Climbing in the context of the great environmental challenges of our time

Our world is changing and for climbers, it’s impossible to ignore. 

Burned up crags. Washed out roads. Ice climbs that no longer form. Increasingly strange and severe weather—driven by climate change—is already impacting our climbing experience, putting the places we recreate and the sport we love at risk.

Headline-grabbing catastrophes around the country are the culmination of decades of environmental change. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, wildfire season in the West has grown from five months to more than seven months in duration over the past five decades. Some experts even reject the idea of “wildfire season” entirely, since megafires now occur in nearly every month of the year.

Caldor Fire damage at Lover’s Leap, California. Ancestral lands of the Central Sierra Miwok and Washoe. © Chris Binder.

And in spite of the West’s above-average snowpack last year, the compounding problems of high temperatures, drought, and wildfires still threaten the wide-open Western landscapes climbers love.

“One good year of snowpack can’t erase decades of climate impacts,” says Brendan Witt, western lands policy fellow at Western Resource Advocates. “It’s great for a lot of things but doesn’t stem the tide of the cumulative impacts of climate change.”

For Western crags and boulder fields, record snowpack is creating new challenges. In areas like Bishop, California, and Indian Creek, Utah, flooding washed out roads and made it nearly impossible to access popular climbing areas.

“No matter where you live or love to climb, you’re seeing changes in climbing landscapes.”

“No matter where you live or love to climb, you’re seeing changes in climbing landscapes,” says Access Fund interim executive director Erik Murdock. “From worsening wildfires to dangerous rockfall to irreparable changes in ecosystems climbers love, these shifts mean real risks every time we head outside.”

Does Climbing Even Matter?

As we consider climbing within the context of these vast environmental challenges, it’s easy to feel small or insignificant. After all, can one packed-out poop really save a watershed? Or one well-routed trail? How about making it one move further on your project?

Climbers have debated this question around campfires for generations. It’s easy to write off this passion we have as selfish or obscure. But climbing does have value. What we do—and how we do it—makes a difference.

The time we spend climbing connects us to nature and tunes us in to the changes in the world around us, big and small. Visiting a place year in and year out gives us an appreciation for how landscapes change between years and seasons. We pay attention to variations in the landscapes and how we interact with them. All of this makes climbers ideal messengers, ready to sound the alarm on big environmental changes.

Protecting Landscapes We Love in a Changing World

The truth is, the big environmental challenges we face aren’t far-off problems for future generations to solve. It’s up to us to tackle these issues head-on, right now.

Access Fund believes that climbing can make us, and the world around us, better. The experiences we have outside drive climbers to protect and conserve the beautiful places that make the climbing experience so special.

There’s no one way to solve these environmental challenges. Climbers have to take action together. Sometimes that means buying threatened climbing areas that are about to be sold off for resource extraction or development. Other times, it means rolling up our sleeves and working in the dirt to install recreation infrastructure that protects the surrounding environment and allows native species to thrive. And it means showing up in Washington, D.C., to protect public lands and advance climate action.

“When we talk about Access Fund’s work, we focus on three areas: protecting and conserving the land, fighting for sustainable access, and building a community of inspired advocates,” says Murdock. “They all have to come together for climbing advocacy to succeed. And for many climbers, what inspires us to advocacy is time spent outside.”

Bears Ears National Monument. Ancestral lands of Navajo, Ute, Ute Mountain, Hopi, and Zuni. © Heather Distad.

Rolling Up Our Sleeves to Protect Crags

Across the country, climbers are in a neverending race to adapt our favorite areas to a rapidly changing climate. This means better trails with hardened surfaces, stronger erosion control, and fire mitigation efforts that reduce the likelihood of an out-of-control fire. Because once an area is impacted by a major event like a wildfire, it has a long road back to health—as climbers who frequent Lovers Leap in California know all too well.

For years, Lover’s Leap deteriorated under an increase in climber traffic from areas like San Francisco, Sacramento, and South Lake Tahoe. But the lack of a formal trail system for climbing access led to an unstable system of access trails across the mountainside, trampling sensitive vegetation and causing severe erosion. Add in a wildfire like the one that tore through the area in 2021, and the results are catastrophic.

“A wildfire isn’t a one-time event. Once a megafire comes through an area, its impacts can linger for decades.”

“A wildfire isn’t a one-time event,” says Witt of Western Resource Advocates. “Once a megafire comes through an area, its impacts can linger for decades.”

Areas like Lover’s Leap need the kind of hands-on stewardship that Access Fund’s Conservation Teams provide year in and year out, alongside dedicated volunteers.

“Around the country, we need organizations fighting for landscape-level designations that protect areas from development and extraction working side-by-side with the folks who actively restore areas that already enjoy some level of protection,” Witt adds.

Access Fund is proud to do both.

Community Support is More Vital Than Ever

Climbing matters because it bonds us to the land and each other.

“Our approach to conservation makes climbers—and Access Fund itself—different,” says Murdock. “Our work is about more than just protecting the places we climb. The connection between people and places is interwoven into everything we do. We’re fighting to protect our ability to experience these places together.”

Index, Washington. Ancestral lands of Tulalip and Skykomish. © Irene Yee.

Connections between climbers transcend nationality, geography, race, income, or politics. Our shared passion for climbing has the power to shape our very identity. And one way to honor the values that our community holds dear is to put them into action.

“The best way to avoid feeling overwhelmed is to take action,” says Witt. “In communities around the country, you can look out your back door and see that things are getting done—and if they’re not getting done, you have a chance to make them happen.”

The environmental challenges we face may be too big to tackle alone, but we can make progress if we face them together.

Each of us has a role to play in the climbing conservation movement. As Access Fund looks to the future, we’ll keep working to empower climbers with the tools they need to be effective advocates for the lands and sport we all love—whether that’s elevating their voices to lawmakers, connecting them to volunteer opportunities, providing training and grants for local access and conservation projects, or helping them minimize their environmental impacts.

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