hey reader. who are you?

most nights, before bed, i log onto the control panel (funny term, eh?) of newclimber.com and look at the site statistics for the previous 24 hours. you can learn a lot about a website and its visitors from these numbers. for example, with halloween just around the corner, search engines seem to like to hook people up with my "best (worst?) mountaineering costume ever" story. it's a popular posting right now.

but these "hit" numbers don't tell the whole story. i still don't know about the real people who randomly end up here after searching for, say, clif family wines, or about the folks who have this site's feed bookmarked.

so i'm curious. who the heck are ya? how did you end up here? are you a climber? a new climber?

it would be great to hear from you. if you want to tell me/us more, here are two options: 1) post a public comment on this story and tell us a bit about you and your connection with the diary or 2) for you shy folks, write me at david (at) newclimber.com and tell me what brought you here today.

i won't beg, but please don't leave us hangin'. we're so very much counting on you!