Estes Park Library Hosts Huge Climber Interview Collection

If you need some mountain down time and you like climber stories, the Estes Park Museum and the Estes Valley Library have created a treasure trove of entertainment.

Starting the 1970s, the Museum and Library began recording and collecting interviews with individuals from the community. Their tally is now around 200 people! While there are interviews with historians and town officials and artists, the overwhelming number of interviews seem to be with climbers and former climbers.

I just stumbled on these recently.

They have a Tommy Caldwell interview, a Paige Claassen interview, a Josh Wharton interview, a Kelly Cordes interview, and many others. Some of these women and men are world-known climbing legends.

Sure, it helps if you love climbing history and stories, but I reckon a lot of people will love these interviews simply because these people are, to be fair, real characters.

Once you get to the website , you'll see the tabs below and all the interviews alphabetized by last name. Next to each name is a link to their oral history recording hosted on YouTube, Museum catalog entry, and/or transcript (if available). This project is on-going, interviews and transcripts will be added to this page periodically. I'm a huge fan of this project.

"Oral histories and individual memories are a valuable asset to any community," notes the Town's website.

The interview with Tommy Caldwell—like all of them here—is fun:

Note that Tommy thought others considered his climbing family "super weird."

Sound familiar?