really care what a bunch of random people on the internet think? The only question that matters is whether you like them or not.

M M wrote:

I might try reddit.com/r/climbing/ if you are looking for upvotes, tinder.com if you are looking for a date.

Haha I am happily engaged but do recommend tattoos for securing climbing dates.

You could have just posted about your feats on facebook/instagram/etc and not had to permanently mark your body to commemorate them. 

To each their own, though. 

MP is just flaming! I think these would be great conversation pieces, except the 5.12 R/X one. I feel like with that one, people would always expect you to be willing to climb x rated stuff. 

I think they look great! Once you get to 1k posts on here, I would get one of a malding neckbeard to commemorate that achievement!

How about we don’t make this a thing. 

P.S - John Muir was actually a racist dickbag. 

Jesse Quandt wrote:

LOL Ruthless.

Well, you did title the thread Judge...   

Trying hard to be Ravioli Biceps

10/10 all these are sick. 

I really wanted to flame you but these are dope. Life ain’t that precious get some cool shit inked on ya and live it up 

I like the goat and the piton.

Max R wrote:

P.S - John Muir was actually a racist dickbag. 

He was the driving force behind the birth of National Parks.

Life ain’t that precious get some cool shit inked on ya and live it up

This. Someday you'll be old and done and it won't matter at all how faded those tats might become.