By Holly Yu Tung Chen

Jailhouse Rock sits above the rumbling Stanislaus River in the Sierra Nevada foothills. An intimidating, almost-200-foot overhanging cliff of blocky shapes towers over the belay. The crag is a refuge for Bay Area climbers seeking cooler temperatures, hard routes, and an escape from the short, punchier routes by the sea. Ask any die-hard Jailhouse climber and they will insist that the neoprene-tubed knee pad—a must-have piece of equipment to ascend Jailhouse’s four-dimensional routes—was invented here, not Rifle.

Jailhouse sits on private land, and accessing its steep basalt cliffs requires a gate code, available through Access Fund’s website, along with a set of rules. Some guidelines are straight-forward—no littering, respect raptor closures—while others are more specific, like keeping the gate closed to prevent landowners’ horses from escaping. Climber access to Jailhouse is made possible by a conservation and access easement negotiated by Access Fund in 2010, which remains in effect today.

Jailhouse Rock, California. © Joe Sambataro.

Underpinning these agreements is California’s Recreational Use Statute (RUS), offering background legal protection for the landowner. Today, more climbers and landowners are turning to this reliable tool. Recreational use statutes remain one of the quiet pillars of climbing access in America. They don’t make headlines—but they can make permission possible when it may otherwise be off the table. Because, until climbing is understood not as a fringe activity, but as just another way Americans move through the land, the work of securing access, and keeping it, will always begin with trust, and hinge on law.

Climbers have long relied on a patchwork of informal agreements and a lot of goodwill to access cliffs on private land—a handshake, a quiet conversation with a rancher, or a scribbled note on a fence post. As the sport’s popularity has grown, the access issues have become more nuanced.

Every state has its own version of a RUS, but the core purpose of any recreational use statute is the same: to protect private landowners from liability when they allow the public to access their land for recreational activities like climbing, hiking, hunting, fishing, skiing—the list is endless. So long as the landowner does not charge a fee, or knowingly create hazardous conditions, they are not held liable for injuries. So, if a climber sprains an ankle bouldering or takes a bad fall on a sport route, the landowner isn’t held responsible. The hope is that more landowners will feel comfortable opening their gates knowing that they have enhanced protection from lawsuits.

“The first layer of protection is the state recreational use statute,” says Katie Goodwin, Western regional director and policy analyst for Access Fund.

While recreational use statutes offer powerful protection, there are important limitations. Most notably, liability protection only applies if access is free. When a landowner begins to charge for entrance or day-use fees, they no longer have the protections of the statute. Another limitation involves man-made structures. Many landowners prefer to take a hands-off approach by allowing access but not maintaining the bolts, anchors, or trails themselves. “Once you start building infrastructure, it changes the equation,” Goodwin explains. And losing liability protection can mean the difference between a climbing area being open or off-limits.

But there’s another catch: even though RUSs exist in every state already, many, including California, do not explicitly include rock climbing in the list of protected recreational activities. (Their statutes list things like hiking, fishing, and hunting, but not always climbing.) And that omission makes a difference.

To a landowner, that omission can feel like a loophole big enough to drive a lawsuit through. “We’ve talked to attorneys who say climbing is still covered under the general language,” Goodwin explains. “But when the landowner reads through that recreational use statute, and it lists 10 other recreational activities but does not specifically mention climbing, that makes [them] nervous, right?”

That distinction might seem technical, but to a lawyer, or a cautious landowner, it’s anything but. Many of these statutes were written decades ago, when climbing was still relatively fringe. The activities listed often reflect the recreational norms of a different era. Perception is another challenge. Landowners may not understand the safety systems in place for climbers. For the uninitiated, climbing can appear riskier and the sport of adrenaline junkies seeking a thrill.

Wyoming © Sam Lightner.

In spite of RUS limitations, a success story recently unfolded in Wyoming. When Sam Lightner bought a rugged slice of land in Wyoming’s Wind River Canyon, right outside Lander, he knew two things: The rock was good—good enough to become a climbing destination—and opening it up to the public wasn’t going to be simple. Lightner didn’t want to rely on vague assurances. As a writer and a climber who’d been advocating for access since the early days of Access Fund, he believed climbing should be clearly listed in the RUS.

“Climbers like to push the rules,” he says with the kind of bemused clarity that comes from decades in the community. “We know climbers. I mean, I see ’em pull over while I’m up working on [developing routes] and I go, okay, that’s a climber van.” His land sits in a politically and culturally sensitive zone. It’s a former inholding, land that was once part of the reservation system, which was sold off in the 1930s. It’s private property now, but Lightner knew that if word got out too fast, or if the legal protections weren’t clear, opening it up could invite serious challenges.

Like California, Wyoming already had a RUS, but climbing wasn’t listed. Lightner (as well as Access Fund’s Western Regional Access Director and Policy Analyst Katie Goodwin), testified in support of the bill. With backing from legislators like Fremont County’s Lloyd Larsen, the bill sailed through with no opposition. In early 2025, the state legislature amended its RUS to include rock climbing.

With rock climbing explicitly protected in Wyoming’s statute, Lightner now feels more confident about opening his land to the public—slowly and thoughtfully. Eventually, he hopes it will be something like Kentucky’s Muir Valley: private land managed by a hyper-local LCO, that charges for parking to pay for maintenance, but retains the RUS protections.

Access Fund has been working to update RUS laws state by state, explicitly adding climbing to the list of protected activities. In Wyoming, it took just two months. In other states, the process has dragged on for years without resolution. “You need a champion in the legislature who understands climbing and is willing to carry the bill,” says Erik Murdock, deputy director of Access Fund.

Even with recreational use statutes in place, real-world access depends on relationships. Nowhere is this clearer than at Jailhouse. “Jailhouse works because of a long-standing relationship between the climbing community and the landowner,” Murdock says. He cautions that access today does not mean access tomorrow. New landowners without a longstanding relationship with the climbing community will rely on more explicit language to assure them.

Sometimes, even with all the protections in place, a landowner just says no. “You can’t force a landowner to allow access,” Goodwin says. “If they’re not interested ... there’s really not much we can do other than continue to ask nicely.”

When that fails, Access Fund and its partners might turn to acquisition. Being a land trust with a revolving loan program, Access Fund is able to purchase land.

“[But only] at its appraised value,” Goodwin explains. “In some areas ... the property’s worth millions of dollars. At some point we get priced out.” So while RUSs and acquisitions are critical tools in Access Fund’s kit, we always start with respect and relationships, which are important no matter what.