At 50 years strong, the Banff Mountain Film and Book Festival is celebrating its golden anniversary with a headliner who embodies everything the festival stands for: boldness, creativity, and a relentless drive toward the unknown.

Christina “Lusti” Lustenberger — former Olympian turned pioneering ski mountaineer — takes center stage this year fresh off a streak of history-making first descents all over the globe.

“It’s been a whirlwind of really wild pursuits for me, and then just putting my foot to the ground working on these film projects,” the Canadian athlete told GearJunkie. “Now I’m ready to celebrate.”

The festival runs November 1–9 at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity in Banff, Alberta, with two films about Lusti’s recent exploits bookending the lineup. After that, the film festival will come to cities throughout the U.S. and Canada. While Lustenberger may be the headliner, she’s one of many women dominating this year’s festival about the biggest achievements — and most compelling stories — in mountaineering.

‘Dr. Seuss Kind of Stuff’

Robson, premiering Nov. 1, chronicles Lusti’s attempt, with French alpinist Guillaume Pierrel, to make the first descent of the South Face of Mount Robson, the highest peak in the Canadian Rockies at 12,972 feet.

“I had been dreaming of, and thinking about, this line for 10 years,” Lusti said.

Mount Robson is both a cornerstone of Canadian mountaineering and Lusti’s home peak: She grew up in the basin just west of the Rockies. Director Philip Forsey weaves in stories from past expeditions, highlighting the pioneers who’d gone before. “It’s a tribute to the history, and to the mountain itself,” Lusti said.

Trango screens on Nov. 8, during the festival’s closing weekend. The film narrates Lusti’s first ski descent — with Jim Morrison and team — of Great Trango Tower, a 20,623-foot granite monolith in Pakistan’s Karakoram range. Due to its remoteness, sheer verticality, and severe weather, Great Trango Tower is among the most technical (and intimidating) peaks on the planet.

“I’d never seen a line like that, like otherworldly Dr. Seuss kind of stuff,” Lusti said. “It’s hard to imagine a mountain as intricate and complex.”

She praised director Leo Hoorn for capturing the line’s scale and surreal beauty: “It’s going to look so sick on the big screen,” she added.

Unlike Mount Robson, Great Trango Tower had no history of ski mountaineering. Lusti was the first to even imagine it, let alone attempt it. The objective was 2 years in the making and included a failed 2023 attempt. “Doing something visionary in one of the world’s great ranges, there’s a sense of pride with that,” Lusti said. “Now to come home and share it is pretty incredible.”

A Fresh Lineup of Banff Films

A total of 87 films will screen at this year’s festival, including 17 world premieres, 10 North American premieres, and 29 Canadian premieres.

The Banff Centre received hundreds of submissions, and this year’s selections are among the strongest ever, said Joanna Croston, the festival’s director of mountain culture. “Adventure film is no longer the small niche genre it once was,” Croston told GearJunkie.

Along with Lusti’s films, one of the most eagerly anticipated screenings is The Finisher, the story of Jasmin Paris’s groundbreaking achievement in 2024, when she became the first woman in the Barkley Marathons’ 38-year history to complete the grueling endurance event. There’s also Chasing Time, photographer James Balog’s latest film. It explores time and immortality against the backdrop of his life’s work to bring compelling visual evidence of climate change.

Adventure film fans are also stoked to see Girl Climber, Emily Harrington’s frank account of pushing herself in the male-dominated world of elite big-wall climbing. In Best Day Ever, the film follows the progress of adaptive mountain bikers Allie Bianchi and Greg Durso. These athletes tackle the first fully adaptive trail network on earth, located in Vermont’s Green Mountains.

Women Dominate Film Festival

Both Croston and Lusti noted a surge in adventure films featuring — and created by — women. Last year, more than half of Banff’s award-winning titles were directed or produced by women. In 2025, for the first time ever, female filmmakers will outnumber men in the festival’s flagship Adventure Filmmakers Workshop.

It’s that momentum that Lusti said she’s most excited to see.

“There’s so many sports where females are at the leading edge,” she said. “I really want to see the next generation of women come blazing through the f*****g door.”

Over the next few months, the Banff Film Festival will go on tour to cities throughout Canada and the U.S., along with several international premieres. Visit the festival website to view its screening schedule and find the closest premiere to where you live.

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In 2024, news of a prominent climber, Charlie Barrett, getting arrested for rape rocked the climbing community. Many were aghast at how this could’ve happened. Annette McGivney’s Outside article that chronicled his crimes was even titled “How Did This Climber Get Away with So Much For So Long?”

Long after the beginning of MeToo, climbing was beginning to reckon with how its communities, members, and organizations harbored and even enabled rapists, child sex abusers, and other perpetrators of sexual violence.

In all of these worthwhile discussions, one subject remained in the shadows: domestic abuse and intimate partner violence. What happens when your abuser is both your romantic partner and your belay partner?

In the sport of climbing, where partnerships and mentors are so integral to success across disciplines, how does the community respond when those partnerships turn from a source of support to a source of violence?

Fallon Rowe’s new memoir, Pay No Mind, pulls at this thread, retelling the 7 months she was in an abusive relationship with her boyfriend and climbing partner. In unflinching detail, Rowe recounts the series of events that led to violence, rape, and, eventually, freedom.

How could this have happened for so long?

It’s stories from survivors like Rowe that will help us grasp the full complexity of intimate partner violence, and what we as a community and as individuals can do to aid victims and prevent abuse. I read an advance copy of the book, and spoke with Rowe about her intentions and writing process.

How the Story Unfolds

Rowe’s book plays out in four parts. First, it’s her life as a young 19-year-old college student and climber in Utah. She’s overwhelmed by responsibilities, but bright and passionate and full of potential. Next, Rowe meets the charismatic Dan, and gets swept up in the joy of climbing and a new relationship. Red flags begin to emerge about Dan, but they’re easily swept aside.

Next, the duo takes a trip to climb Fitz Roy in Patagonia, and here, Dan’s all-encompassing pattern of abuse goes on full display. Trapped with no money and no escape, Rowe struggles to survive the trip and the relationship.

Once they return to Utah, Rowe continually attempts, and subsequently fails, to leave Dan, until one night, she finally breaks free.

Many memoirs about a challenge or a struggle fall into a pattern: one part before, one part during, and one part after. Rowe purposefully eschewed this structure. Readers don’t get an “after”: There are only seven pages describing what Rowe’s life looked like once she left Dan. She doesn’t detail going to therapy or processing her PTSD, and there’s a reason.

“To tackle what happened afterwards, I’d need a whole other book. I didn’t want to rush or simplify and shove it into one final part,” Rowe said. She wanted the focus to remain solely on her 7 months with Dan and what abuse looks like.

“I hope that it leaves an impression on people, especially people who’ve never been through this, or don’t have anyone in their life who’s been through something like this. I hope it helps them see it more clearly, so they can have more compassion.”

The Cycle of Abuse

While of course, by definition, a story about abuse is difficult to read, Rowe’s is particularly challenging to read, even as it’s engrossing. In Patagonia, after enduring threats and violence and verbal abuse, Rowe manages to sneak away from Dan to a hostel, and plans to take a bus back to the airport. After reading Dan belittle and attack Rowe for hundreds of pages, I exhaled a sigh of relief: She’s finally going to be free.

On the next page, my heart sunk. Dan manages to find her and steals her passport, and Rowe has no choice but to go with him.

Some variant of this happens time and time again in the book. Over and over, Rowe gets so close to leaving Dan, only to be drawn back. Rowe recognizes this cycle is hard to read, and it’s even harder to live.

Whatever frustration the reader feels with the situation can only force them to consider the frustration and desperation Rowe must have felt at the time.

“If you felt exhausted and frustrated reading this book, know you’re in good company. That was the point,” Rowe wrote in the afterword.

“I want readers to understands what it feels like to get spun round and round in an endless cycle, each phase faithfully following the last: tension building, violent episode, reconciliation. Rinse and repeat. Familiarize yourself with one of the many diagrams of it, and avoid it at all costs.”

One of the biggest misconceptions people have about abuse, Rowe says, is saying victims should just leave at the first signs of trouble. The control an abuser exerts can be complex and all-encompassing.

“I really wanted this book to show the push and pull, and wanting to leave, but not being able to leave feeling so stuck,” she said.

Supporting Victims

Most people would like to think that if they saw a person in a dangerous relationship, they’d intervene to help. And yet, Pay No Mind demonstrates both how easy inaction is and how manipulative abusers can be.

On one of their many hikes up to base camp to drop off gear in Patagonia, Dan violently swings his ice axe around as he verbally berates Rowe.

“Eventually he saw people coming down the trail, and it was like a switch was flipped — immediately, a calm washed over him. He looked completely normal, and the ice axe lazily swung by his side. I wiped my tears, incredulous at how easily he could just turn it on and off,” Rowe wrote.

“The hikers passed us without thinking anything of it. I secretly hoped one of them noticed what was happening. As soon as they were out of sight, Dan’s rampage resumed.”

This is just one episode where Rowe silently pleads with strangers, begging for someone to intervene and come to her aid. She chose the title, Pay No Mind, to reflect these moments.

“When we pay no mind to something, we’re almost willfully ignoring it. And I wanted that as the title because there were people who knew what was going on, or saw punches or certain things happen, and they didn’t step in,” Rowe said.

“It takes all of us as a community to try to warn each other about these kinds of people or speak up at the crag if you can.”

Rowe understands the challenge this kind of situation presents. Abusers can be master manipulators, and directly confronting one can be dangerous or make things worse for the victim. She emphasizes that any action you take should protect the victim; having a conversation alone with them and offering support is an important first step.

Climbing Culture

While abuse can happen to anyone in any situation, or in any sport, the unique qualities of climbing can create environments that act as a breeding ground for unhealthy relationship dynamics.

When Rowe met Dan, he promised he’d make her a stellar crack climber, he’d take her across the world, and she’d get to the next level if she was with him.

“This kind of power dynamic is really common, especially in climbing, because you need a mentor, and they’re often a man, and they’re often older than you, and that inherently creates this power dynamic and imbalance, and it can put you in a position, if you’re really driven, like I was, that you’ll put up with a lot to keep moving towards your dreams,” Rowe said.

“And I don’t want other women or girls to think that they have to do that, and for them to know that there are other options.”

“Pay No Mind” is available for preorder here before its November 26, 2025, release. You can hear more from Fallon Rowe on her Instagram.

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The LIDAR Data mapping Colorado’s Park, Custer, and Fremont Counties was published in 2020, and it raised questions for Eric Gilbertson. The mountaineer and mechanical engineer likes to conduct ground surveys on peaks in his spare time, and his friend Ben Loftin pointed out how close Crestone and East Crestone Peaks’ elevations looked on the LIDAR data. They were damn near identical on the map.

Gilbertson couldn’t get that out of his head.

“LIDAR data can have errors,” Gilbertson told GearJunkie. “So, if you see a summit that’s elevation [is derived] from LIDAR, it could be plus or minus a couple of feet.”

So, in October 2025, he and two other scientists set out to determine the precise elevation of both peaks. It was a challenging undertaking — not just because Crestone is one of Colorado’s most notoriously difficult and dangerous 14ers, but also because they’d have to climb it carrying heavy survey equipment. Then, once at the top, they’d need to let the Trimble DA2 dGNSS receivers log data for at least 2 hours. But the effort paid off.

On Oct. 5, Gilbertson confirmed for the first time that East Crestone Peak is actually 3.6 inches taller than Crestone. And because they’re connected by a ridge that barely dips 50 feet, “this means East Crestone is in fact a ranked 14er and Crestone is a sub-peak,” Gilbertson said.

That might not seem like a big change to some. But for the thousands of hikers and climbers who obsess over Colorado’s 14,000+ foot peaks, it’s big news. According to Gilbertson’s findings, the Centennial State may have just lost one 14er and gained a new one.

The 3.6-Inch Difference: East Crestone vs. Crestone

Gilbertson is an associate teaching professor of mechanical and civil engineering at Seattle University. He’s summited K2 without oxygen, climbed to Mount Everest’s “death zone” without oxygen, and has bagged all of the Centennial 14ers (Crestone Peak, included).

Last year, he surveyed Mount Rainier and definitively proved that the summit had moved over 500 feet from the summit point recognized by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). A graduate of MIT, he’s a no-nonsense kind of person who approaches problems very methodically. He applied that meticulousness to the Crestone survey.

“I did this as rigorously as possible,” he said.

They used two separate receivers, one on each peak. The receivers took data simultaneously so that any atmospheric distortions would be the same for both data sets.

“Each of these receivers is on a 1-foot rod, which is perfectly vertical and touching the exact summit. And then that’s stabilized with a tripod,” he described. “So then we can measure the height of the receiver, and subtract off a foot, and you get the height of the ground underneath it.”

The longer these receivers log data, the more accurate it gets. So, after leaving the trailhead at 1:30 a.m., hiking the grueling trail to the summit, and arriving right at sunrise, he, Peter Klein, and Elijah Gendron had to hang out at 14,299 feet for 2 hours and 15 minutes.

It made for a long day, not least because Gilbertson had his flight home that same afternoon. It was a race against the clock to gather the data they needed, get down, and then get to DIA as fast as possible.

But you can’t rush science. So, they waited, taking in the views, relaxing, checking up on the receivers, taking measurements, and generally killing time until the data was done logging.

Gilbertson made his flight. When he reviewed the data back at his Seattle home, he was pretty excited about what they’d discovered: a 3.6-inch difference in favor of East Crestone Peak.

“It’s really close,” he said. “Which is why we were using all the fancy equipment.”

Making It ‘Official’

Now that we have the data to show that East Creston is the true summit, the USGS should make it official, change the maps, and notify the public. Right?

It’s not quite that simple, according to Gilbertson.

“I think it’s kind of unclear what ‘official’ means,” he said. “So what I do is I try to put these surveys in academic, peer-reviewed scientific journals. So like, my Rainier measurement is now accepted in a scientific journal … I have another paper, and it’s going through the process. It’s [about] the accuracy of LIDAR measurements on mountain summits. So this will be one of those data points. I have about 170 other mountains.”

He said he isn’t sure how else something becomes “official” besides publishing it in a journal. When his discovery at Mount Rainier was published, he said USGS “didn’t care at all.” It was interesting news for climbers, mountaineers, and Seattle locals. But the government didn’t take it seriously enough to change anything. He expects a similar response to this discovery about East Crestone.

Still, the news is scientifically important, and that’s important to him — which counts for something. “It’s definitely neat to discover something new. That’s one of my motivations for measuring mountains,” he said. And, this news about Crestone seems particularly important to people in the Centennial State. “It seems like in Colorado, many more people are interested here, even compared to the Rainier measurement.”

So, if Crestone is still on your 14er list, you might consider climbing East Crestone instead. It’s a short distance from one to the other and just 3.5 inches of extra elevation.

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Take it from a native like me: Texas doesn’t offer a lot of climbing.

Yes, there is world-class bouldering at Hueco Tanks. But the El Paso–adjacent crag is also a 10+ hour drive from most of the state’s major cities. Other than that, the Lone Star State’s dearth of public land allows for only a handful of other crags.

Among those, the wealth of quality rock and the central location of Enchanted Rock (a state-owned area) has long made it a top destination for the state’s many climbers. But a new climbing area is now available as well — at least for a handful of weekends over the next year.

Access Fund, a nonprofit dedicated to keeping climbing areas open and accessible, has created a partnership with the owners of Inks Ranch near Llano, Texas. Located about a half-hour drive from Enchanted Rock, or 2 hours from Austin, it’s a historic cattle ranch with some high-quality rock.

The family that owns the ranch partnered with Access Fund in 2017 to grant access to its acres of rock features and climbing on approved weekends. That partnership has been renewed again for the 2025/2026 season, and access to the climbing area is back and kicks off on October 24-26. Climbing is only available on approved weekends.

Inks Ranch: A Closer Look

The climbing at Inks Ranch will be similar for anyone who has climbed at Enchanted Rock, according to Access Fund. A Rakkup guidebook to the area says the family-owned ranch contains “a trove of granite boulders, slabs, and cracks.”

There’s a mix of bouldering, trad, and sport climbing available. The area remains so rare that if you climb a route not listed in the guide, it could very well be a first ascent.

In past years, the ranch has also hosted the Inks Ranch Climbing Festival, though it hasn’t been repeated since 2022. Since then, the area has only opened intermittently on certain weekends, thanks to the partnership with Access Fund. Available dates over the coming months include:

• Oct. 24-26, 2025
• Jan. 30-Feb. 1, 2026
• Feb. 27-Mar. 1, 2026
• March 27-29, 2026

If you plan on heading out to the crag, Access Fund said that “climbers should be self-reliant and competent with route finding, anchor building, and should always ensure that they have a way to descend a climb without leaving gear or tat behind.”

Spaces are limited, so interested climbers must reserve their spot through Access Fund. Also, climbers love to check out new crags, so we wouldn’t be surprised to see a lot of interest in this one.

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Famous rock climber Alex Honnold is taking his talents from mountains to city buildings. The streaming giant this week announced “Skyscraper Live,” a 2-hour live special debuting in early 2026, in which Honnold will climb a 101-story skyscraper in Taiwan without ropes or a harness.

The 40-year-old climbing sensation is well known for his ropeless ascents, chronicled in the Oscar-winning documentary, “Free Solo.” But the upcoming “buildering” project will not be the first time Honnold has tackled a skyscraper. In 2018, while promoting the debut of “Free Solo,” Honnold attempted to scale a 69-floor luxury apartment building in New Jersey (a project he had to abort after the 24th floor due to wet conditions).

“’Skyscraper Live’ will kick off 2026 as our latest global must-watch live event,” Brandon Riegg, Netflix’s vice president of nonfiction series and sports, said in a press release. “Watching Alex Honnold free-climb Taipei 101 will be an adrenaline-inducing spectacle that you can’t look away from. Everyone will be talking about it as it happens.”

Netflix’s ‘Skyscraper Live’: Honnold Sends a Building

In the live special, Honnold will attempt to free solo the aptly named Taipei 101, a 101-story skyscraper in Taiwan.

The structure, built in 2004, is 1,667 feet tall, making it the 11th-tallest building in the world. He is the first person to attempt to free solo the building.

Honnold said he’s been toying with the idea of climbing the Taipei 101 as far back as 2012. Already the most famous rock climber in the world, the event will likely draw viewers in. The special is part of Netflix’s growing push toward live sports.

“’Skyscraper Live’ will kick off 2026 as our latest global must-watch live event,” Brandon Riegg, Netflix’s Vice President of Nonfiction Series & Sports, said in a press release. “Watching Alex Honnold free-climb Taipei 101 will be an adrenaline-inducing spectacle that you can’t look away from. Everyone will be talking about it as it happens.”

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One of climbing’s most iconic walls witnessed a tragic accident this week, after a young climber died in an accident on El Capitan in Yosemite this week.

Balin Miller, 23, a promising athlete in the climbing world who just this summer claimed the first solo ascent of Denali’s Slovak Direct, died Wednesday, his father, David Miller, confirmed in an Instagram post.

Balin Miller Dies on El Cap

According to a Facebook post from local photographer, Tom Evans, Miller was finishing his solo aid climb of Sea of Dreams, a route up the southeast face of El Capitan, when the accident occurred.

“[He] was hauling his bag up the last pitch when it became stuck. So he went down his lead line to clear it,” Evans posted. “His rope didn’t reach the bag’s location by many feet, but he seemed unaware of that fact. On the way down, he rappelled off the end of the rope.”

There has been no official post from Yosemite authorities, although the official National Park Service page notes some services may be unavailable during the government shutdown, which began on October 1. GearJunkie reached out for comment from Yosemite officials, but received an automated message about operations suspended due to the shutdown.

Rappelling accidents can be common in climbing; according to the American Alpine Club, there were eight fatal rappelling incidents in 2023. Famed professional climber Brad Gobright died in 2019 after similarly rappelling off the end of his rope at Mexico’s El Potero Chico.

Although he was only in his early 20s, Miller was already on his way to making a name for himself in the climbing world. In addition to Miller’s solo ascent of the 9,000-foot Slovak Direct route, he also accomplished impressive ascents in the Canadian Rockies and Mt. Hunter in Alaska.

It takes a lot to stop me in my tracks while scrolling through Instagram. A few weeks ago, though, a post popped into my feed that did just that. A climber I hadn’t heard of before, David Lloyd, made a post accusing a popular app for digital climbing guidebooks, KAYA, of copying from his guidebook for a bouldering area in Wyoming. The app denied the accusations, but the post quickly exploded, with over 400 comments. 

The scope of the debate ranged from KAYA and other guidebook authors speaking to their experiences, to comments that could only be described as mudslinging. People blasted KAYA with comments like, “Dirty company at best. Watered down clones of hard, gritty years of work,” and they also critiqued Lloyd, saying, “You don’t own the folklore. Sit down.”

The subject quickly spawned its own post in the most popular climbing subreddit, r/climbing. 

While of course I was curious about the veracity of these accusations, I was almost more drawn to the question of why this issue was so contentious, why it was sparking such strong reactions from the climbing community, a group that, in my experience, was all about stoke, encouragement, and pure love of the sport. I immediately knew that I wanted to bring nuance and understanding to this issue that had provoked such fierce tribalism. 

To that end, ​​I spoke with dozens of stakeholders, including guidebook authors, publishers, and local climbing organizations. I spoke with KAYA’s co-founder and CEO and its marketing manager in an hour and 20-minute virtual meeting, and had several follow-up conversations with them via email.

No matter what side you stand on in this controversy, it’s clear that it’s not a case of black and white, but one entirely colored by shades of gray, and one that plays on decades-old tensions within the climbing community.

What Is KAYA, Anyway?

Founded in 2019, KAYA began as an app for climbing gyms, allowing users to log climbs and workouts. Over time, it expanded to include information on outdoor climbing areas. In 2022, it published its first digital guidebook to Joe’s Valley, a bouldering area in Utah. 

According to its website, KAYA’s guidebooks offer “exact GPS locations, detailed navigation, comprehensive topos, and thousands of beta videos — all downloadable for offline use.” These guidebooks are only available with a KAYA PRO subscription, a service that costs $60 per year or $13 per month. 

How KAYA Gets Its Guides

When it comes to acquiring new digital guidebooks, KAYA CEO David Gurman and Marketing Manager Eric Jerome described their typical process as following a few key steps. First, they’ll reach out to the author of an existing print guidebook, if one exists.

They’ll also contact each area’s local climbing organization (LCO). These grassroots nonprofits manage trail maintenance, land access, and hardware replacement for climbers.

In addition to the contributor, or author, each KAYA guidebook also has a moderator, a person who monitors access issues and updates the guidebook as things change over time. As far as financial compensation is concerned, KAYA gets 47.5% of revenue, the contributor gets 33.25%, the moderator gets 14.25% (47.5% if the contributor and moderator are the same person, which is often the case), and then 5% goes to LCOs.

How each user’s subscription fee is divided among areas is dictated proportionally based on which guides they view.

If the author of the print guide declines to work with KAYA, “We’ll try to get convergence on local community representation, [find] someone who’s got a tie to the local area, who’s been a part of the recent wave of development, who kind of understands what’s happening on the ground,” Gurman said. 

When It Works, Everybody Wins

GearJunkie spoke with several authors who describe their experience with KAYA as following this stated playbook. Alan Watts and Andrew Leich, who wrote print guidebooks for Smith Rock State Park and Cheat Canyon Bouldering, respectively, have had zero issues working with KAYA on digital versions.

Jason Kehl is the moderator for the Hueco Tanks guidebook on KAYA and reported a positive experience.

“From my end, it’s been great. There’s not a lot of money in guidebooks in general, and what they’re paying is actually a little more than I was expecting,” Kehl said. “And I love being able to access the app from the back end if, say, a hold breaks, or you know, something gets downgraded.”

KAYA’s Rocky Relationships

While many of KAYA’s digital guidebooks undergo a smooth publishing process, the app has given rise to three key issues among the climbing community at large: ethics, access, and evolution.

Ethics: Can’t Beat ‘Em, Join ‘Em?

Steven Jeffrey helped publish KAYA’s first digital guidebook back in 2022 for the sandstone boulders of Joe’s Valley in Utah. But he had to request his name be added as the author after KAYA initially published the guide without attributing authorship to Jeffrey. He admitted he opted to work with the platform with some reservations.

“In the world of law and lawyers, they technically can’t steal your book, but they sure can write a guidebook right over top of you. So I would suggest joining KAYA to save your ass,” Jeffrey said. 

But for authors who refuse to join KAYA’s growing library, the quick digitization of painstaking work that took seasons of their lives can be tough to swallow.

Andy White assembled a guidebook to 2,000 boulder problems in Canada’s Okanagan Valley over the span of 8 years. Kimbrough Moore co-authored a 464-page guide to Yosemite Bouldering. Both say that after turning down KAYA’s offer, KAYA sent climbers into the field using their work to populate digital content for the app in a matter of months.

The complaints go on, with authors claiming to see KAYA employees and/or local climbers with their guidebook in one hand, and a cellphone uploading photos and routes in the other. Some have even sleuthed KAYA employees purchasing paywalled guides in rivaling GunksApp, only to publish the same area on the KAYA app. In some instances, even names of projects only published in a single guidebook will quickly appear on the KAYA app.

The common refrain among guidebook authors was the extraordinary amount of labor that went into locating, identifying, photographing, and describing boulder problems that are sometimes miles into the woods.

Guidebook authors like Moore and White maintain that KAYA avoids the years of research and on-the-ground work that go into making guidebooks. Before they published the Yosemite book, Moore and his co-authors, James Lucas and Shannon Joslin, spent 3 days hiking 40 miles in Yosemite to double-check problems and retake photos. 

Since acquiring its first guidebook in November 2022, Kaya now has 113 verified digital guidebooks behind its paywall, with approximately another 60 in development.

Moore believes that it is impossible to have achieved that rate of growth ethically.

“Some guidebooks take many years to write. And in the last three years, I believe [KAYA] assembled over 100 or so,” he said. “How can a tech company accomplish this? The only answer is by duplicating existing research, because it’s just not possible to accomplish what they have in an ethical way,” he said. 

For its part, KAYA responds to complaints as they arise, sometimes removing guides altogether, other times delisting them as verified, “official” guides.

Gurman called these instances “early missteps” that were “overzealous.” Gurman’s team has even gone so far as to publish a blog post to address many of the accusations directly, and more clearly outline how the app intends to work with authors. And, KAYA has categorically denied any accusations of plagiaristic behavior. 

The Tricky Truth of Access

While the technological component of this debate is modern, in reality, it touches on one of climbing’s eternal core tensions: access versus gatekeeping. On one hand, as climbers, we all want people to have the ability to climb outside and find joy in the sport. You shouldn’t have to be part of the “in crowd” to climb outside.

On the other hand, sometimes areas need to be gatekept and only be known by word of mouth for access to be preserved. 

KAYA sees itself as a harbinger of equitable access for all.

“We built KAYA as a tool to help climbers have their best adventures and share meaningful experiences together. We’ve designed the experience and our community standards to promote a more inclusive digital space for climbers compared to other platforms that some may consider elitist and intimidating,” Jerome said in an email. 

But many guidebook authors expressed concern that the wide accessibility of information on apps like KAYA may lead to overuse and overcrowding of climbing areas, potentially resulting in landowners revoking access.

Often, local areas have unwritten rules, or areas where access is allowed, but highly sensitive. 

“In the south Okanagan, there’s a lot of very access-sensitive bouldering that we purposely did not put in the [print] guidebook for that reason,” White said. He’s concerned about what might happen if those areas come onto apps like KAYA.

There has not been a case of access being revoked to areas due to an influx of climbers from KAYA, but authors worry all the same.

Evolution of Tradition

Climbing began as a counterculture sport and has long been the purview of self-described dirtbags and hippies. As climbing has gone more mainstream with the growth of gyms, some fear that KAYA represents how climbing is losing its way.

“KAYA is some mass-marketed, passionless business with an end goal and a means to get there that doesn’t really include the dedication and the pioneers [of the sport],” Fred Knapp, owner of print guidebook publisher Sharp End, asserted.

In many ways, this controversy is just the latest in climbing’s long history of tradition butting up against evolution. While we herald and celebrate innovators in the sport, at the same time, we bristle at change.

In the 1970s, it was Royal Robbins chopping off the bolts Warren Harding had left on El Capitan, symbolic of their differences in climbing ethics. In the 1980s, what’s now accepted practice — bolting routes for sport climbing — ignited a firestorm, as trad climbers opposed this manipulation of the natural rock. In the 2010s, the boom in commercial climbing gyms made some debate whether the sport was losing its soul in favor of prioritizing financial growth. 

The debates over KAYA and digital guidebooks may well just be the newest chapter in climbing’s storied history of tradition fighting evolution.

“You’re kind of dealing with two different climbers,” Jeffrey said, comparing the ethics of KAYA to a new school climber. “You’re dealing with the climber that’s a trad climber through and through, and then [with KAYA], you’re dealing with a climber that will glue and chip and retro bolt anything they want to climb it. Yes, we’re both still climbers, but we both have extremely different ethics of what climbing is.”

KAYA, meanwhile, believes it is mutually beneficial for all: climbers, authors, and LCOS.

“I believe this is a watershed moment for climbing similar to sticky rubber and bolts,” Gurman said. “The digital revolution in climbing is equally as contentious as those innovations. The best platform will be the one that makes climbing more accessible, sustainably in concert with the community. We want to be that platform.”

In a world where access to information and beta videos are just a click away, it’s up to each climber to decide what responsible, ethical climbing and access look like. 

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Alex Honnold of Free Solo fame is now 40 years old with two kids, but make no mistake: He’s not slowing down. In “Next Go For Sure,” a Black Diamond film by Carlo Traversi, Honnold battles a 5.13b finger crack near Lake Tahoe, showing he’s still got it.

Honnold is one of the biggest names in climbing, garnering acclaim for his free solo ascents of Half Dome and El Capitan in Yosemite in 2008 and 2017, respectively. He’s also known for his successful alpine and speed ascents with Tommy Caldwell.

In the film, Honnold, along with Nik Berry and Carlo Traversi, bushwhacks his way to a remote climbing area near Lake Tahoe. The crew takes on East Face of the Plectrum, a sharp, pumpy 5.13b trad route.

In “Next Go For Sure,” take in scenic views of Tahoe as you watch Honnold quip, finger lock, and battle up this technical, physical route.

Runtime: 17 minutes