Each year, Access Fund’s Climbing Advocate Awards recognize the stewards, conservationists, community organizers, and advocates who bind the climbing community together. These awards are our chance—as a climbing advocacy movement—to honor some of the individuals and organizations who stand out for their exceptional commitment to building communities, stewarding climbing areas, and fighting for sustainable and equitable access. Read on and meet the outstanding recipients of our 2023 Climbing Advocate Awards. 

Aaron Parlier - Conservation & Community Collaboration Award

Aaron Parlier is co-founder of the Central Appalachia Climbers Coalition (CACC) and the main point person for numerous Central Appalachian boulder fields. His dedication to climbing advocacy—with a particular focus on bouldering—plays a critical role in the organization's mission to develop, maintain, and promote rock climbing in Central Appalachia. At the end of 2022, Parlier helped CACC realize a multiyear vision to protect the AVP Boulder in Grayson Highlands State Park by donating the land to the Virginia State Parks system, ensuring permanent conservation and climbing access to one of the region’s crown jewels of bouldering.

Gabriel Cisneros - JEDI & Stewardship Award

Over geologist Gabe Cisneros’ two-decade climbing career, he has led numerous stewardship projects around Washington state, including developing new climbing areas. He is on the board of the Washington Climbers Coalition and uses his expertise to write geology highlights and provide topo maps for local guidebooks. As an Indigenous and Chicano climber, Cisneros works to ensure that new climbers of diverse backgrounds feel welcome in the community. To that end, he dedicates his time to organizing activities led by and supporting people of color, including crag maintenance days and rebolting workshops.

Dave Hug - Land Manager Collaboration & Stewardship Award

A 12-year fixture on the board of the Illinois Climbers Association (ICA), Dave Hug currently serves as their stewardship director where he works to protect and shape the future of climbing, community, and stewardship ethics. Hug has hosted trail days at Pere Marquette, where he helped reintroduce climbing and equip routes. At Holy Boulders, he also supports the ICA’s Pilgrimage bouldering competition. At Giant City, he secured a partnership to bolt and help maintain the historic crag to demonstrate that climbers are responsible, and was able to leverage these relationships to open new climbing areas. Thanks to Hug’s advocacy, Ferne Clyffe State Park where he serves as site assistant superintendent, now allows sport climbing. His support extends to neighboring local climbing organizations (LCOs) as well, including the Eastern Missouri Climbers Association and the Western Kentucky Climbers Coalition.

Neha Khurana - JEDI & Leadership Award

As a former board member and current president of the Northern Arizona Climbers Coalition (NAzCC), Neha Khurana brings infectious energy to the organization, where she’s helped establish it as a community-serving entity. Her leadership as a BIPOC woman also serves as a role model for others and bolsters a more inclusive climbing community. Khurana has created valuable resources, best practices, and policies to ensure the long-term viability and sustainability of the organization, including statements around diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) and climbing on Native lands. Under her leadership, the NAzCC has developed positive and productive working relationships with land management agencies, resulting in reduced or more tailored bird closures, joint trail and work days with the U.S. Forest Service, and more consistent, positive communication across the board. Now, land managers regularly attend NAzCC board meetings, providing direct collaboration on access issues and community engagement.

Andrew Blann - Bolt Replacement & Leadership Award

The behind-the-scenes work of local climber Andrew Blann, a fixture of the Arkansas climbing community for more than 20 years, has undoubtedly benefited the area—and thousands of other climbers. Blann works tirelessly to replace bolts across the state, and also organizes and participates in countless stewardship days. Currently, he serves as the vice president of the Arkansas Climbers Coalition where he focuses on local, state, and federal climbing policy issues. Without complaint or need for recognition, Blann dedicates his time to support fellow climbers and increase conservation efforts—all while working a full-time job, spending time with his family, and even managing to start a business.

Shannon Schneider - JEDI & Stewardship Award

Shannon Schneider is the founder of Queer Climbing Columbus, Cincinnati, and Cleveland (QCC), which are all separate organizations that foster a safe and inclusive community while working to expand access to climbing by removing barriers to entry. Each QCC hosts monthly meetups at local climbing gyms, and/or offers opportunities for climbers to experience outdoor crags like Mad River Gorge, Flat Rocks, Hocking Hills, John Bryan State Park, and Whipp’s Ledges. Last year, Schneider helped organize a weekend affinity event at the Red River Gorge where climbers could participate in guided climbing experiences and complete a stewardship project. He encourages all climbers to give back to their local areas through stewardship efforts and events, like Adopt a Crags. Schneider also serves as membership director for the Ohio Climbers Coalition (OCC), where he helps advocate for climbing around the state and makes sure that members are aware of the work organizations like the OCC and Access Fund are doing to protect—and promote—climbing access for everyone.

Cliff Agocs - Bolt Replacement & Community Organizer Award

With more than 15 years of guiding experience in the Pacific Northwest, Cliff Agocs helps keep local climbing safe and accessible. The owner and operator of Timberline Mountain Guides and part of the High Desert Climbers Alliance (HDCA) since 2018, he teaches rebolting clinics and mentors new rebolters—and organized HDCA’s largest (22 people!) rebolting day yet. Agocs is passionate about increasing access to area mountains, including climbing at Smith Rock, for young kids and climbers of all abilities. Timberline also helped local nonprofit Oregon Adaptive Sports launch their climbing program, and continues to volunteer to support them.

Pamela Matsuda-Dunn - Leadership & Community Collaboration Award

Pamela Matsuda-Dunn joined the Western Massachusetts Climbers’ Coalition (WMCC) as soon as she moved to the area in 2016. Currently, she serves as a member of their Executive Board and works on their JEDI Committee, helping to make Western Mass a welcoming and accessible community for all climbers. Matsuda-Dunn also represented the WMCC during the FirstLight Power Recreation Settlement Agreement negotiations, which now provides permanent protection of land at Farley Ledges. Climbing is now recognized by FirstLight as a recreational activity, protecting climbing access to the areas for the foreseeable future. At Hanging Mountain, her work developing climbs, belay platforms, and trails helped reduce climber impacts and create a better climbing experience for everyone.

Nate Liles - Bolt Replacement & Leadership Award

As a climber, you may have already benefited from the work Nate Liles does in his personal time or with the American Safe Climbing Association—the country’s only nationally recognized organization that focuses solely on maintaining and replacing fixed hardware at climbing areas—where he serves as development director. Liles has replaced old bolts on hundreds of routes, mostly at popular, high-traffic single pitch crags. While crag stewardship and access are his top priority, Liles also finds time to train individuals and local climbing organizations (LCOs) on how to sustainably extract and replace hardware and work with land managers to preserve the climbing resource. He serves on the Board of Directors and Access Committee for the Central Wyoming Climbers Alliance.

John Flynn - Policy & Conservation Award

John Flynn has served on the Salt Lake Climbers Alliance (SLCA) Policy Committee for several years, where he plays an integral part in their conservation efforts. He was especially instrumental in their work to nominate the Little Cottonwood Canyon climbing area for designation as a historic site in the National Register of Historic Places. The designation would help preserve Utah’s rich history of climbing, honor a locally and nationally recognized site of early recreational climbing and bouldering, and open the door for more historical designations of this type across the country—a powerful step forward in climbing access and conversation across the country.

Brad McLeod - Menocal Lifetime Achievement Award

A founding member of the Southeastern Climbers Coalition (SCC), Brad McLeod’s multi-decade legacy in the Southeast runs deep. His decades of land conservation work means that climbers can enjoy well-known areas in the region today, and for generations to come. Over the SCC’s 30-year history of protecting access to outdoor climbing across the Southeast, McLeod has served as a mentor to numerous leaders within the organization and continues to be instrumental in engaging the community. Thanks to McLeod’s leadership, climbers and locals alike now think about buying and managing land for climbing protection and access as one part of the broader environmental conservation movement. McLeod’s first win and the SCC’s first purchase and major acquisition was Boat Rock boulder field in 2002, which laid the groundwork for additional acquisition wins over the years. In 2004, he helped prioritize permanent protection of Alabama’s The Citadel Boulders, which he and the SCC were able to achieve in 2023 after decades of effort. Ever the outdoor advocate, McLeod is also active in his local mountain biking club, the Tallahassee Mountain Biking Association, where he helped to open 50 miles of mountain bike singletrack within the Apalachicola National Forest, the largest U.S. National Forest in Florida.

Illinois Climbers Association - Land Conservation Award

In 2021, the Illinois Climbers Association (ICA) and Access Fund purchased the House Boulders, fine-grained sandstone blocks with more than 70 problems at all levels, for long-term conservation and climbing access. After reaching out to the landowner, the ICA secured funding through Access Fund’s Climbing Conservation Loan Program to acquire 20 acres of land as part of their continued effort to protect climbing resources in the Midwest. This is the ICA’s second land acquisition and in 2023, they paid off the loan in full, allowing Access Fund to reinvest the money to protect more land over time.

Black Diamond - Corporate Responsibility Award

Black Diamond is committed to designing and engineering the most innovative mountain equipment in the world, and to do so while minimizing adverse environmental effects. They are a founding member of the Outdoor Industry Association’s Climate Action Corps and Fair Labor Working Group, and work to continually maximize their energy efficiency and minimize carbon footprint across facilities, while also maintaining a strict vendor code of conduct. Through their sponsorship and support of Access Fund’s national programs, Black Diamond continues to champion conservation, preservation, and access and inspire the climbing community—as well as encourage lawmakers to protect Wilderness climbing.