Dan Mirsky

Date of Birth:
08/10/82

Hometown:
Originally: New Paltz, NY Currently: Carbondale, CO

What is your primary means of adventure, AKA what gets you most psyched?
Hard climbing, all shapes and sizes, although I can mostly be found hanging out in dusty limestone caves with my friends.

Invent your dream adventure by combining five places, disciplines, pitches, peaks, environments, etc. and stacking them together into a combination. Why did you pick each part?
I might not be the most adventurous person out there. My ideal day starts with my truck camper being parked somewhere beautiful and ideally far off the beaten path.  Coffee and a leisurely breakfast in the sun get things going and psyche for climbing builds. This leads naturally into a nice hike to the crag and a day of trying hard and having fun with my friends. Hopefully we all climb well, make progress, cheer each other on, and don’t take it too seriously. Hiking down from the cliff we make it back our camp just in time for sunset with a cold beer. Cook a delicious dinner, hang out around the campfire, sleep, repeat… Like I said I’m not overly adventurous but I know what I like.

Describe 5 climbs, trips, or moments that have defined you as a mountain athlete:
When you spend so much living for climbing it’s easy for climbs, days, trips, seasons to all blend together. Here are a few standouts.

Hotel Supramonte (8B/.13d): I was in a funk in climbing and in life and it turned out that mixing it up a little bit was exactly what I needed. I went to Sardinia with my good friend Pete Kamitses in the spring of 2017 and we climbed this all time route. 10 pitches, 450 meters, of overhanging limestone awesomeness in an amazing Canyon just inland from the Sardinian coast. The day I sent the route was one of the biggest single efforts in my climbing life.

Solid Gold (5.14C): My experience on this route typifies me as a climber. I set out to climb an amzing route called Golden. Even though that in itself was a good challenge I became inspired to try a much more direct and yet unclimbed version of the route. Lots of hard work and dedication to a process ultimately concluded with my ascent of what I feel is the proudest line in one of my all time favorite places.

The Example (5.13A): My life as a sport climber started at Shelf Road while I attended The Colorado College. I had steadily worked my through the 5.11’s and 5.12’s at Shelf and although in many ways I wasn’t yet ready to climb 5.13 I could feel that I wanted to make my life more about climbing and I needed to find out if I could push myself physically beyond what I thought I was capable. In doing this route I opened my own eyes to the possibilities and showed myself that with hard work, dedication and belief in myself I could take my climbing as far as I wanted to.

Describe your most memorable night in the mountains:
I haven’t spent too many nights out in the mountains in my climbing life. I have spent many memorable nights living on the road: everything from a tent behind Miguel’s Pizza at the Red River Gorge to a 25 foot Airstream trailer parked  in the desert of Southern Utah. Any night out under the stars with good friends is a memorable one.

What has scared or intimidated you as a mountain athlete?
I am often intimidated by the difficulty of the routes or boulders I try to climb. In a way, I seek out the ones that intimidate me the most because they also inspire me.

What would your adventure partners be most surprised to learn about you from before the time when they met you?
At this point most of the people I climb with know me pretty well but whenever I start climbing with someone new I think the thing that surprises them most is my age. As I write this I am turning 35 tomorrow it seems the consensus is that I look about 10 years less than that or maybe I act that way, or maybe both. The other thing probably surprises people is how much of a food and beer geek I am. I have spent a lot of my adult life working in restaurants and over the years have developed a real passion for food and I am about as big of a hop freak as you’ll ever meet…

What are your all-time favorite pieces of CAMP equipment?

1. Dyon Express Quickdraws
   
2. Flash Harness
3. Photon Express Quickdraws
4. The next new piece of CAMP Gear I get hands on! Still so much to try!

Why are you a CAMP athlete?
For me, more important than all the great equipment that CAMP makes is the commitment to being a positive presence and influence in the climbing community. The value placed on individual interactions with climbers all across the country through events like the Craggin’ Classic series and the dedication to developing and teaching well thought out, informative and relevant clinics is for me what makes CAMP a real leader in the climbing world and the foremost reason I am a Camp Athlete. The awesome, no nonsense gear that CAMP makes, the attention to detail and innovation  and the commitment to quality above all else is another big deal for me. And damn, those biners sure do clip nicely…

Tick List

Things I want to climb!

1. Fat CAMP. My current project. HARD 5.14 in Rifle, CO.
2. Free Rider
3. Necessary Evil
4. Right Martini
5. Kryptonite
6. Biographie

The adventure, route or race I had to train the hardest for was:
Really my motivation to train is to become a stronger, better climber. The things I do as a result are the product of the work I put in, the fruits of my labor.

The adventure, route or race that wrecked me the most was:
Hotel Supramonte

I most want an all-expenses-paid trip to:
Ceuse. Mostly so I can properly enjoy the amazing food and wine of Southern France, hahaha!

My short list of climbing or adventure goals this year:

1. Climb 9a!
2. Be the least serious, serious climber
3. Boulder more
4. Climb more multi pitch routes
5. Have ridiculous amounts of fun