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This Group Is Helping Make Climbing Culture Inclusive

mmathis — Wed, 06 May 2020 00:00:00 +0000

On a Wednesday evening earlier this year��at , a San Francisco climbing gym, James Dong and Max Morales stood at a table by the front door to greet arriving climbers. Each newcomer was offered a blue and yellow sticker adorned with a geometric logo and the words “The Brown Ascenders.” By 7 P.M., a circle of black and brown climbers had assembled in one��corner.

“Raise your hand if you’ve been to a Brown Ascenders meetup before,” Morales said. About a dozen hands went up. Some people were there to try rock��climbing for the first time. Others had been attending for years, since the group first formed to create a��community for��climbers who are black, indigenous, and other people of color (BIPOC).

The Brown Ascenders, which formed in 2017 and registered as a nonprofit in 2019, is one of many groups across the country bringing climbers of color together. (Additional��organizations include ��and ,��both working��to increase representation and inclusion in the sport��and collaborating��to host the popular each year.) The movement is not unique to rock climbing: the groups and , for example, focus on increasing the visibility of BIPOC individuals in other outdoor recreation spaces. The Brown Ascenders is pushing the movement one step further. With its��new nonprofit status, the organization is taking��on bigger projects��and trying to��make it easier for climbers everywhere to feel at home in their local gym or at their local crag.

The Brown Ascenders began when Summer Winston, a professor at Santa Rosa Junior College, in California,��attended Color the Crag in 2017. Winston (who prefers��they/their pronouns when being referred to) had��been climbing for a couple of years before the festival��but had never come across��a climbing community that consisted��mostly of people of color. “I never knew I needed that space,” Winston says. “The energy was amazing. At the end of that first festival, we were leaving, and��I said, ‘I want to bring this back to the Bay.’”

Winston returned home from the climbing festival on a Sunday. By Tuesday, they had a name, a logo, and an Instagram page��for what would become the Brown Ascenders. They soon met with a local gym to negotiate a special deal for members: climbers got free day passes for Brown Ascenders meetups, and gyms waived their initiation fees. Climbing is an expensive sport, Winston points out, so removing some of the cost can give people a reason to try something new.

Since then, Winston and the group have��hosted more than 40 meetups in five cities and two states. And they’ve brought on community organizers, like Morales and Dong, to plan the meetups for their home gyms.

Two Brown Ascenders show a mentee how a belay device works before he climbs. (Courtesy Saki Cake)

On the crowded floor of Dogpatch Boulders, the��Brown Ascenders were having a blast, with climbers working the same boulders and cheering each other on.

Aubrie Johnson, 30, watched quizzically as four of her friends collapsed on the crash pads, giggling. Johnson has lived in San Francisco’s Potrero Hill neighborhood—not far from Dogpatch—for more than 15 years. She has been climbing since 2016��but says she would have quit if she hadn’t found the climbing community the Brown Ascenders offers. The gym reflects��the gentrifying population of the city, she says,��and previously, she found it hard to meet people she clicked with.

Abioula Akanni, 26, recently moved to the Bay Area from New Orleans. He met Winston at Color the Crag��and has��helped organize the Dogpatch meetups ever since. “This is my jam,”��Akanni says. “It’s something I care about. It’s about getting black and brown people together to climb and build community. Summer had a great vision.”

Winston says��communities like the Brown Ascenders make it easier for people to try the sport��and stick with it. When��Winston��started climbing in a gym in Texas, they say��it took more than six months before they saw another black person in the gym. “It felt good to see someone else walk in that space that looked like me,” Winston says. “I feel like that happens a lot to other folks, that’s not a unique story.”

While BIPOC climbers often deal with both large and small racist incidents in climbing gyms, Winston notes that even if people aren’t being explicitly racist at such a place, it can be uncomfortable if you’re the only nonwhite person in the room.

Winston wants people to understand the importance of comfort and a sense of belonging in outdoor recreational activities. “If it feels uncomfortable to go into that space, there’s no incentive,” Winston says. Having a supportive climbing community, they believe,��“makes the difference between people coming back and never trying it again.”

Brown Ascenders bouldering (Courtesy Summer Winston)

In the summer of 2019, after the Brown Ascenders had hosted climbing hangouts for a year and a half, Winston started��thinking about expanding the group’s work. It felt great to be bonding at the climbing gym, but Winston wasn’t convinced they were creating lasting change. So in��November, the Brown Ascenders became a nonprofit��and began planning to take on a wider range of projects. Winston has a long list of ideas about the future, including equity and inclusion training for gyms, kid’s camps, and outdoor clinics. But they are also rooting the new programming in data and community feedback. They plan to conduct a research project in gyms across the Bay Area in 2020 (which has been postponed due to COVID-19) that asks climbers of all colors what an inclusive space would look like to them.

“I can go to a gym as one person and say, ‘Hey, like, these are ideas I have for things that you can do to make this space more accessible.’ But I’m one person,” Winston says. “If I go with 4,000 survey results and say, ‘Hey, this is what 4,000 members of our community are asking for,’ it gives me, like, a foot to stand on.”

Since starting the Brown Ascenders, Winston has experienced moments of doubt. They’ve been accused, mostly by white climbers, of causing divides in the climbing world. And even before the Brown Ascenders launched, some BIPOC climbers were skeptical that organizing a group was necessary, telling Winston they thought the Bay Area climbing scene was in much better shape than other parts of the country.

“Sometimes I get in my head, and I’m like, Are we really doing something good? Is this really important?’’ Winston says.

But participants’ enthusiasm at the meetups always reminds Winston��that��the group is changing the game��by creating a welcoming��experience in an outdoor sport where people of color still can’t always take those things for granted.

“At the end of the night, people say,��‘This was so amazing. It felt so good and fun to just be here and, like, feel encouraged by everyone,’” Winston says. “People will leave me��little notes just saying, ‘Thank you for hosting this.’ That means the world to me.”

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This Company Thinks Algae Will Make Better Skis

agintzler — Fri, 07 Feb 2020 00:00:00 +0000

In 2018, ski maker Matt Sterbenz got a call about algae.��Checkerspot, a company developing plant-based composites for the outdoor industry, was in the process of building a surfboard with foam made from the fatty acids in algae microbes��and wanted to see if something similar would work in a ski.��

“Send me some material, I’ll stick it together and see how it performs,” Sterbenz��remembers saying. Enticed by the opportunity to tinker with the building blocks of ski performance, Sterbenz went all in. He put the material in the core of a pair of skis, and in early 2019, he became the first person to make turns on planks��constructed��partially��with algae. “Shortly after the new year in 2019, I set out on a path to build a brand around the technology,” he says.��

Sterbenz was uniquely qualified for this. In 2002, he founded 4Frnt. The brand was a part of an indie-ski movement that helped redefine the industry with new shapes that allow skiers to go big in steep, technical terrain—powder skis designed for the backcountry, a wider range of rocker profiles—and it paved the way for modern reverse-camber skis.

Now��the veteran designer hopes to be at the forefront of a new renaissance. After running his company for 16 years,��in��2019,��Sterbenz��stepped away to start Wndr Alpine, which is devoted to showing customers that incorporating biocomposites��(materials made from plant matter) into a ski’s��core not only boosts��sustainability compared to��skis made with traditional plastics��but��also results in a new kind of plank that can outperform��the last generation.��

The Intention��110 ski��launched in July 2019 using Checkerspot's technology, which grows algae in fermentation tanks in Berkley, California. The algae produce��oils that the company’s��chemists harvest and turn into a polyurethane��composite. Currently, only the core of the Intention ski features that algae-based product. Other parts of the ski—like the topsheet and sidewalls—rely on traditional plastics. But��Sterbenz says his��company is working to phase in more of the biomaterial.��

As far as performance is concerned, however, he claims��the relatively small amount already makes a big difference. “With the composite, we wanted to look at ways we can reduce weight without compromising strength,” Sterbenz��says. “And can we improve the smoothness of the ride?” Sterbenz says the ski has a unique feel: it’s powerful through turns and capable of absorbing big hits��but still light, playful, and delicate in tight areas. (Aspen and paulownia in the core help��the ski stay flexible.) He adds that the Intention 110 is just as stiff as traditional skis��but weighs an average of 250 grams��less than competitors of the same size—a performance boost he credits to the algae composite. Its��niche is in the backcountry, where skiers want a light ski that’s easy to hike with on steep terrain��but doesn’t hold them back once they rip off their skins.

Of course, sustainability is a multilayered process that involves everything from manufacturing to packaging.

Sterbenz sees the move to new materials as skiing’s natural progression. And he’s not the only person who thinks so.

Across the outdoor industry, a new wave of companies are��experimenting with alternative materials. is making plant-based ski and snowboard waxes��that��won’t leave petroleum and fluorocarbon in the snow. In 2018, PrimaLoft launched Bio, the world’s first biodegradable synthetic insulation, designed to reduce microplastic pollution without compromising performance. , another Checkerspot affiliate, is creating��plant-based waterproofing treatments for synthetic clothing.

Of course, sustainability is a multilayered process that involves everything from manufacturing to packaging. But materials are a “huge part of [a company’s impact], both the raw materials that you’re using and how those materials are produced,” says Jason Kibbey, CEO of the Sustainable Apparel Coalition. “Everyone’s looking for new material innovations right now, and biomaterials can be one way to reduce impact.”

Nick Sargent, president of Snowsports Industries America, agrees. “I think we should be using some of these smaller companies like Wndr��Alpine as a case study of what is possible,” he says. “We have to push the envelope in that space and continue to evolve.” Winter sports��have a direct interest in stopping the planet from heating up. As the ski industry moves into a warmer and more polluted future, Sargent doesn’t think there are any options except to get serious about reducing impact. And while big brands can have trouble changing practices that have always worked for them, small companies are nimble enough to implement completely new ideas much faster.

For Sterbenz and Wndr��Alpine, this means showing that biocomposites can break performance barriers as we move toward a future that’s less reliant on fossil fuels. Maybe a better ski will get people to move toward��better practices.

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6 Things to Keep in Mind When Adventuring with a Dog

wyu — Sun, 01 Dec 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Endurance athlete ��specializes in type-two fun, and so does her border collie, Otto. Together, Borsuk and Otto have run ultramarathons, climbed and skied volcanoes in the Cascades, and fastpacked through the Pacific Northwest. Borsuk’s previous pup, Peanut, helped her explore Oregon’s trails when she was new to the state. In 2015, Borsuk shifted to running and began taking on bigger challenges in the mountains; in 2018, she ran her first 100-miler, the Cloudsplitter 100. She credits her dogs with keeping her motivated when the training intensifies. “They’re always happy, which pushes me through these tough endeavors,” Borsuk says.

We asked her what to keep in mind when including your pooch in outdoor adventures.��

Talk to your vet about when you can start bringing your puppy on long runs. Otto is active and medium size, so I was able to start him off a little younger than a year. A bigger dog might not be able to run until much later.

Active dogs need to eat more. Otto weighs 35 pounds, and he eats as much as a German shepherd. I don’t pay much attention to what the food bag recommends for a dog his size. We run 50 to 70 miles a week, so he’s burning a lot of calories.

Make your dog—and other people—as comfortable as possible with good leash and recall training. Your dog should be able to run well on-leash without pulling you. Off-leash it should stick by your side, so it doesn’t end up running double or triple your mileage.

Dogs get tired when they’re out of shape. You can’t expect yours to keep up if it’s active only on weekends. Make sure it’s training during the week, too. Then it can hang on for longer trips.

Humans might walk or give up if they’re tired. Dogs will not stop. They want to please their owners, and they might need a rest even if they don’t look like they do. Be sure to always bring enough water and food for them.

Choose your activities wisely. Dogs make some things harder, like ice climbing, so I don’t bring them on those trips. But they can be a perfect fit for skiing. It’s give and take.

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Your Local Crag Is More Dangerous than You Think

wyu — Sat, 30 Nov 2019 00:00:00 +0000

On perhaps my 100th day climbing at Turkey Rocks, a popular crag outside Colorado Springs, Colorado, I was gazing absentmindedly toward��Pikes Peak when the moment was sliced in half by a scream. My friend Noah was top-roping a 5.7 hand crack when something went wrong:��when he got to the anchor, he leaned back and fell 60 feet, bouncing��once on a ledge on his way to the ground. This was the first pitch he had ever climbed outside. An older climber cradled Noah’s bloodied face in his hands as my friend clung to consciousness. In that moment, I was not confident he would survive.��

Another climber and I scrambled to the top of the formation to get cell service��and were able to call in the Teller County Search and Rescue. With too many people crowded around Noah already, we went to find the cause of the accident. It turns out,��a new climber had built a gear anchor by putting a circular sling around the top of a small, sloping boulder. Six people had climbed the route on top rope before the fall. As each one lowered, the sling��slipped upward, eventually passing over the top of the rock. When Noah leaned back, there was nothing to catch him. On the ground, we found the anchor sling still attached to the rope, a single small cam dangling from it.

Climbing has a reputation as��a dangerous sport—and rightfully so. Last year 204 accidents resulting in 210 injuries and 22 deaths were reported to��Accidents in North American Climbing (ANAC), a long-running annual publication that documents��mountaineering and climbing. By��comparison, avalanche death among skiers averages around�� in the United States. The journal’s��numbers are a conservative estimate, as not all accidents are reported. And as more people embrace the sport, introduced by��the rapid growth of climbing gyms, many climbers are worried that accidents will increase.��

While your local crag may seem safe compared with��alpine peaks or 3,000-foot faces at Yosemite, accidents like the one I witnessed at Turkey Rocks—which involved inexperienced climbers and a relatively easy route—are just as common. ANAC has been keeping track of climbing��incidents since 1948, and its��data shows that accidents happen to beginner and advanced climbers at roughly the same rate.��According to��Dougald MacDonald, who has been editing ANAC��since 2015, you’re as likely to get hurt climbing a 5.7 in the Shawangunks as an alpine route in the Tetons.��

Noah’s fall was not the first accident I’d witnessed at that crag. Just a year prior, a miscommunication between a climber (also on top rope) and a belayer lead to a near death. The climber was planning on lowering, but the belayer thought he was going to rappel, so she took him off belay, and when he weighted the rope to descend, he free-fell instead. The belayer grabbed the rope with her bare hands and stopped him from hitting the ground, maybe 40 feet to the left of where Noah fell a year later.��

Part of the problem is a matter of perceived risk: hundreds of feet up a cliff in the Tetons, it’s easy to be aware of the danger. But risk can be less obvious closer to home. MacDonald explains that a familiar setting can lead to a lack of vigilance. “It’s easy to get casual and complacent about this stuff,” he says. You’re likely going to be more afraid halfway up an alpine face than a local sport climb, but a miscommunication on the latter could still result in broken bones—or worse. Falling from 70 feet and 1,000 often have the same result.��

Routine roped falls, where a climber is still secured but hits the rock a bit too fast or at the wrong angle, are the most common cause of injury in climbing; MacDonald says next on the list are��probably lowering and rappelling errors, when��a climber descends off the end of their rope into empty space or miscommunication leads to a fatal fall. Noah’s accident was the result of anchor failure, which MacDonald describes as extremely rare.��There was also little he could have done to prevent it, other than climb with more experienced partners. As a new climber, he trusted others to set up secure systems. He just happened to be the person on the rope when those systems failed.

The woman who built the anchor was fairly new to climbing��but had taken classes on building gear anchors. She built her anchor in the same place as the party before her, placing a sling around a sloping boulder and running a top rope through locking carabiners. The�� is three pieces of gear per anchor, which would mean backing the sling up twice so that the three pieces of gear could simultaneously bear a climber’s weight, but her anchor had only one backup: a small cam placed under the same boulder. It was not designed to withstand��the abrupt force of the failing anchor. When the sling failed, Noah fell hard on the cam, which popped out under the force of the fall.

While we waited for help, we tried to keep him��comfortable: we braced his neck, layered our spare jackets over him, and reassured him that he would make it out all right. The crag is just a 20-minute hike from a dirt road, but it took four hours to evacuate him. After search and rescue arrived, we rolled Noah onto a backboard and spent more than an hour carrying him across the disjointed talus. After a ride in a truck and a helicopter, he arrived at the hospital with a broken pelvis and a badly broken nose. He was lucky.��

Most climbing deaths and injuries are preventable.��Good communication, safety checks, and careful protection—everything from placing gear in easy terrain to making a plan with your climbing partner—can keep climbers of all skill levels out of trouble. Accidents like Noah’s can happen to anyone, anywhere. Even climbers with decades of experience can hurt themselves in the places they feel most comfortable. The more experience I gain climbing, the more rigorously I��check my knot—and my anchor—whether just a few miles from home or somewhere new.

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Palestine’s West Bank Is Becoming a Climbing Hub

wyu — Tue, 26 Nov 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Travelers usually visit Palestine’s West Bank for its historic cities and biblical sites, rather than its adventure offerings. But in 2014, Americans Tim Bruns and Will Harris arrived looking to change that. Bruns and Harris were studying abroad in Jordan in 2012 when they first traveled to the West Bank and noticed its untapped climbing potential: towering limestone cliffs without a bolt in sight. The pair had discussed opening an indoor climbing gym in Jordan, but after seeing what Palestine had to offer, they shifted their focus.

Bruns and Harris returned to Palestine in 2014, shortly after graduating from Colorado College. They cobbled together funds from private donors and organizations like USAID to start building the West Bank’s first indoor rock gym, called , in Ramallah, a city less than an hour north of Jerusalem. They also began developing outdoor crags. But they quickly discovered that establishing a climbing scene would take more than just bolting routes.

After the Arab-Israeli war��of 1948, the former British��Mandate of Palestine was broken up��into Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza. Following the Six-Day War in 1967, Israel gained control over the , a 2,180-square-mile territory��bordered by Jordan, Israel, and the Dead Sea. Following the 1993 Oslo Accords, the West Bank was divided��into administrative areas controlled by either Israel or the Palestinian Authority, a political entity that represents Palestinians in the region. About 60 percent of the West Bank is under full Israeli control, today, while��other areas��have varying levels of Palestinian autonomy. Although��some climbing existed in Israeli parts of the West Bank, where there’s limited or no access for many Palestinians, there was no climbing��in Palestinian-held areas and no programs to teach Palestinians the sport.

In order to locate cliffs in Palestinian areas��of the West Bank, Bruns and Harris teamed up with a local hydrologist to overlay topographical maps with a political one. After bolting a few outdoor routes, they started advertising top-roping trips on Facebook. Word spread quickly. Within months, one trip a week turned into four, then six, and they continued to develop routes to fit demand. Now, five years later, the Palestinian West Bank has nine��crags, around 200 routes, an indoor gym, and a new guidebook,��($22),��published this month.

Miranda Oakley on Crusade (5.13c) at a crag in Nablus, one of the oldest cities in the world (Julie Ellison)

Oakley on Maqlooba Dazed (5.10c) in Yabrud. The route is named for a hearty Palestinian dish of rice, chicken, and vegetables that often leaves you feeling dazed when you eat too much of it. (Julie Ellison)

Dana Rizek heading up ��ԹϺ�� Time (5.11c), also in Yabrud. Six months after learning to climb, she sent a 5.12a on lead. (Veronica Baker)

The new West Bank crags are mostly in the area surrounding Ramallah, which sits in a region that boasts world-class cliffs in places like Kalymnos, Greece, and Geyikbayiri, Turkey. “It’s really some of the best limestone I’ve ever climbed on,” Bruns��says. The area is defined by steep, featured faces and peppered with sport��routes and boulders, and grades range from moderate to open 5.14 projects, with plenty in the 5.9 to 5.12 range. The newly bolted cliffs have already attracted pros: Nina Caprez visited in 2014, while Miranda Oakley, Madaleine Sorkin, and Timmy O’Neill made the trip in 2017.

In the years since his first top-roping clinics, Bruns says that climbing has grown exponentially in the local community—he estimates that there have been about 4,000 sign-ups for climbing tours so far. The trips attract both locals and foreigners, including experienced climbers who have volunteered to help teach Palestinians. Bruns, who lived in the West Bank full-time from 2014 to 2017 and now regularly travels there from his home in Colorado, says that one of the things he’s most proud of is the strength of the new��Palestinian climbing community. And Wadi Climbing, which opened in 2016, has become a training and meeting center for it. There’s now an official Palestinian Climbing Club, recognized by the Ministry of Youth and Sport. And while the gym and climbing trips have been run by foreigners in the past, Bruns says that both will be led almost entirely by Palestinians in 2020.

One of the first Palestinians who learned to climb in the West Bank was��Inas, 33��(who asked to be identified by her first name only); she��got her start after seeing a Facebook post about one of Wadi Climbing’s top-roping classes. Inas says the region’s unique political situation is inseparable from everyday life. “When you visit Palestine, you can’t actually ignore the political dimension,” she says. For her and other Palestinians, climbing isn’t just a fun activity, it’s also a way to help deal with the stress of living in a place under��continued conflict. “I started rock climbing because I felt so overwhelmed and depressed, because of the news and feeling like I can’t do anything,” Inas says. “Climbing actually deals with mental and emotional problems��and helps build self-confidence.”

To find crags where Palestinians could climb safely, Bruns and Harris have had to navigate complex political boundaries. Because of the West Bank’s divided rule, Palestinians often can’t use the same roads as foreign climbers or Israelis, even in areas recognized as part of Palestine by international law. Israelis are also barred by their government from entering certain Palestinian-controlled areas.��Bruns notes that all the crags in the guidebook are accessible to Palestinians and foreigners, but some are not open to Israelis.

Urwah Askar on Yom Asel (5.10d), which in Arabic means “day of honey.” The route is in Ein Qiniya, a village to the northwest of Ramallah. (Ray Wood)

Climber Mohammed “Abu Sayyaf” Najada making a fire for tea (Henna Taylor)

Tim Bruns belays Tawfiq Najada as he climbs a 5.11d route in Yabrud called the Bullet and the Feather. It’s about ten minutes north of Ramallah. (Henna Taylor)

In the guidebook, Bruns sometimes suggests as many as three different driving directions, depending on a person’s nationality. For example, the book’s Ein Fara chapter, about a crag originally developed by Israeli climbers that’s located some nine miles north of Jerusalem, discusses how those with foreign or Israeli passports can drive directly to the crag but��Palestinians aren’t allowed to get close to the settlement, so they must take an unmarked dirt road that skirts the area or park their vehicle and hike for 45 minutes.

According to Bruns, foreigners don’t face the same access barriers. “Foreigners, especially Americans and Europeans, have free privilege to travel between the West Bank and Israel,” Bruns says. “They’re welcomed in both places.” He also says that perceptions of the West Bank as highly dangerous for tourists are overblown. “In my opinion, the West Bank is safer to travel to than certain parts of South America��or even the U.S.,” he��says. In 2017, Palestine was sixth on the UN��World Tourism Organization’s ranking of the fastest-growing tourism destinations, with a 25.7 percent increase in visitors from 2016. According to the ,��over three million tourists visited the West Bank in the first half of 2018 alone, including 110,000 visits by Americans.

Still, Bruns says it’s wise to be aware of current events. For example, he recommends avoiding areas where demonstrations are happening, especially on Fridays, when the��weekend��starts and protests are more likely. The guidebook also includes warnings for areas where climbers may encounter armed Israeli settlers or military personnel—but Bruns says that’s primarily a concern for Palestinian climbers, not visitors.

Bruns and climbers like Inas hope that Wadi Climbing’s trips will be a way for the international community to meet Palestinians and form their own impressions of the area and culture, going beyond the headlines they see at home. “As climbers, we share many things at the cliff,” Inas says. “Our stories, our backgrounds, and our experiences in climbing and in life. We can actually tell our own story, and you have the choice to listen. At least we get to have our version.”

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Climbers Are Upset Over This Buddha Climbing Hold

mlaplante — Tue, 30 Jul 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Liz George was at her local gym in��Michigan��in June when she saw something deeply off-putting. One of the holds on a top-rope route she was climbing was shaped like the�� (a monk who attained enlightenment after the original Gautama Buddha, also known as Budai and Hotei). The hold was set in a place where both grabbing it and stepping on it would assist a climber on their way to the top of the wall.��George, a climber of Indian descent who grew up Christian and doesn’t “particularly follow any religion anymore,”��avoided the Budai hold, which made the route more difficult. “If there was a crucifix up, it would be weird,”��she says. “I couldn’t step on anything that’s sacred to anyone.”

While Budai is typically depicted wearing or holding prayer beads, the climbing hold’s necklace included an unusual addition: an logo. On the climbing hold company’s website, George found that the hold was available for $63. A description from the company read,��“Ommmmm? What more can we say? The archetypal image of amazing eGrips artistry is perhaps the most recognized theme hold among fine routesetters.” The Buddha hold has been made since 2003 and was��part of a “Characters” series, which includes sea monsters, fictional character Mr. Smiles, and jungle animals. There are no Christian or other religious characters on sale.

George saw the hold as emblematic of the callousness of white climbing culture. “To be honest, it’s been a lot of things adding up at the gym and in the climbing community where I keep staying quiet because I don’t want to be the person to upset people,” George says. “But it’s gotten to a point where it’s just so frustrating. So I reached out to eGrips.”

She found the company’s response equally troubling. George shared her concerns with eGrips over a phone call. Soon after, she received an email from a company representative saying the hold was a comment on the calm people feel in climbing��and was not outside the realm of common use for the image: “We feel it is appropriate and respectful to sell this hold.”

Klinke is not Buddhist, although he says he has a deep respect for the religion, which he formed during mountaineering trips in the Himalayas.

George was not convinced by the response, which she said felt like a hollow excuse. She wrote back: “My main point is that eGrips and other American/Western companies should not find it appropriate to sell something just because someone before them commodified and misappropriated a culture outside of their own.”��She took to social media after emailing back and forth with the company. Addressing people of color in the climbing community, George wrote,��“How do you feel about stepping on Buddha?” As her posts spread, other climbers deluged eGrips with complaints. The company eventually discontinued the hold, but the process left a bad impression with many climbers of color. Catherine Tao, a rock climber and mountaineer,��was visiting her ailing grandmother in Taiwan when she saw posts about the hold on Instagram. “It wasn’t surprising, but I guess it was extra insulting given the circumstances of where I was. My grandmother’s Buddhism was a big part of her life,” Tao says. “I had just finished praying at a Buddhist altar��and turned on my phone and saw this, and I’m like, ‘Ah, that sucks.’”

George was confused by the company’s defensiveness about a hold she doubts was a top seller. , president of eGrips, confirms it was not. When I asked him if he saw how the hold could be off-putting to Buddhists, he responded, “You’re assuming my religion isn’t Buddhism.” Klinke is not Buddhist, although he says he has a deep respect for the religion, which he��formed during mountaineering trips in the Himalayas.��Klinke says the person who designed the hold��had been practicing Buddhism in Boulder, Colorado, for “several years” when he created it.

“It was a hold that people treated with respect and reverence,” says Klinke, citing conversations with gym owners and setters. “Most people, most gyms, and, again, I can’t say it was everybody, have treated the Laughing Buddha as a finish hold or put it as a blessing on the wall.”

George says the root of the issue is the commodification and appropriation of Buddhism��and how it impacts people from cultures for whom Buddhism is a central part of life and tradition. She doesn’t buy the hold’s spiritual intent.

Klinke says the company’s response was appropriate��and that he wasn’t aware of George’s complaint until after the company’s first response. He says the first representative was acting out of the limits of his authority in his response to George.��“The concern was raised.��It was raised by multiple people within a short span of time,” he says. “We’ve listened. It took a week. I don’t think that’s a long time to make a decision on anything.” George maintains that from what she could see, an eGrips employee initially said they would keep producing the hold, and the company changed its position only after pressure increased.

George maintains that from what she could see, an eGrips employee initially said they would keep producing the hold, and the company changed its position only after pressure increased.

The appropriation of Eastern religions is a common trend in the West. Tao says it’s common to see pieces of Buddhism taken out of context and used to sell products. Many companies sell T-shirts featuring an image of Budai along with a catchphrase like “don’t be a dick” or “let that shit go.” The elephant-headed Hindu god Ganesh has been used to market��,��, and��.

George and Tao say they have a complicated relationship with the climbing community. “It feels really painful to love a sport where not all of the corners of it are safe,” Tao says. The climbing gym is where George most feels at home, so it feels doubly painful when she hears something racist��or is slighted because she’s Indian. “It’s a community that I’m willing to fight for,��because it has given me a sense of home, and I know that it can be better,” she says. George notes that her local gym took the hold down after she raised her concerns.

George sees removing the Buddha hold from eGrips as one way to make the community a better place for climbers of color. While Tao is happy they’ve taken the hold down, she wants to see more.

“That’s a great first step, but I think that if that’s the only step, that’s kind of a cowardly step. I want them to make a public statement that includes an apology but also explains why they took it down,” Tao says.��(Klinke says that after the negative outcry, the company decided making a statement wasn’t in the best interest of its employees.) “I also want them to send some kind of other statement out to gyms that have purchased this hold and to tell them not to use it. Without that, it just gets swept under the rug.”

Lead photo: Stocksy/Jovana Milanko/Art by Petra Zeiler

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The Instagram Account Calling Out Harassers in Climbing

mlaplante — Tue, 07 May 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Shortly after Nikki Smith turned her personal Instagram into a public page, she began receiving a new kind of message—unwanted and unsolicited sexual advances from men emboldened by the anonymity of the internet. Smith is a multidiscipline climber and photographer, comfortable in ice boots or rock shoes, scaling frozen waterfalls, or running it out above traditional gear, but the harassment got to her in a different way.

As a trans woman, Smith felt the harassment was worse. “There’s a whole group of guys who search for hashtags and trans women’s accounts,” she says. “So it’s the type of stuff women get all the time, and my trans identity is mixed in with that, too.” Tired of taking abuse alone, Smith spoke out, first as a part of a slideshow about coming out as trans at a cleanup��event called Yosemite Facelift,��then on Instagram itself. A rush of messages showed her she was far from alone.

“I think all women that have a prominent following on social media get this,” Smith says. “Even women who don’t have a strong following get this.”

When it comes to making money in the climbing industry, Instagram is king. Sponsored athletes commonly have social-media clauses included in their contracts. Some companies ask how many followers a photographer has before committing to a partnership. Smith is a photographer as well as a climber, but she says there are weeks when��she cannot bring herself to use the platform.

Tired of taking abuse alone, Smith spoke out, first as a part of a slideshow about coming out as trans at a cleanup event called��Yosemite Facelift, then on Instagram itself.

The prevalence of harassment on Instagram has sparked a new wave of activism online, as both individuals and groups attempt to call attention to the problem by harnessing their own followings. Smith was inspired in part��by an account called , which��in late February began posting screenshots of harassing��messages, shared by any woman who wanted to contribute. The page��has an excess of content, sharing everything from Instagram and Facebook messages to e-mail. It��posted 14 photos on the��second day, with lines such as��“can you breastfeed me,” “let me see your ass,” and a series of seven e-mails—all from one person—explaining that a female climber only has a following because she is attractive. “Think about it, there are people who can climb better,” the anonymous author wrote.��

Since February, Chossy DMs has gained more than 7,000 followers. The page is run by an anonymous collection of women in the climbing industry��and didn’t respond to a request for comment.

is one of many up-and-coming climbers who has��used Instagram to attract the attention of sponsors. After building a��following as she shared her experience recovering from an ACL injury, reached out with a sponsorship offer. “Without the social-media presence, I don’t think I would have been on BlueWater’s radar,” Fischer says.

While Instagram brought her visibility and brand partnerships, it also came with drawbacks. “I’ve 100 percent experienced harassment,” Fischer says. “I think there’s something about being on social media that opens you up to that particular type of person that feels like they’re entitled to lash out at you.” She��has received explicit sexual messages��but points out that women receive a wide spectrum of��harassment online. They are nitpicked and criticized for things that would go unnoticed with��a male climber and��forced to deal with excessive aggression and rudeness on what is an increasingly important professional platform.

Fischer says she gets enough out off social media to stick with it, despite the drawbacks. She’s met climbing partners through Instagram and been inspired to go new places. She tries not to let the unseemly conduct of others affect her, telling herself that there’s something wrong with the harasser, not her. She calls people out for their behavior, posting screenshots of inappropriate messages, and tries to show other women that being targeted by anonymous men doesn’t say anything about their character. Fischer, however, can walk away at any time. As a part-time professional climber who makes most of her money doing digital marketing for outdoor brands, she isn’t financially dependent on the platform.

But for climbing photographers looking to support themselves through their work, Instagram is more important. In the last three years, has built herself a significant Instagram following as a climber and adventure photographer. Carlson has only recently begun to make money from that work, and she guides rock-climbing trips��to fill in the gaps. She hopes to support herself with climbing photography alone��but uses Instagram for other business ventures. When she teamed up with her friend Mary Eden to offer Indian Creek crack-climbing clinics, most of their clients signed up through Instagram. The pair have a combined following of over 115,000, with the attendant minefield of a comment section.

Fischer has received explicit sexual messages��but points out��that women receive a wide spectrum of harassment online.

In one photo Carlson posted, she back-clipped a twisted quickdraw,��and a man bravely volunteered his opinion on proper technique. “He mansplained a bit��and was telling me how to clip a draw correctly,” Carlson remembers. “Me being sassy and wanting to stick up for myself, I commented, ‘Everyone’s an expert’ with a winky face.” The man then tried to get her fired from her guiding job. When she blocked him, he made a new account and began harassing her, saying he would delete his post if she unblocked his account. The harassment was mean, but not sexual or overtly threatening, and Carlson decided to let it blow over.

“A lot of the time, you do have to ignore it, because you’re just feeding it, and that’s what they’re looking for,” Carlson says. “The less I think about it, the happier I am, and the more I can focus on my climbing goals. But there are��definitely moments from time to time where it does get in the way.”

Other online harassers are more persistent, verging on stalking. A man once left a��threatening voice mail��on pro skier Caroline Gleich’s phone��during Thanksgiving dinner,��calling her a “silver-spoon spoiled bitch.” Looking back at harassing comments left on her social media over the years, she noticed patterns that indicated the��same man may have been targeting her in comments all that time.

Most people could identify positives and negatives about��how social media affects their lives, but women are saddled with more than their share of the cons. Smith says that as much as the platforms have brought to her life, the pervasive harassment she receives online sullies the experience.

On March 1, Chossy DMs��wrote: “Lifting women up is not the same thing as bringing men down.”

Accounts like Chossy DMs show women that they are not alone in harassment, and they show��men a side of social media that they may never have considered. When women are told “you must sit on my mustache” or are sent a dick pic out of the blue, they can forward it to Chossy DMs and get some support from the climbing community. Chossy DMs’s��attempts to draw attention to harassment through humor, however, are not always well received. While the page usually blurs out harassers’ usernames, focusing on making light of the messages, the account has received messages stating “public shaming is not cool” or “stop slamming your political agenda down our throats.” Chossy DMs doesn’t see it that way.��On March 1, the page administrators��wrote: “Lifting women up is not the same thing as bringing men down.”

, Carlson, and Fischer all have their own ways of calling attention to online harassment. Fischer screenshots inappropriate DMs and calls harassers out, while Smith has been increasingly sharing harassment she receives as part of her trans advocacy work. On ��Smith brought up harassment on her professional Instagram��page.

“After seeing what many other women in the climbing world and beyond are receiving in their DMs, it’s time to talk,” Smith wrote. “If you are a climber or in the outdoor world, chances are you follow some of the women who have shared posts on @chossydms.” Smith began tracking how many messages she received starting in July 2018. By the time she posted nine months later, on March 8,��International Women’s Day, she had 138 screenshots.

“Social media’s tricky. I do it because it’s a part of my business,��but also because I was able to find community as I was trying to find out more about who I was. I had a whole community of trans women that I followed, and was able to learn from, and ask questions I wasn’t able to ask anywhere else,” Smith says. “There are��a lot of good things about social media, but there are the negatives of perpetuating image issues and easy access for men with anonymity.”

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