Clay Bedwell, Tom Davidock, Dominic Mercier, and Dave Sokoloff met and started climbing together in 2008 at Philadelphia’s Go Vertical! indoor climbing gym. After an unbearably long winter, they broke away from pulling plastic to explore Pennsylvania’s limited climbing opportunities in between planning weddings, graduate school, and elbow-busting injuries. It was love at first choss pile.  

After a day of trad climbing at Chickies Rock in Lancaster in May 2009, the gang had the idea - probably fueled by the flask of Wild Turkey Tom brought along - to start a blog to chronicle their climbing adventures, starting with Tom and Dave’s weeklong excursion to Colorado in July 2009.

In case you’re wondering where “The Crimps” comes from … In April 2009, Tom and Dominic did their first adventure race - The Savage, a sprint race in Delaware’s Brandywine River State Park, selecting the often-painful climbing technique as their team name. The plan was to wear red bandannas like infamous L.A. gang The Crips. Too bad The Crips’ gang color is blue. Whoops.