The Climbing Majority

If you don't already know who Steph Abegg is, I can almost certainly say that you've used her work. Her detailed route topos, trip reports, and beta overlays appear all over the internet covering climbs from the North Cascades to Red Rocks. For nearly 20 years, she's been quietly building one of the most comprehensive free climbing resources on the internet—not for profit, not for sponsorship, but because she genuinely loves documenting routes and helping people have better days in the mounta...

Drew Brodhead is the Staff Advocacy Coordinator and Anchor Maintenance Coordinator for the Salt Lake Climbers Alliance, one of the most respected local climbing organizations in the country. With 18+ years of climbing experience and SPRAT Level 3 certification, Drew leads a professional anchor maintenance program that rebolts routes across the Wasatch Range April through November. This episode explores what it actually means to professionally maintain climbing infrastructure, the ethics of re...

Jared Wicks has been a rock climber for over 30 years, he is a former SWAT officer, and one of seven full-time commissioned officers on the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department Search and Rescue team. Born and raised in Montana, Jared served in the military and spent his off-duty hours climbing at Red Rock—falling so in love with the area that he moved to Las Vegas in 2006 specifically to combine his passion for climbing with a career in law enforcement. After nearly two decades working p...

David Baltz started climbing in 1974 when there were only eight climbers in all of Albuquerque. Over five decades, he's witnessed climbing's transformation from a fringe pursuit requiring pitons and commitment...to a commercialized sport with grid-bolted crags and documentaries glorifying free soloing. This episode explores the clean climbing revolution that defined David's early years, the bolting controversies that followed sport climbing's arrival in New Mexico, and what gets lost when saf...

After being literally run over by a school bus in Atlanta, climber Taylor Martin rebuilt her life through big mountain pursuits and solo aid climbing. This episode dives deep into Taylor's five new Yosemite first ascents established in a single season, including several big and technical aid routes in Yosemite. We explore her 70-hour Hardrock 100 ski traverse with only one hour of sleep, advanced aid climbing techniques like back-looping and daisy soloing, and the psychological toll of spendi...

Vitaliy is one of the most prolific and respected alpinists of his generation and has a reputation as a master of long, complex alpine objectives—including becoming the first person to complete The Goliath Traverse in the Eastern Sierra…which might be the longest ridge traverse in the western hemisphere…if not the world.. He's established more first ascents in the Eastern Sierra than any other person, authored a three-volume guidebook series to the Eastern Sierra, and spent years developing n...

Randy Leavitt. As a climber who grew up in Southern California, I’ve been hearing this name since the very beginning of my climbing career. Collaborative inventor of the wide-crack climbing technique so aptly named “Leavittation,” developer of thousands of routes — with around a dozen graded 5.14 or harder, including Jumbo Love at Clark Mountain, the first 5.15 in the United States — and long-time athlete manager for Maxim Ropes… Randy’s name has carried serious weight and inspiration for dec...

In his earlier years, Kevin dedicated his life to the craft of climbing. He lived in a van, chased adventure across the globe, and devoted every ounce of his energy to the pursuit of performance. During that chapter, he climbed up to 5.13b, established several major first ascents, and ticked over fifteen hundred routes. Climbing wasn’t just something Kevin did — it was who he was. His identity was built around his achievements, his grades, and his ever-growing tick list… until one day, everyt...

Red Rock Canyon is a National Conservation Area about 17 miles from the Las Vegas Strip. Its striking red and cream-colored sandstone walls hold thousands of climbs — from 20-foot sport routes to adventurous 20-pitch trad lines. Today, I’m sitting down with long-time local Andrew Fulton. Andrew has been climbing in Red Rocks since January of 1993 — back before the city even had climbing gyms, when pioneers like George and Joanne Urioste were putting up countless first ascents in the canyon. O...

My guest today is Michael Levy: recreational alpinist, rock climber, journalist and the owner and editor of The Summit Journal. Originally founded in 1955 by Jean Crenshaw and Helen Kilness, The Summit Journal was the first climbing-focused print publication in the U.S.—with Royal Robbins as its main editor. For decades it thrived, reaching over 10,000 subscribers, before being discontinued in 1996. After purchasing the rights to the name, Micheal has since revitalized it into a thriving, sub...

We kick things off by diving into the nuances of Totems—what their limitations are, whether they’re as good as everyone says, and whether the mystical powers of the black Totem are fact or fiction. From there, we dig into climbing partnerships: what to look for, what to avoid, and how we can all be better partners. Tal shares two of his closest calls in the mountains and how they shaped his evolving relationship with risk. And then, we shift to Tal’s true passion: Wonderland. A 5 sqmi area so...

Today, we’re continuing our conversation with Dean Rosnau. If you haven’t listened to Part I yet, I highly recommend checking that out before diving into this episode. We pick up with one of the most personal and tragic stories in Dean’s life: the loss of his close friend, Pete Schoerner, in an ice climbing accident. This part of the conversation is heavy—graphic at times—so please proceed with that in mind. But it’s also an important story, one that opens the door to a deeper conversation ar...

Today, we’re picking up right where we left off with Petch Pietrolungo—climber, AMGA certified guide, free soloist, and the local legend of Lover’s Leap in California. If you missed part one of this conversation, I highly recommend heading back and starting there—it’ll give you a deeper appreciation for where we’re going today. In this second part, we dive into Petch’s journey to becoming an AMGA-certified guide and how he launched Lover’s Leap Guides back in 2003. We take a close look ...