Russ Clune is an integral part of climbing's humble beginnings in America. Recently, Sam Elias paid Clune a visit at his home in the Gunks, where he sampled the historic routes of the past and attempted a rare ascent of the new-school trad testpiece: Brozone (5.14b). But perhaps the most important thing Sam walked away with, amid all the climbing history lessons, and constant, often hilarious, Clune cliff-banter, was an intimate view into the soul of a man who has dedicated his entire life to climbing.