Hunter Murray
Primary Outdoor Sport: Climbing
Job: Registered Nurse
Favorite Beverage: Bengal Spice Herbal Tea
Sunrise or Sunset: Sunrise
Non-Outdoor Hobby: Cooking
Climbing Snack: Dried Mango
Favorite Season: Fall
Post-Trip Meal: Pizza
Book Recommendation: Endurance: Shackleton’s Incredible Voyage
Three Words to Describe Yourself: Enthusiastic, Thoughtful, & Optimistic
“My family was into hunting and fishing. I spent a lot of time playing outdoors. Outside my school there were these woods and we’d go build forts and use our imagination to create these entire kingdoms. So I always grew up playing in the outdoors, but my recreation was somewhat limited in the midwest.
I started to become an outdoor athlete through running. I ran cross country and track in high school. That was the first time I ever pushed myself and challenged myself in the outdoors, not just playing in the outdoors. I have a lot of great memories of running on dirt roads, just having no one around. It felt really peaceful. I remember really appreciating that.”
“Looking back at my time in high school, I loved the identity of being an athlete and what it provided to my life. After school, I ran college for a semester in Michigan and then I ended up transferring to University of Portland because I knew I didn’t want to stay in Michigan. I was pretty unhappy.
I took a step back from running and got involved in the community in my university. I lived in the dorms my first year. There were people living across the hall from me that were kinda the hippy academic types that I found to be super inspiring. They went to the climbing gym quite regularly and I’d never even heard of rock climbing or I didn’t really understand what it was. I think I had heard of it, but thought it was an adrenaline sport.
These guys would go to the Circuit regularly. I ended up joining them and got totally hooked. Just learning to use my body in a new way and the adventure of the sport, the gymnastic aspect of the sport.
Then, something that really took off for me was watching Valley Uprising. The history of climbing, it felt like a lot of things clicked in my mind because I’d always felt very malcontent and I wanted more. Growing up in Michigan, I craved adventure. I remember reading about people who would go hitchhike and I thought that was the coolest thing. Facing uncertainty and having an adventure. I just wanted adventure and I didn’t know what would give me that. Then I found climbing, and it connected a lot of dots for me. Hearing about all those adventurers and pioneers in Yosemite Valley back in the day and the people who just fully committed themselves to the sport and the lifestyle, it blew me away. It just felt like what I was supposed to do. So I leaned pretty heavily into it.”
“There’s a lot of positive things I can say about rock climbing. I think using it as a metaphor for other areas of life is a pretty poignant thing. I think seeing what I’ve done in climbing and the success I’ve achieved in climbing has taught me lessons that translate to other areas of life. Setting goals. Persistence. Being process oriented. Knowing that you can do hard things. Having something tangible in your life where when you first faced this challenge it felt insurmountable. You didn’t think you could do it. And, through repeated exposure, better tactics, learning, and strategizing, you can achieve this goal that felt impossible at first. That has definitely allowed me to feel like I can succeed at other things in life.
Another huge lesson that climbing has taught me is the importance of self-belief. Ultimately your mentality and your mindset dictates the outcome more so than your physical preparedness or really anything else. If you believe you can do it, that’s a necessary step towards ultimately achieving anything. Having that right mindset is such a huge factor in success.”
“Climbing as a whole is something that has come naturally for me in certain ways and has been a real challenge in other ways. A couple years ago, I almost gave up climbing to focus on running instead because I felt much more like I was a natural born runner. I found myself scared a lot of the time and always grabbing draws. I was always afraid of falling. I saw my peers feel really comfortable climbing hard, scary things, really runout no fall situations. Whenever I thought of myself in those situations, it was a struggle. It was hard to look at that and overcome that. It made me feel that maybe this sport wasn’t something that I was meant to do. But, I didn’t listen to that. I pushed through and I’ve seen a lot of growth in my mental side of climbing.
Consistency and self understanding was huge. Trying to understand where my fear came from. That allowed me to rationalize my fear and understand at what times it was appropriate to be afraid. It’s important to differentiate between fear and danger. Reflecting on that has been something that has helped me a lot. It's appropriate to justify your fear and accept it. To know that you can be afraid and that doesn’t necessarily mean you’re in danger.”
“Something that I love about Smith the most is that it is a decently proud place to climb. To be honest, most of the climbs here aren’t dangerous, but I will say that most of them are exciting. You are often facing pretty large falls. You can easily find yourself gripped pretty far away from a bolt. Learning to climb here, I faced a lot of fear. Some of my proudest sends are the ones that scared me the most, and in spite of that, I was able to overcome and actually succeed on those routes.”
“Focusing on the play allows me to be pretty process oriented when I climb. If I just focused on my ultimate goals, it's easy for my individual days to feel like failures when I don’t achieve that goal. You can appreciate the steps that you’ve taken to get closer to those goals, but sometimes when I get on I climb I like to just say, “I’m going to go play right now.” That opens my mind and reduces my expectations and refocuses my mind not towards achieving a certain outcome but towards experimenting and being present. Focusing on fun rather than trying to achieve a certain outcome at all costs.
There is a balance of both that you really need to strike. Because if you’re just playing, you don’t always push yourself or challenge yourself. When you’re playing, you kinda stay in this comfort zone. To achieve lofty goals, you have to expand your comfort zone.”
“The type of climbing that I’ve leaned into the most has been sport climbing. That’s largely due to my proximity to Smith Rock, which is sport climbing mecca. But, I do think the most meaningful ascents and climbs in my life have been more trad multipitch, adventure-style. That’s the direction that I want to keep taking my climbing, because those are the times where I really have to face uncertainty and rely on my skills. Stare that fear right in the face and learn how to navigate it gracefully. Those have been the most meaningful moments of my climbing career.”
“Back in college, when I was just getting into rock climbing, I flew down to Los Angeles with my buddy. We didn’t have a car. We just found a ride from LA to Joshua Tree off of Rideshare. We ended up spending our time in the park without a car. We didn’t even pay for camping. We just found a spot in the boulders and slept in this little cave. That was just an awesome experience of getting scared on 5.10 gear, sleeping in the dirt, meeting new people, and connecting with nature. Just being out there having an adventure with a good friend. I just really felt like I was living. Life was perfect on that trip. That was just another experience that showed me that things really work out and it's good to take chances. It's fun to take chances and risks like that and open yourself up to opportunities.”
“One thing that I really appreciate is there are so many routes that are test pieces that have stood the test of time. Climbing is young, but it is a generational sport and I can challenge myself on routes that people were challenging themselves on in the 80s and 90s. These climbers who were my idols growing up in the sport, I can try the exact same routes that they were struggling with. In that way, climbing feels somewhat eternal and it creates this connection to the past that I really appreciate being a part of.”
