Luke Mehall is a 46-year-old climber, writer, and self-described dirtbag who turned a one-time zine into a print publishing business and podcast. (climbingzine.com / @lukemehall_writer)
After escaping a Midwest upbringing and mental health struggles in his early twenties, Luke found stability through poetry, climbing, and the encouragement of writing professors at a small liberal arts college. He spent a few years dirtbagging full-time—living under rocks, washing dishes, and following the ethos of Jack Kerouac and the Grateful Dead—before settling into a more balanced life.
Today, Luke lives between Durango (Colorado) and Potrero Chico (Mexico). He runs The Climbing Zine, hosts the Dirtbag State of Mind podcast, and writes books. He supports himself through selling print subscriptions, ads, and merchandise.
For Luke, climbing is still central, but now it fits into a sustainable routine that includes weightlifting, rest, and solid friendships. We talk about the modern flavors of dirtbagging, the myth of the four-hour work week, what purpose looks like without kids, and how exercise—not medication—became his lifeline. We also get into the logistics of running a niche print publication in a digital world, and why handing someone a printed zine still matters more than a Substack link.
Luke also reflects on what it means to grow older in a lifestyle built for youth. He’s seen what happens when people cling to the dirtbag dream too long—loneliness, stagnation, the slow unraveling of purpose. For him, the goal was always evolution: building a life that still honors climbing and creative freedom, but with enough structure to stay grounded. He doesn’t envy tech workers or trust the illusion of job security, but he does believe in balance, community, and the kind of autonomy that lets you shape your own rhythm—and enjoy frequent midday climbing sessions.
Full transcript: dirtbagrich.com/luke
Recorded in February 2025.
Transcript
This is an AI-generated transcript. Typos and mistakes exist!
Blake Boles 00:01
Luke Mehall, welcome to Dirtbag Rich.
Luke Mehall 00:02
Thank you. Thank you. Good to be with you, Blake.
Blake Boles 00:05
What does the American dream mean for you?
Luke Mehall 00:10
I guess my definition right now comes a lot from spending a lot of time in Mexico, you know, and seeing, I think that for me, it means like having the economic security to achieve what you want to do with your life. I think, yes, especially seeing in Mexico and seeing, you know, like why people come from a place that doesn’t have as good of an economy to a place that does have a better economy.You know, I think there’s probably a lot of BS in the American dream, but I do think there is, you know, still that opportunity where it’s a place where you can kind of, if you are an immigrant, you know, like all of us, except for, I guess, you know, Native Americans and African Americans came there as immigrants to improve your life. So I feel like it’s like having that economic base to then be able to do what you’d like to do with your life and achieve your goals with your career and your life.
Blake Boles 01:10
It’s fascinating that you have perspective on the American dream while being in Mexico. I mean, what do you witness down there? What’s this contrast that defines the American dream for you? Now that you’re outside of America.
Luke Mehall 01:28
I mean, I guess like, you know, I grew up middle class in the United States, and sure you see images of people that live in poverty, and then there’s even people that have less of, you know, in the town I grew up in, there were lower class, you know, so called lower class people. But you just see that, you see a reason that people move to the United States from another place. So I guess it’s as simple as that.It’s just like, you know, there are people that see opportunity to have a better economic status. And it’s also, it’s often for, you know, they either bring their whole families there or they support their families back in another place. So I don’t think I ever realized what it was like to be American, especially, you know, kind of growing up in like, you know, so called like middle class way. You just, to me, that seemed normal, but then you travel the world and like, oh, actually being middle class in the United States is, is like something to seek out or something that other people seek that out quite a bit. And then, yeah, just being down in Mexico, you kind of see that economic reality for a lot of people, you know.
Blake Boles 02:43
So how is your version of living the American dream different from the standard version of the American dream?
Luke Mehall 02:54
Um, you know, I, in some ways it’s not all that different, but I think for me and us as, you know, auto recreationists, climbers, et cetera, we’re kind of using that economic, um, power or whatever you want to say to like, have the time to go pursue your activity. And I feel like that that’s what is unique, you know, it’s like, yeah, I guess my mind is, it’s different in the sense I don’t have, uh, like a family to support.And then I also have that, um, thing where I’m trying to spend my free time pursuing an activity. Um, and I think it used to take up more of my time and now it’s more of like a centerpiece of my time. Like you used to come to Puerto Rico and just dirtbag it for a month. And now I work, you know, full time here and then also climb. So.
Blake Boles 03:46
And for those who don’t know what Potrero Chico is, or why it’s famous, please enlighten us.
Luke Mehall 03:53
Yeah, Portero Chico is an area in northern Mexico in the state of Nuevo León. And I like to describe it as the Yosemite of Mexico to people that don’t know. I’m assuming most people know what Yosemite is and El Capitan and stuff like that. But it’s just it’s the place in Mexico that attracts the most international audience to go climbing.And then there’s a really kind of rich community that’s transient, but also constant. And yeah, it’s just a very, very special place that I have been coming to for 20 years. And I like to spend some of my time down here in the winter when it’s cold in Colorado. And yeah, it’s just a really special place, kind of unique ecosystem and culture. And yes, it’s a very special place.
Blake Boles 04:42
So perhaps more than anyone else, you have been using and defining the term dirtbag for quite a while, at least 15 years now, right? If not longer. And what you just defined as, as your version of the American dream of having this like time to pursue your activity, that really seems to be at the heart of, of dirtbagging for you. Uh, I know you’ve probably been asked this a million times, but how do you define dirtbag?
Luke Mehall 05:16
I think that the best definition I heard is like living in the dirt out of your bag.
Blake Boles 05:23
I love that. It’s so simple.
Luke Mehall 05:27
So simple. So that’s how it came about. So say you’re living, I think the stereotypical American dirtbag experience would be living in a place like Joshua Tree or something. Now Joshua Tree is very competitive for campsites and it’s on the map but 20 years ago is way more chill and you could, if you evaded the authorities correctly, you could literally do that there. Rarely ever check the internet, just get a job in a restaurant and so you don’t have much money but you have enough food, especially if you’re working in a restaurant and then you kind of live under a rock and you have all your stuff in a bag and you’re dirty and gross.So I think that’s the most simple thing but it’s evolved quite a bit and I think that’s the most simple explanation. There’s I guess a more complicated modern thing that you could say but yeah, that would be, that was the one I heard and that didn’t come from me, that came from someone else but that’s the most simple definition I’ve heard.
Blake Boles 06:42
We’ll get back to the, the more modern, complicated definition, but, uh, for the record, uh, two years ago when I was down in El Chaltén, Patagonia, Argentina, I met a Brazilian climber who was literally sleeping under a rock for, for weeks and weeks on end, I, I brought him to meet my students and they all just, their jaws dropped when they, they heard him say this, you know, with, with total, uh, confidence. He’s like, yeah, of course I live under a rock. He’s like, I’m from Brazil. I don’t have a ton of money to spend. It’s expensive here El Chaltén. It’s just the only way I can climb for a long period of time.Um, I feel like there’s a lot of mythology wrapped up in this. I mean, you came from the Midwest, you went out West and now you have a home base in Durango, Colorado. You spend a lot of time in the mountainous or desert West, and this includes, uh, Mexico too. And, uh, what is it about this idea of, of, of these open horizons, this sort of cowboy-esque, um, drive to go out and explore the wilderness perpetually until they throw yourself against, uh, boulders and big walls, uh, or to go hiking for weeks and weeks. Um, what is it that you’ve, that you think, and maybe you’ve personally experienced is so deeply appealing about, about this mythology.
Luke Mehall 08:07
I mean, for me, I’m probably 15 to 20 years removed of actually doing it like that. Now I have to have the internet. I have to be closer to society to do my job. So I’m 15, 20 years out of that experience, but kind of the foundation for me was laid out by the beatniks like Jack Kerouac and Neil Cassidy and Allen Ginsberg and those guys, especially the ones that were like wrote about, you know, kind of mountain climbing and being outdoors as Kerouac did and some of his later stuff.And then also like the Grateful Dead of getting on a bus and go traveling around. So my foundation comes from the stories that I read from the Grateful Dead and the beatniks and then, yeah, just then meeting climbers and to me, I realized like going around and climbing and having adventures and having your community was a lot healthier than like just following the Grateful Dead around and doing a lot of drugs. So you know, plan A was like following the Grateful Dead around, but the Grateful Dead didn’t exist by the time I was doing that, you know, Jared Garcia died right as I was getting into this stuff. So this was like plan B, you know, it ended up being, you know, a better path for me. And then, yeah, you just meet your friends and I mean, I feel like it doesn’t start off like with weeks on end, you know, it starts off with just one little climbing experience and then and I probably only really did the hardcore dirtbagging for only really a couple years like maybe two, three, four years and I kind of got sick of it, but it was more like post college. I didn’t really know exactly what I wanted to do, but I wanted to write. So it’s like, oh, if you go have these experiences, eventually you’re going to have something to write about. So yeah, I guess it all started kind of, you know, with Jack Kerouac and the Grateful Dead and then evolved into something that was connected to that in the sense of having adventure traveling around the United States and eventually the world.But yeah, just for me, it really stems from the beatnik and hippie culture.
Blake Boles 10:29
So there was this promise of long drug-fueled road trips, essentially. I mean, if you go back and read On the Road, they’re just doing a lot of drugs and drinking all the time and doing a lot of stuff that’s either quasi-illegal or fully illegal. And there’s a good amount of misogyny in it.I’m also a big fan of The Dharma Bums, yeah, Kerouac’s later book. And that really starred and held up the character of Gary Snyder, who was Japhy in the book, and brought a much more gentle spiritual aspect into it. But still in that book, you just see Kerouac’s alcoholism on pretty prominent display. And so it’s interesting that your inspiration, and I think a lot of other people’s inspiration starts with these kind of party images, or this kind of very cut loose and just have no boundaries whatsoever. And then it ends up being like, oh, I like meeting other people who like to climb. And then we become friends, and we go hang out in national parks together or in BLM campgrounds together. It becomes a much gentler and a bit more innocent kind of thing.So tell me a little bit more about how you went out west and where you ended up landing and maybe like what your college years and those crucial dirtbag years were like.
Luke Mehall 11:58
Yeah, yeah. So when I ended up in Colorado, I was having some pretty serious mental health issues. I had, you know, you talk about, I think drugs are, it’s too easy to put drugs in one category because I think some aspects of, you know, I always wonder if Kerouac could have got off alcohol, you know, if Kerouac just had a good mushroom trip or something, if he could have gotten off alcohol and become a climber, you know, like if Kerouac got sober or whatever. And so I was on the influence of a lot of substances at 1920 and didn’t have a lot of exercise. You know, exercise is key for me to establish and have good mental health. And I was just having, yeah, just like a lot of young 20-somethings have, I was just having serious mental health issues.And I kind of took off from home and was like chasing a girl and had just like a complicated mental health situation, which you could call, you know, suicidal, like that type of mindset that does affect a lot of people. But I ended up in this road trip I took and left from home, I ended up in this place called Gunnist in Colorado. And I enrolled in college there right away. It was like my third college. And I think the overall big college situation kind of contributed to my bad mental health and just like the encouragement of so much partying and the frats and sororities. I just hated all that stuff. So I ended up at this liberal arts college and was, you know, in an environment where if I was writing poetry, my professor would be like, yeah, do more of that. Or my college, my mentor, George Sibley, actually was like, oh, you read On the Road, you should read Dharma Bombs. You know, so I had this, I had these, I think, hidden talents that these especially writing professors picked up on and just nurtured.So yeah, once I in the, you know, the drug, you know, I was like heavily prescribed, not heavily, but I was prescribed ADD medication, you know. And I think that my overall thing with that stuff is, I don’t really, I don’t need drugs to control my ADD. I need exercise, maybe a little caffeine, you know, maybe a little bit of weed, but certainly not, you know, drugs that are adjacent to methamphetamines, like all those ADD drugs are. So in the mental health journey, it still continues to this day, you know, I still work on that stuff and still have, I have a therapist and different things like that. But I basically went from just a terrible mental health state of not necessarily knowing what to live for, how to have a good routine to keep my mental health in order to starting to have the foundation of that out in Colorado.And then, you know, I think the exercise of climbing is very powerful, not only for your physical, but also your mental. So I feel like climbing really improved my mental health a lot. And then, you know, having these professors that encouraged me to write in that, you know, pave the way like, oh, here’s something I can do in the future as a career, you know.
Luke Mehall 15:24
So yeah, just leaving, getting out of the Midwest and getting to a more mountainous environment and then getting into a education environment with smaller classrooms and just a professor that could recognize the value of writing poetry, you know.
Blake Boles 15:43
If you think about sticking around the Midwest, the sort of alternate life that you could have led and not getting to be in a smaller liberal arts college environment by being part of like a really big state university, where do you imagine you would have ended up?
Luke Mehall 16:04
I always say dead or in jail. It’s kind of dramatic, but there really was no way forward for me in those environments. It just wasn’t for me.I was just heading down the wrong direction. And that’s why I also say I’m really happy that The Grateful Dead didn’t exist anymore, because I don’t think there was a… I love the music of The Grateful Dead and I love the lyrics, but the whole scene would have just devoured me. So I always say dead or in jail. I really do.
Blake Boles 16:41
So this dirtbag mythology, this go west and explore mountains, I mean, for you and maybe for a lot of people like you, it was not primarily driven by exploration, but just like saving your own mental health and not disintegrating.
Luke Mehall 17:01
Yeah, the exploration is secondary for me. I mean, I think some other climbers have that like National Geographic story, you know, where I saw this picture and I knew I had to do that, you know, I would see those pictures and be like, oh, I’m never gonna do that, looks scary, but I’ll climb this like yellow tape route in the gym, you know.
Blake Boles 17:20
Got it. Um, something that you wrote in your book, great American dirtbags, which was published over a decade ago now is I’m terrified of what I become when I don’t have movement exercise and the time to live life in the wild places of the world to feel truly alive. Like I’m not wasting a minute.Uh, have you ever been stuck? I mean, since you, you escaped out to Colorado, have you ended up stuck any place where you’re not able to move? You’re not able to get exercise or have access to wild places or feel like you are wasting your time or have you essentially been free in this sense ever since your early twenties.
Luke Mehall 18:05
No, since my early 20s, for sure. I don’t know when exactly I would put the time frame on it, but I always keep my exercise routine. So whether I’m visiting my parents in Illinois, or I’m in Mexico, or I’m in Colorado, I keep that routine. So I’ve certainly been stuck many, many times since that time period, but now I have this routine that is, I guess, like for some other people, maybe it’s medication.I’m not dissing medication for ADD or depression or anything like that. But for me, it’s just exercise. And it doesn’t necessarily mean it has to be a wild place or whatever. But it’s still, I think, a daily struggle to just keep up the routine. But that’s a biological, chemical brain thing that has to be maintained. But yeah, certain days in Colorado, there’ll be wildfire smoke outside. So you can’t just go on a run. Or here in Mexico, sometimes there’s a lot of air pollution. So if you have a run, you’re going to be inhaling all this air pollution. So there are days that happen like that, but certainly not like weeks or months or years or anything.
Blake Boles 19:26
Can you just break it down for me with some specifics? Like if, if there are no environmental considerations, like what kind of physical exercise and what kind of variety of exercise or movement do you need to feel sane?
Luke Mehall 19:44
Yeah, yeah. So, I mean, just to feel sane, I would say running is the base. Running in mountain biking, just cardio. Climbing is, I think, kind of the next level. I think I could stay sane with just running and biking.And then climbing is… Because climbing is more complicated. Sometimes there’s risk. Sometimes it’s not just a good time. But for me, it’s pretty good diet, running, yoga, acupuncture, massage, and then climbing. And yeah, healthy relationships, healthy friendships. But yeah, there’s just… And weightlifting as well. Weightlifting and training has been very important to me actually just in the last couple of years too.I think a lot of us in our mid 30s to 40s, I mean, there’s like scientific research and amount of information right now is just like weightlifting is a super, super important thing. And then rest too. I have youngsters out here, you know?
Blake Boles 21:01
Thank you, let’s talk a bit more about those youngsters and tell me, since you have been writing about dirtbags, we’ll talk about your zine and your podcast very shortly. For such a long time, how have you seen this dirtbag concept evolve and what are the different flavors of dirtbag that are out there and feel free to talk about both climbers and non-climbers, you know, the other flavors of dirtbag?
Luke Mehall 21:31
Yeah, so I mean, I think the big switch happened with technology. I think once the smartphone kind of came on the scene and people could then work remotely and then people could then… Right now, you can be… There’s this guy, he passed away last year, but I was amazed by him.His name was Matt Richard. The most recent scene is dedicated to him. But he was like 27 or something and looked… He had like a mullet and looked like the biggest dirtbag and he was like… He had a job in finance. And so he was probably making pretty good money, but then he lived this lifestyle here that was quite similar to us 20 years ago when we were here. But when we were here 20 years ago, you check your internet like once a month at the local library. So in some ways, it’s better to… Maybe it’s better to have a good job and have a balance to your life versus just living hand to mouth and just climbing all the time. So I think whenever the smartphone, social media, when all that stuff came into play… And for me, that was like whatever, 2008, like what was iPhone invented in 2007 or something. I feel like that’s when the big switch happened.So yeah, then you just see people with… I think the Sprinter van is another thing that came along around then too. But there’s just… Like you talk about flavor, there’s just more possibility I think for a better economic situation within just climbing. And then I think as well at 46, I only need a certain amount of climbing. I don’t have to climb all the time. I don’t be tired if I just climb all the time. So especially being down here, I need purpose. So working 40 hours a week or however much I actually work feels really like… I’m probably enjoying this just as much or more as I enjoyed the dirtbagging 20 years ago.So it’s hard to say it’s worse. It’s definitely not hand to mouth. And then occasionally, like you say, the guy living under the rock in Argentina or whatever, those people still exist and maybe they exist more in places outside the United States. Maybe there aren’t too many dirtbags. I can’t imagine a dirtbag that doesn’t have a smartphone and is just living under a rock in the United States. There’s probably a couple of them, but it’s certainly not prolific like it was in 2002 or something.
Blake Boles 24:17
Yeah, and I think the only way that I could even try to write something about the concept of dirtbag rich is if there were enough economic opportunities out there and for people to be connected to city jobs with city incomes, while living in other parts of the world or living out of their cars. So I agree it’s, there’s just so many more possibilities and especially if, like you’re in right now, if you’re someone who does make a living in the US and then choose to go spend part of your time in the country with a lower cost of living.Let’s talk about the climbing zine and where it came from and how it sustains your life financially Luke.
Luke Mehall 25:07
So it started, I had a buddy come up to meet a party one time, and so I was publishing my poetry in magazines and in newspapers, and he was just, his name was Hedy Eddy, I’ve kind of lost track of him, but we called him Hedy Eddy, he was just a hippy guy, and he came up to me, he’s like, have you ever heard of zines, man? He’s like, you should do a zine.It’s just a statement someone said to me at a party, and then I was in Salt Lake one time, I was like kind of living there, but I just ran out of money there, and I had a climbing injury that I didn’t really know how to deal with, and so I found this section of the library, my friend Adam Lawton turned me onto it, he’s since passed away, but he was an early supporter of the climbing zine, and a good friend, and I was crashing out on his couch, and he’s like, go check this out. So I go in the Salt Lake City zine library, and I hated every single one of these zines, they’re all abstract, and no disc to skate and punk culture, but I’m just not into like the abstract, like this is what I think about this random thing, and it doesn’t have a story, but there was one zine called Dishwasher that I liked, and it was about this guy Pete Jordan, who tried to wash dishes in all 50 states, and in my dirtbagging days, I was a dishwasher too, and I’ve never connected with this guy, I’d love to tell him the story, but his name’s Pete Jordan, but he had this zine called Dishwasher, and I basically was like, all right, I’m gonna do my own zine, and this guy worked with, had the title, he’s like, man, I was tripping on mushrooms, and I came up with this idea called Moonlight Dreamchasers, and I just want to use it someday, I don’t know what for, and so we called the zine Moonlight Dreamchasers, and it was all about like some fiction, some nonfiction, some buildering stories in Salt Lake City, and so I did that zine, and then shortly after that, I got my first writing job at my alma mater in Gunnison, Western Colorado University, and then I did one more zine, and then I was like, oh, let’s do a climbing zine, so it was supposed to be a one-time thing just called the climbing zine, and we did it, and it was black and white stapled together, and then I lost this said job, kind of near the end of the like 2008, 2009, whatever economic recession, and then I needed something to do, so I just kept doing the climbing zine, and then we expanded it out to including color photos, and then it, you know, started to cost some money, so I like liquidated my entire retirement savings from two years of a full-time job, which, you know, probably about 20 grand or something, and put it into the climbing zine, and have been doing it ever since for 15 years.
Blake Boles 27:49
I think it’s fascinating that like amidst the recession and also when print media and magazines are going downhill, you’re like, I’m going to start a zine because like it’s not even like a magazine. Zines are usually passion projects, like you said, written by people who just like really want to share something and they will pay some money to get it printed and staple bound, and then maybe it’ll end up in a zine library somewhere or distributed online if you’re lucky.But you actually turn this into a consistent, reliable print publication that generated enough income to sustain your life. What was it sustaining? Were you still living kind of hand-to-mouth dirtbag style or did it actually generate this excess of income that you could use to feel a bit more stable and secure?
Luke Mehall 28:49
Oh, never an excess. Not yet, not yet. So the first seven or eight years, I had a restaurant job as well. So I went back into the restaurant world for a while and sustained it with that. So I’ve been doing the zine just as my income for about seven or eight years. So it was like the side hustle for a long, long time.And then it grew into doing it for my job. I would say 15 years in right now, I’m like, hopefully the most growth from the business will happen in these next 10 to 20 years before I kind of finish it off and that’ll be my career or whatever. But yeah, it’s always been a hustle. And then for me, incorporating a podcast and then incorporating essentially a clothing line with it. We do some stickers and stuff too, but just having real creative artistic ideas and turning them into a clothing line has really helped support it. So yeah, certainly not quite hand to mouth. I own a condo, I have health insurance, I do all the normal things that an adult is supposed to do to have a financial base. But yeah, it’s still, certain times I’ll look back, I’m like, oh, maybe I should have gotten a job with a 401k or stuff like that. And still, I still might get another job, but yeah, it’s right now. And then I have those thoughts and then I see people getting laid off from their jobs, like no, certainly no good job is safe. And so I’m like, yeah, I’d kind of rather make a little bit less money and no one’s gonna fire me tomorrow and I still have my base of an income and have my own business. So yeah, at this moment, I feel pretty good about the trajectory of it, but there’s definitely, yeah, plenty of, as any small business owner knows, there’s just like the stress of cashflow, it’s just always on my mind.
Blake Boles 31:00
Well, I think it’s a very cool achievement and adding merch in there, adding the podcast. Uh, let me get a few kind of financial base questions out of the way here.Um, were you able to do this on your own? Did you have any outside, um, you know, cash or support that, you know, it was the only way that this would have been possible. And then talk a little bit about how the zine actually made money. Did it income come from subscriptions or sponsorships or, um, or something else? And just starting in the early days before you expanded into, um, yeah, the merchandise and the podcast.
Luke Mehall 31:39
Yeah, it’s been a really cool journey. So most of the zine comes from historically was advertisement. So the real decline of magazines didn’t happen until like 2021, from my perspective. So when I started it, there was still, you know, we go to meetings, you go to outdoor retailer festival or trade show, which is an event for the industry to connect with companies and you could get time, you get 30 minutes with Patagonia, 30 minutes with Osprey, 30 minutes with Black Diamond. And they, you pitch them on your ad in the magazine. And if you have a good pitch, I had up my buddy, Sean Mattis-Savage, who is, we call him the publisher Meredith, but he’s just my friend who had business savvy and we just go sit in meetings and pitch. So that was under the old model of like magazines. We’re a zine, but we look like a magazine in a lot of ways. Okay. And our competitors at the time are Climbing Magazine, Rockin’ Ice. And this is before they stop print. So you’re saying you’re presenting your numbers to them. We’re a bit cheaper. So some of these brands, they like what we’re doing. We’re going to support you. And so that was the kind of like, that was the way the, that’s like the easy money, you know, getting advertisements.And then slowly we get subscribers, but our subscriber, you know, I really got some help from this publication called The Mountain Gazette. To be more savvy about our subscriber base. So our subscriber base is just as important or more important than the actual sponsors. Now, where it started off, it was just the sponsors were really enabling the printing. And then printing is so much cheaper than two. So you could print 10,000 copies. I can print 10,000 copies five years ago for what I can print 2000 for now. So it’s in my mind, the big shift happened with 2021, like COVID. So sponsorships are very important. We’ve had some of our sponsors have been sponsors for 10 plus years. We have good relationships. They respect our art of what we’re doing. And then as time goes by, it’s the subscriber base. But then now that we have a consistent base, people want, some people want everything we have, you know, so people will collect the old zines and we can put those up for sale. People collect, some people want all our, all of our clothing line, all of our stickers, everything. So that was really the journey.And then not too much outside help. There was this guy, I won’t say his names. I don’t know if he wants to be known, but he, one day he just found like volume four in Yosemite. He’s like, I want to support you guys. I’m a, he’s a pretty loaded business guy who just likes to seed small businesses. And he, I thought it was a spam, you know, and I talked to the guy on the phone and he, he Venmo’d me a couple thousand bucks, you know, and he’s done that. I was before Venmo was probably PayPal or something, but this one gentleman has, I think he started climbing to like his mid sixties or something after he had his career.
Luke Mehall 34:42
And so that guy has sent us a little bit of money. And then, you know, I do come from, you know, in my, you know, a stable family. So it’s like, if, if I need to get a loan on something I can get a loan for my family versus like getting a loan from bank with, you know, better interest rates or whatever.So, but yeah, it’s, it’s been just kind of this, this thing that started off with companies and companies are very, very essential to our, our business. But the foundation now is, is each individual person, you know, and in that adding up to whatever, how, however, if it’s 5,000 people, if it’s 10,000 people, like somewhere in that range, there’s many, many dedicated climbing zine, like fans out there, you know, and that’s, it’s kind of like, that’s like the Grateful Dead model, you know, it’s like, uh, it’s, it’s very much Grateful Dead like, it’s like Grateful Dead 1981 or something, you know,
Blake Boles 35:39
I love that that’s still in your head as a model. It seems like a tough time to be asking for subscriptions just because everyone else is too. Subscribe to AMC+, subscribe to the Substack writers. Everyone wants five or ten bucks a month from you.How do you cut through the noise? How do you think you’re able to retain and to increase your subscriber base when there’s so much competition?
Luke Mehall 36:11
I just gave some new climbers a zine last night. I was sitting next to a buddy and I had a couple zines on me and they were asking me about it. So I gave them one. And this woman spent the next half an hour looking at it and absorbing the art.And she was relatively new to climbing, so she was asking me about things. And so if I was pitching somebody on my sub-stack, we could talk for a little bit. And sub-stack is very powerful for some people, but a piece of tangible art is going to break through all that. And then she’s going to take that home with her and probably tell one to five people about it. And she’s going to maybe even give that, she’s going to hopefully subscribe. But even if she doesn’t, she’s going to give it to someone else who might. And then that person might subscribe for the rest of their life because they love it, you know? So I think it’s a piece of tangible art. And that’s when everyone misses whether like, oh, print is dead or this and that. It’s like, yeah, I mean, it’s an easy thing to say, but it’s almost more relevant because it will capture more of the attention span versus, oh, I have a sub-stack, here’s a link to that. That’s going to end the conversation. But me handing this person a piece of the art that then they’re going to look at for a half an hour, it’s like, what, how many other things are going to do that, you know?
Blake Boles 37:33
That really reflects advice about publishing that I read from Seth Godin, maybe a decade ago, and talking about how if everything is going to become more digital, that actually means that print and hardcover books will become more valuable because they’re just a bit more rare and special and coveted. Yeah, interesting.At this moment in your life, are you still needing to get income from other sources than the climbing scene? And if so, what are those sources?
Luke Mehall 38:10
Um, I mean in an ideal setting. Yeah. I would love to get more money, but no, not ideal.No, I, this actual life, actual, um, no, I don’t, um, I mean, my, my income comes from, from my business. Um, yeah. So there’s, there’s not really additional like sources. No, it’s all, it’s all from that. Yeah.
Blake Boles 38:34
Earlier you said that you actually like working 40 hours a week on your your projects and your business now. How much do you think you actually need to work like minimum number of hours and you can average this over whatever period seems reasonable in order to sustain the business and to finance your life?
Luke Mehall 38:54
I’d probably say that around that 40 hours, um, thanks so much of what you do for work in like, for me in this space, like a full day of climbing, if we’re shooting photographs or I’m trying to, I’m like thinking up a story that ideally could all count as work, you know? So the, the line is one, especially as a writer and artist, it’s like, you don’t walk out climbing, but I’m working today, you know, but in the back of your head, if you meet this really interesting person that you’re going to interview for your podcast, that’s work.If you’re like picking somebody’s brain, who’s just an interesting person. So it’s, I definitely think that, um, I, I’m definitely not one of those, I’m going to like four hour work week people. Like that’s the biggest bullshit ever, that guy, uh, Tim Ferriss, I know Tim Ferriss is smart, but his four hour work week thing is insulting. Um, so yeah, I don’t, I don’t have that like tech, like I’m going to work five hours and be a boss. You know, I think, yeah, I just, it’s just, I think, I think it comes down to being a writer artist. You’re just, you’re constantly kind of absorbing things and then you’re, um, there’s like just a lot of dabbling too. It’s like, you might sit down and write for four hours and it doesn’t amount to anything, but that’s still work, you know? So. Yeah.
Blake Boles 40:16
There’s just not a good definition that’s widely shared about like what working hours means, or if you’re self-employed or like you said, a writer or artist. How you even decide when you’re in that zone of calling something work or not work, and if you’re really enjoying it seems to be the most important part.Maybe in the future we’ll have some metric like the amount of stress hormones running through your body over an average week. And like the people with the least, then it’s like doesn’t matter how many hours you say you’re working. If you’re doing it in this kind of enjoyable, meaningful, like I’m super activated, engaged kind of way. Like you said, you’re out there and you’re climbing and you meet someone who’s interested and you’re like, oh, maybe I can interview you for the podcast or turn this into a story. I mean, that’s the good kind of work that you want to have in your life to feel like you have purpose, right?
Luke Mehall 41:10
Yeah, yeah, for me, it is for sure. And it doesn’t matter, you know, like, I don’t have a person to report to with my hours. So it really doesn’t, to me, it doesn’t matter.But I, and that’s why I think I just go back to that four hour work week and just like, Hey, you can’t be a writer and work four hours a week. And then, yeah, it’s just the, I think the point of that I didn’t read that book, I think the point was just to be very methodically organized. And with all this technology in the world, you probably like some person probably would do that. But yeah.
Blake Boles 41:47
Well, are you, I mean, there are people who are self-employed and feel very stressed out by it and it’s, it’s not a very enviable situation. And they’re like, yeah, I’m self-employed, but I’m, yeah, I’m working 60 hours each week and I can’t really take vacations. I can’t really go and spend time with people I like or do the activities that I love.So just to be clear, you’re not in that situation, right? You still have time to, to do the exercise and the socializing and, uh, and anything else you want to be doing.
Luke Mehall 42:19
Yeah. I mean, I definitely have moments of stress for sure. But it’s not all the time.Yeah. It’s… It comes and it goes with… I think usually with cashflow, you know, just like you just get a… When you have these big bills and then you’ve got… And it can just change so much too from month to month. But yeah, I would say I definitely have high levels of stress. But on the day-to-day, I just… I think that’s what, you know, keeping up a good work schedule and just like… If I’m in the… You know, maybe you could look at it like an athlete. Like if I’m in the gym training, there’s gonna be highs and lows. But if you have your base level of work, there’s gonna be… And as time goes by, my audience keeps growing too. So the more I have the base of an audience, the more I feel comfortable with it.But yeah, it’s… I definitely have moments of stress, anxiety, all that stuff with financial stuff. It’s certainly a part of it. And yeah, those are the moments where I wish I maybe took a different path. But at this point, I’ve taken this path and I think the other thing too is like I can always get a job. You know, it’s like I can always get a night job somewhere or do something else, you know. So I think that’s a good thing to remind myself of. It’s like I don’t necessarily have to do it like this, but I’ve just chosen to, you know.
Blake Boles 43:55
I don’t know, Luke, once you’ve been doing the self-employed thing for long enough and you know, doing it on your own terms, I feel like it becomes this kind of nice bedtime story that we tell ourselves, like, oh, I can always just get a normal job. And it’s probably true, but I wonder if once you’ve been in this long enough that just you’re addicted to the autonomy and the sense of control.
Luke Mehall 44:19
But if the money goes away, I mean, and you’re familiar with the show, The Sopranos.
Blake Boles 44:25
A little bit, yeah.
Luke Mehall 44:27
Yeah, there was this actor who played the junior and he got that job, I think, in his mid 60s. And he was basically a starving artist, actor, lived in like 300 square foot apartment in Manhattan. And he has this phrase that money is truth. And so he didn’t really find his financial security till the 60s.But it’s like, if I was in debt or if the money went away, if the economy goes to crap, if people stop, whatever, there still is that alternate route of having to get a job. For me, in my mind, it feels like it’s still a reality, for sure.
Blake Boles 45:02
Yeah. And especially if something like a severe depression happened, it would be like, well, obviously you just have to take whatever you can get.Um, when you look around, Luke, and you meet these other climbers, these other dirtbags, people who are passionate about being in the outdoors, using their bodies, and you look at their financial situations and their work or their jobs, who do you feel a bit envious of? Who do you look up to in that regard? And who, when you look at them and you hear about what they have to do to make money to sustain this lifestyle, you’re like, Oh, thank God, I’m not doing that.
Luke Mehall 45:39
I mean, not too many people, I mean, I’m not necessarily, like, obviously I wish I had like a six figure income that maybe some of these tech people do, but I don’t want to do code. You know, I don’t want, I’m not necessarily envious of anyone, but I think there’s something you can learn from everybody, but I think just like people that have balance and are happy, you know?And that can come at any age, any career, whatever. It’s like, oh, you’re doing something that you enjoy, and then you enjoy this other thing. And then also like, yeah, do you have healthy relationships? Do you treat people well? It’s just like the people that find happiness, and that is a coder, you know? Like, there are people that are coders, like, oh, this is one of my favorite people. And then there’s people who are in grad school, and then there’s people who are nurses or doctors, you know? I think it just is that individual happy, and are there, you know, there just, there kind of seems to be ways to have a lot of avenues to pursue your passions these days. And like right now, I’m just trying to find like balance and happiness in my life, you know? And so anyone who has that, regardless of age or career or whatever, those are the people that kind of inspire me.But I think that, you know, the professional climbers are, if they’re making a decent amount of money, that’s an envious thing, you know? That’s pretty cool. But I never quite was that good of a climber to like follow that path, so.
Blake Boles 47:24
Something that I get asked and I don’t have a good answer to, so I hope you do is what does it look like when you have a dirtbag who stays a dirtbag until they’re like old, old, we’re talking like dirtbags in their, their sixties or seventies, and I’ve wonder if you have run into any of these people and whether they seem genuinely like happy and living balanced lives, uh, even with like very little money.
Luke Mehall 47:54
Right. Yeah. I feel like those, maybe the few people that pursue that and are living pretty hand to mouth, to me it seems lonely. I can’t really think of anyone that fits that bill that doesn’t seem a bit lonely or isolated.
Blake Boles 48:19
So what is it that makes it lonely or isolated is it if you don’t have resources then you can’t go access Communities or networks of people or share activities with those people Why couldn’t you be poor and and still living in community or like, you know hanging around certain groups?
Luke Mehall 48:38
You could be. I just can’t think of an example.
Blake Boles 48:42
Mm-hmm, which is kind of damn damning evidence
Luke Mehall 48:46
Yeah, I can think of older, you know, and I’m starting to fit into that category, which pisses me off when I meet these younger climbers if they put me in with like these 60-somethings and was like, dude, yeah, I’m like, fuck you. But I can think of people that still climb well.But as far as being on the road, living hand to mouth, living in your van, that to me seems like a younger person’s thing to be happy, and then eventually that goes away and they move on to the next thing. I’m sure I’m missing an example, there could be, but that’s always been something I wanted to avoid, you know, there was a climber that, I won’t name him, but he was in our community in Gunnison and was always just like smoked out and kind of like talking shit and hardly, didn’t climb that much, you know, and I was like, I never want to end up like this person. Like that was always a goal of mine. So, yeah, I think, to me, it’s like, if I’m like that, at 65, I want to have a partner, I still want to have a home base, even if I’m traveling around a bit, I just think like trying to live like a 25-year-old as a 65-year-old, I just can’t think of a good example of a happy person that, to me, it’s more important to have that like balance of additional things in your life, you know, because that freewheeling, living in a van is like, it has expiration date to be fun. I think maybe some band lifers that are listening might disagree with me, but I’m definitely more, maybe that comes back to my Midwest roots or whatever too, but.
Blake Boles 50:31
Let’s talk about purpose. You mentioned that word earlier and in earlier conversation, you told me that you really find purpose when people send you direct messages or you run into them in person and they say nice things about something that you’ve published or put out there.Um, what are your sources of a purpose or what makes you feel like you’re doing something that’s actually important or actually has some meaning in the world?
Luke Mehall 51:01
Yeah, yeah. So, I mean, I think it used to be more knowing that people connect with my writing and knowing I’m putting things out there that kind of improve people’s lives. And now that that feels more like a constant of just a result of the work, it’s like purpose within relationships and friendships. That seems to be the most arranger’s life.You could really impact someone’s life, but that’s not going to give you purpose day in and day out in your life. So, it’s more like the people you interact with on a daily basis, your friends. I don’t have kids, and a lot of my friends do. So, I think that you can see that purpose that drives their lives within having a child. I’m it’s equally important to invest in your intimate relationships and then your friendships. So, that’s where I’m at right now in life, just in general. It’s just like, yeah, how do you… And I think that talking about all this technology and things, my job doesn’t demand that I interact with a lot of people in person all the time. So, I have to create my life in a way. And that’s the reason I’m here in Portrero Chico is that there’s always people that I am interacting with and I can just go to a place and have a one-on-one conversation where my life back in Colorado is… The climbing gym is really the only place that gives me that, especially in the winter. So, I’m just trying to be really intentional about realizing that and just trying to maintain my face-to-face interactions with people. So, yeah, it’s really that the people that are close to you that are the ones that are for me, they’re going to form the rest of my life.
Blake Boles 53:12
Yeah. And what you said about Portrero Chico, I felt that when I spent three seasons in El Chalten in Argentina, even though I’m not a climber or a mountaineer, I just like to hike and trail run essentially. But it was so easy to meet super interesting people there who are there to climb or they’re there on a cycle trip or they’re there to do some of the biggest hikes of their life.And, and just like, it was like a magnet for these incredible people from all over North America, South America, Europe, Australia, New Zealand. They just came from everywhere. And so placing yourself in one of these hubs, maybe that is some kind of, you know, a secret to, to being, you know, especially if you decide not to have children, to having this sense of, of community and purpose and these strong relationships, uh, for as many years as you desire. Being the old dude in the mountain town that everyone loves.
Luke Mehall 54:12
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I know there’s a lot of truth to that. And my friend Katrina Blair is actually she’s a friend of mine just recently passed away called Kurt Blair. His name is Kurt Blair. And that’s Katrina’s brother. And we were, you know, he just had his memorial last month and during going and went back for that.And we were having just a side conversation like Kurt and I, when he was here, we were talking about kind of everything we just we just spoke about a bit of just, you know, there’s there’s more of a vibrant, vibrant community of your friends all over the world. And then you go back to your hometown and it’s maybe less. And so Katrina, we’re talking about she’s she’s writing a book, she’s like a naturalist, she’s like the person will hike 60 miles and just forage the food along the way, you know, really amazing person. But she was talking about the community that exists on the edge of these mountains in in how in in she’s probably going to write about it in a more poetic way. But it’s like there there’s something very, very, very important there that I think greater other communities can learn from. And just like, as now we’re minimizing our human interactions because of all this technology, what are we taking away that then these places still have those, you know, like perfect, perfect case studies and how many people are missing out on these communities because they just do different things or, you know, like or or maybe people aren’t missing out at all. Maybe certain communities have all of these things, but they’re just not mountain communities, you know.
Blake Boles 55:56
Yeah, that’s a big question for a different podcast, but let’s definitely talk about your podcast, Luke, because you’ve been running the dirtbag state of mind for five years now. And yeah, yeah, we started just before COVID.Yeah. Are you mostly talking about climbing with climbers there or are you having bigger picture conversations?
Luke Mehall 56:18
Definitely both of that. Yeah. I mean, I think the everything climbing zine is used climbing as a base and then open things up. But it’s a hybrid.So sometimes I’ll just, it started off just me reading my books as like a free version of an audio book. And then it was also like, oh, there are these people, like what you’re doing, you know, like, here’s an interesting person I want to talk to from the climbing zine or like, I just interviewed Alex Honnold, you know, it’s like, that was really cool to be able to interview Alex Honnold. And so it’s like this hybrid of storytelling podcast, which is I think unique in the climbing space. And then the thing of just the classic podcast of talking to someone for an hour and using climbing as the foundation, but also talking about whatever interesting things, you know, come up. And so that’s, that’s what I’ve used the podcast format for. And then for me, it’s just like been a really fun part of the job because writing can be so tedious, you know, putting a publication together is so time consuming. And sometimes you’re just staring at a computer and you’re hearing somebody’s story, but it’s through the written word and you just like laboring over it, you know, some pieces take a year to come together. So it’s, it’s, the podcast is the most fun part of my job, I would say. And I hope you, and I hope you feel about that about yours too.
Blake Boles 57:41
Yeah, well, you know, I’m using this podcast as a way to gather interviews for the book, but I had this other podcast, Off Trail Learning, for a number of years. That was more in the alternative education space.I completely agree with you. It’s just extremely intrinsically rewarding just to have an excuse to connect with interesting people. And you start out talking about education and then it goes somewhere different and it’s it’s work that doesn’t feel like work. It’s great.
Luke Mehall 58:10
Yeah. Yeah. And it’s, it’s, um, I think with conversations too, like honestly, climbers can be pretty boring to talk to you because if you know where a certain climber is at and all you’re going to do is talk about climbing is I can predict the conversation, but if you have an hour, especially with someone like, yeah, like an Alex Hollander, I interviewed Tommy Caldwell as well. Like these are like, you know, it was like some of the most interesting people. Like if you’re not just going to geek out about climbing and you want to actually hear stories, you’re going to get a more in-depth conversation than just like spring about climbing, you know.
Blake Boles 58:46
Well, uh, we’ve talked about the climbing scene, the dirtback state of mind podcast. You’ve also written five books. Uh, what else is out there in the world that people should know about that you have produced or are producing right now, Luke?
Luke Mehall 59:04
Oh, I mean, that’s that’s really the the foundation of my work is within the written word and then, you know, expanding out to the podcast. I’m working on another book now that hopefully I can write in this next time period. I’ve been working on it for three years in the sense of just I think books take a while to come together. So you’re like sometimes not ready when you start writing or whatever. But in my mind right now, I’m just trying to write another book. And it’s just as hard as ever.It’s just the struggle is never ending with with being an artist. But no, that’s the foundation of my work is very much the climbing zine in my books. And my early books, kind of like the one you quoted, like kind of feel like my mixtapes. You know, if you’re like an artist, you like really earlier small things. And so, yeah, it’s it’s that that that is a pretty pretty comprehensive of my body of work is just kind of the written words. And then the stories have helped other people kind of put out there.
Blake Boles 01:00:10
And where should people go to find out more about your work and what you’re up to, Luke?
Luke Mehall 01:00:16
Um, climbing zine.com, um, our website. And then we have a pretty active Instagram has kind of been the most successful social media thing that we have. So we’re not climbing zine on Instagram. And, um, yeah, those two things.Then you have the dirtbag state of mind podcast, which is in the, in the podcast world, you’re, you got dirtbag now too. So I think we’ll be all be there together. Like there, some people will come out to me and be like, are you the dirtbag diaries guy? No, no, not at all. But I’m not, I’m not a shame to, you know, like that word dirt, like dirtbag diaries is like the OG podcast. And so happy to be associated with them.And then now dirtbag rich will probably be in this wall. We’ll all be in the algorithm together.
Blake Boles 01:00:58
I was also just informed that later in 2025, a biography about Yvon Chouinard is going to come out titled Dirtbag Billionaire. So the more, the merrier.
Luke Mehall 01:01:13
Yeah, that’s an interesting one.
Blake Boles 01:01:16
Luke, thanks so much for coming on my podcast.
Luke Mehall 01:01:19
Yeah, my pleasure. It was really fun to talk to you.