Climbing Gold

Alex has climbed all over the world, but he’s never visited some of our country’s best climbing areas. Today, three devoted southern climbers – Andrew Kornylak, Karen Lane and Colette McInerney – lay out the case for...Read more

Last year, Alex sat down with legendary comedian and interviewer David Letterman in front of a live audience in New York City. Buckle up for a hilarious ride down memory lane. Watch Climbing Gold o...Read more

If there is a common thread between the greatest rock climbing achievements of the last few decades, it’s that cinematographer Brett Lowell was probably filming it. In high school, Brett found himself pulled into the...Read more

Nearly unknown to the greater climbing world, Hamish McArthur walked on the mats at the Paris Olympics the epitome of an underdog. He wasn’t sure he even wanted to be there. When the dust settled, he’d placed fifth, a...Read more

Climber Melissa Arnot Reid blazed her way into the elite circle of high altitude guides, but her ascent into rarified air came amidst deep personal struggles that no amount of Everest summits or accolades could fix. T...Read more

John Bachar may have been the Stonemasters brightest star. His audacious free climbs and even more audacious free solos turned heads around the globe. Sadly, John fell while free soloing in 2009. Last winter, longtime...Read more

El Cap. Free. In a day. It's an accomplishment that puts a climber in lofty company. In 2020, Emily Harrington succeeded on Golden Gate. It was a multi-year effort that required finding her outermost limits and lettin...Read more

Katie Lamb has been cutting her teeth on a steady diet of some of the country’s hardest boulders. When she became the first woman to climb V16, she was surprised by the spotlight that came with that breakthrough and t...Read more

Together, Jesse and Molly Dufton create one of the most unique partnerships in rock climbing. Jesse knew two things from a young age. The feeling that traditional climbing gave him was something that he wanted to purs...Read more

Sonnie Trotter would never admit to being Canada’s best rock climber, but his multi-decade career of cutting-edge trad climbs and nails-hard sport routes certainly puts him in that conversation. In his new book, Sonni...Read more

Writer Cassidy Randall’s new book Thirty Below unearths the story of the first all-female ascent of Denali in 1970 and reveals a deeper story of ambition and teamwork. It’s an incredible story with complex characters....Read more

Elite competition is a young person's game, but when 44-year-old legend Chris Sharma witnessed climbing on the Olympic stage last summer, it lit a fire in him, or at least a small flame. Chris undeniably changed climb...Read more

Amity Warme first showed up in Yosemite Valley in 2019 young, scrappy and in love with the adventurous side of our sport. What’s followed since is a meteoric rise through the discipline of traditional and big wall fre...Read more

In 2021, Vitaliy Musiyenko closed the chapter on a years-long obsession with a 32-mile-ridge line featuring 60 summits in the heart of the Sierra. The Goliath Traverse is likely the longest ridge traverse ever complet...Read more

In 2024, Michaela Kiersch became the first woman to climb both V15 and 5.15 putting her on climbing’s global radar. To midwest climbers and those in the know, she was already a legend for her incredible training sessi...Read more

After rising to the highest echelon of professional skiing, Cody Townsend took a step back and embraced climbing to take him to the next chapter of his career. Today, Cody sits on the cusp of completing an all-time go...Read more

We are back with the Greatest of All Time – Janja Garnbret. For the last decade, Janja has dominated competitive climbing, capping it off with her second gold medal at the Olympics last summer. Where does she find the...Read more

Ben Mayforth’s strength is a sight to behold. The professional paraclimber’s social clips of campusing double digit boulder problems may have made it into your social feed, but his story runs much deeper than any grad...Read more

Last summer, Alex and Tommy Caldwell rode bikes from Estes Park, Colorado to SE Alaska where they boarded a sailboat which dropped them beneath the fabled Devil’s Thumb. Their adventure is now a film on Disney+, but a...Read more

Tucked away in a corner of Chilean Patagonia, Valle Cochamó wasn’t going to stay hidden forever. The soaring unclimbed granite walls instilled dreams of first ascents in climbers. Industrialists eyed its free flowing...Read more

5.13 at 78. That’s staggering, but the numbers don’t capture the breadth of Jamie Logan’s climbing career, which now spans seven decades. Through every chapter of our sport, Jamie has been a contributor from pioneerin...Read more

Alpinist and photographer Cory Richards was living at full speed. A steady stream of Himalayan expeditions and assignments from National Geographic kept him relentlessly moving around the world. Meanwhile, his long st...Read more

El Cap. Free. In a day. Putting those words on your resume puts you in the league of legends. How did that become the bar? Lynn Hill. A singular athlete who stepped up to the biggest stage in climbing, Lynn redefined...Read more

Ms. 5.15 – that was the moniker the climbing world bestowed on Margo Hayes after she became the first woman to climb the grade. Two more 5.15’s followed and Margo seemed poised to be a defining climber of her generati...Read more

While most of the elite climbing world has turned its attention to raw difficulty in sport and bouldering, Babsi Zangerl and Jacopo Larcher have been carrying the torch for hard, sometimes dangerous, traditional climb...Read more

Beth Rodden started climbing in 1995, and it wasn’t long before she radically changed the sport. Within three years, she’d become the first woman to climb 5.14; within five, she established a still unrepeated free rou...Read more

After a protracted battle over bolts and sport climbing, American climbers nearly lost the ability to climb on public lands in the early 1990s. It would have completely altered the course of our sport. Fortunately, la...Read more

In 1986, a rag-tag group of dirtbags including Beth Wald, Russ Clune and Todd Skinner came up with a scheme to go behind the Iron Curtain with the goal of competing in the Soviet Union's speed climbing competition. It...Read more

Adieu Paris. After a week at the Olympic games, Alex and the team reflect on an incredible moment for climbing and its brightest competitors. Watch Climbing Gold on YouTube Thanks to our spons...Read more

The Tomoa Skip. The Chinese Top. Records are falling and what is fast this year will be middle of the pack next year. For competitors Emma Hunt, Piper Kelly, and Sam Watson, they are in the midst of a golden moment fo...Read more

Records are falling. Beta is getting tweaked. We’ve entered the sub five second era of speed climbing. The athleticism is off the charts and the format is friendly to the viewing public. Despite that, what happens on...Read more

Paris here we go. Today, we dive into what to expect, the stories that will define the games, and the Olympics’ impact on our sport. Plus we make our picks and learn what the deal is with Team Japan....Read more

The weight of expectations is real. Today, Olympians Natalia Grossman and Jesse Grupper share their journey through the highs and lows of winning and losing. Even when you're winning, the road to Paris is a difficult...Read more

At only 23, Brooke Raboutou has established herself as one of the best climbers indoors and out. While that’s taken an extreme amount of talent and dedication, Brooke and two other Olympians, Natalia Grossman and Coli...Read more

Yes, the Olympics are entertainment, but they can also transcend sport. Ukrainian climber Jenya Kazbekova carries a weight few competitors have to shoulder. Two years into Russia’s unprovoked attack on her home, Jenya...Read more

What’s Ashima Shiraishi been up to? Since she was eight, Ashima made waves with staggering ascents beyond her years. In 2021, Ashima helped bring us into the mind of a competitor walking us through in meticulous detai...Read more

When we think of cutting edge climbing, we think of cutting edge athleticism. But what about the mental side? The true test of finishing the world’s most difficult routes may not come down to strength, but mental fitn...Read more

Kai Lightner is on a tear. When we last spoke with Kai, his path in professional climbing was unclear. He’d struggled with disordered eating, injuries, and growing into his adult body after a decade of success in comp...Read more

A decade ago, climbing’s most controversial figure wasn’t someone who’d lied, chopped routes, or chipped holds. It was a young woman who’d savvily harnessed the internet and social media to power her competitive caree...Read more

Sometimes we all need healthy competition. Last summer Alex, Tommy Caldwell, and Sonnie Trotter hatched a plan – each would attempt to climb 9a in the coming year. Climbing at your limit demands attention and accounta...Read more

When Kris Hampton launched the Power Company, training for climbing was in an awkward adolescence. Research and tactics were woefully behind adjacent sports like gymnastics. Gym sessions were a stop gap for time outsi...Read more

News flash: having kids changes things. Paige Claassen and Emily Harrington join Alex to discuss the new normal, reaching limits while sleep deprived and the calculus of risk as they move into parenthood. </...Read more

For the last decade, no climber has moved our sport closer to the future than Adam Ondra. While he’s known for his visionary sport routes, he’s excelled in every aspect of rock climbing from competition to big walls....Read more

We will be back later this spring with all new episodes of Climbing Gold, but in the meantime we wanted to rerun an episode from our first season: “This Place Will Change Climbing”. We dive into what makes Memphis Rox...Read more

In Part 2 of Adapted, Mo Beck and Jim Ewing head to the Lotus Flower Tower. Hugh Herr embarks on life after climbing and tackles one of humanity’s greatest challenges. Denny Kowska seeks to build an adaptive community...Read more

Climbing’s first phenom survives a near death experience and life altering accident on Mount Washington. In rural Maine, a young girl born without a hand discovers climbing. In the aftermath of an accident, an enginee...Read more

Style vs substance-- they are one and the same in climbing. It governs how we aspire to do routes. It inspires us. Done right, it will stand the test of time. Today, we sit down with climber Katie Lambert and photogra...Read more

When protests erupted in Iran in fall of 2022, human rights activist and professional climber Nasim Eshqi was climbing in France. As she watched the uprising back home unfold, Nasim knew that returning home at that mo...Read more

Underground legend and editor of Accidents in North American Climbing, Pete Takeda joins us to talk safety. We can learn from mistakes, but sometimes it’s worth speaking up before they happen. Thanks...Read more

After successfully establishing the first fair means ascent of Cerro Torre’s SE Ridge and chopping Maestri’s bolt ladder, Hayden Kennedy and Jason Kruk smash into reality. In the mountains, a rescue for their friend i...Read more

In the 2000’s, a new, global generation of alpinists armed with a broad toolkit of skills and advancements in weather forecasting led a climbing golden age in Patagonia. While popular, Maestri’s Compressor Route becom...Read more

How big of a problem is lying in climbing? Jonathan Siegrist returns to the show to talk about dishonesty in our sport. Thanks to our sponsors The North Face Momentous Peak Design</...Read more

With doubts circling in the press, Cesare Maestri returns to Cerro Torre with hundreds of bolts, a compressor engine and gallons of gasoline intent on conquering the mountain. What ensues borders on madness leaving th...Read more

In 1959, Cesare Maestri, an outsider and rebel drawn to the siren song of the world’s fiercest mountain, Cerro Torre, ripped a hole in climbing’s only true rule – a climber is only as good as their word....Read more

In May 2022, The Full Circle Everest team made history when seven of the members reached the world’s highest point. They were the first all black expedition team to do so. Today, we talk with Phil Henderson, Adina Sco...Read more

Is reaching a summit the true measure of success or is there something deeper? In 1978 a dream team of alpinists – Jim Donini, Jeff Lowe, George Lowe, and Michael Kennedy – spent 26 days tackling the North Ridge of La...Read more

A route’s history is important, but does it make it sacred? As our sport grows, people are considering whether adding bolts to existing routes to make it safer or more accessible might be a valid idea. Prolific first...Read more

We journey through the world of Moonboarding with the world’s best – Ravioli Biceps. And Ben Moon walks us through the underground climbing trend that started in the cellars of Sheffield, England and has now spread ac...Read more

Could a route change you? Kareemah Batts joins Alex, Fitz, Lauren and Leici to talk about the routes that changed what they thought was possible. Adaptive Climbing Group Thanks to our sponsors<...Read more

In April of 2022, Anna Pfaff set out to tick an Alaska classic – the Harvard Route on Mount Huntington. With her partner Priti Wright, Anna romped up the 3,000 foot face of ice, rock and snow, but the climb would prov...Read more

The next generation needs its inspiration. The Mellow crew provides it. Between sends of the world's hardest boulders, Daniel Woods, Shawn Raboutou, Giuliano Cameroni and Jimmy Webb took climbing media into their own...Read more

Philosophy professor and member of the exclusive 5.14 after 60 club, Bill Ramsey has a bone to pick with those who value strength over technique. In this roundtable discussion, we dive into our bias towards power and...Read more

Quiet and humble, Lucho Rivera was the antithesis to the wild, loud and over the top antics of the Stone Monkey generation. Yet in that band of misfits, he found a home. Now, after three decades of climbing in Yosemit...Read more

In the 1970’s, no flame burned brighter than Hot Henry Barber. Often heralded as the first traveling climber, Henry redefined standards for free climbing and free soloing not just the US, but every country he visited....Read more

After Jack Dorn’s death, conspiracies begin to fly in the Valley. Camp 4’s dirtbags figure out what to do with their spoils. And the plane crash becomes the stuff of Hollywood, literally. Our final installment of the...Read more

By early April, the rumors of Dope Lake began to spread far beyond the Valley. What was once an under-the-radar get rich mission had spiraled out of control. When the rangers get a tip, they decide it’s time to take b...Read more

Yosemite, 1970’s – it was the heart of the climbing revolution. You’ve heard a lot of voices and names in the Dope Lake series – John Long, Jim Bridwell, John Bachar, Dale Bard, Vern Clevenger, John Yablonski. Big nam...Read more

The gold rush begins. When two skiers reported a possible plane crash, Yosemite Ranger Tim Setnicka started making calls. Pretty soon he realized the Park Service had a serious investigation on their hands. When feder...Read more

In 1976, a plane carrying four million dollars in marijuana crashed into a small alpine lake in the Yosemite high country. Broke and living off discarded scraps of tourist meals in the valley below, America’s best cli...Read more

What happens when you unexpectedly find yourself in the global spotlight? Tommy Caldwell offers a candid perspective into the personal impacts that the Dawn Wall media coverage had on his life. Almost overnight, the a...Read more

In 2015, climbing became a cultural avalanche. The Dawn Wall was its tipping point. In part one, we talk with the Pulitzer Prize winner and New York Times reporter John Branch. We hear about Sandy Russell’s novel proj...Read more

This month, Alex completed his multi-year project to traverse Red Rock’s iconic skyline. In 32 hours, Alex ticked off 35 miles, 23k feet of climbing up to 5.11- and 20 named summits to complete the HURT – Honnold's Ul...Read more

For many of us, social media is the portal into the lives of outdoor photographers and filmmakers. We see the images and the films they create, but it can be a bit of a mystery for how it all works behind the lens. To...Read more

How can you turn your fear into excitement? Today, we’re sharing an episode of Re:Thinking with Adam Grant, a podcast from the TED Audio Collective. In this episode, Alex sits down with Adam to talk about regulating e...Read more

Does climbing have inherent value? We kick off season 4 of Climbing Gold by talking about finding meaning in our lives, whether through climbing or other pursuits. Nik Berry, an ER nurse and rock climber, reflects on...Read more

How do you decide to take on risk? Alex and Fitz discuss their five takeaways from talking to climbers, alpinists and experts for this season on risk....Read more

We’ve spent this season trying to better understand the risks climbers take, but we had one last question. How do you walk away? Steve House gave his entire attention and focus to alpinism. He was an iconic figure who...Read more

Big, audacious dreams come with real risks. The dreamers are presented with a labyrinth of physical hazards, possible outcomes, hurdles, and dead ends. Often, we are told that success comes down to positive thinking,...Read more

Sometimes you don’t get to choose the risks you take. It’s a matter of survival. Alex talks with climber and photographer Nikki Smith about what she gained when she took one of the biggest risks of her life, how her p...Read more

To manage risk, you first have to see the threat. Best-selling author Michele Wucker and Alex talk about how he evaluates risk, creating safety nets and his greatest fear....Read more

In early 1980’s Yosemite, big wall climbing was tedious, difficult and often terrifying. Enter Lydia Bradey, a 19-year-old New Zealander. She’s not good at free climbing, but she has this overwhelming desire to experi...Read more

As humans, we sometimes prefer to ignore big risks that are lurking within our view. See climate change or storm clouds building over a ridge. Best-selling author Michele Wucker has dedicated her career to understandi...Read more

Hazel Findlay and Alex dive deeper into the intricacies of British trad climbing. Just don’t hit the ground....Read more

Far away from Yosemite’s spotlight on a crumbly backwater cliff, an unknown climber was about to change a sport by breaking some of its most sacred rules. Today, we are all very grateful he did. We talk with Alan Watt...Read more

British trad climbing might be the most unique flavor of all. Is it an audacious game of risk or merely a fast track to a Darwin award? In 2000, while following in the footsteps of his heroes, a young James McHaffie b...Read more

This year's Olympic climbers weren’t the original USA climbing team. That honor actually goes to a rag-tag group of adventurous dirtbags including Beth Wald, Russ Clune and Todd Skinner, who managed to travel to the U...Read more

Were the Olympics more a bust than a boom? If you had $20 million to grow the sport of climbing how would you spend it? Are we at the end of the era where we climb alongside the pros? The Climbing Gold Team takes a lo...Read more

These are the things in the shadows that no one wants to talk about. The open secrets elite athletes carry. The behaviors coaches would prefer not to see. The hard realities fans tend to ignore about the sport playing...Read more

As climbing grows and enters into mainstream consciousness, we’d be naive to think that money won’t play a role. What does it take to “go pro” in climbing? How does the business of climbing evolve so that it doesn't f...Read more

What goes through a climber’s brain when the lights shine and the cameras go live at a world cup stop? Ashima Shiraishi takes us on a journey into the heart and mind of a true competitor....Read more

To move a sport forward, you have to take it apart and put it back together again. Today, we talk with two thought leaders in climbing’s next chapter -- routesetters Tondé Katiyo and Adam Pustelnik -- about the craft...Read more

Right now, the spotlight shines brightly on the newest generation of competition climbers, but the path they’re following was blazed by those before them. Today, we talk with Alex Johnson, or AJ, who has ridden the hi...Read more

Armando Menocal worked to save climbing in America and helped kickstart it in Cuba. While developing the international climbing destination of Viñales, Armando met the love of his life. They planned to get married, bu...Read more

After four days of alpine starts to watch climbing at the Olympics, Alex and Fitz catch up with producers John Burgman and Leici Hendrix for a laugh-filled breakdown of the good, the bad and the ugly. Ultimate fandom....Read more

In 2019, The US Olympic Committee gave USA Climbing a one in 10,000 chance of winning a medal. Two years later, USA Climbing sent four climbers to Tokyo. Americans are winning World Cup competitions like never before....Read more

When it comes to the Olympics, we will probably never see a climbing competitor like Kyra Condie again. While other competitors in Tokyo have had the benefit of robust, government-funded national programs or boutique...Read more

Alex and producer John Burgman walk us through the upcoming competition, make their picks for the gold and explain why the world’s best climber is probably the underdog....Read more

The decades long courtship between the Olympics and climbing reads like some bizarro script for a rom com. It seemed like a sure fire thing until curling got in the way. Alex and Fitz interview John Burgman, author of...Read more

Is climbing defined by adventure or athleticism? How does a sport grow and evolve? Alex and Fitz discuss these questions and other nuggets as they reflect on the first part of the series. And we reveal one of Alex’s p...Read more

Ship Rock. The Totem Pole. Spider Rock. Just because it’s there doesn’t mean we should climb it. We dive into the troubled relationship between climbers and tribes and take apart the inaccurate story the climbing comm...Read more

Sean “Stanley” Leary never got a lot of media attention, but he was a driving force in the progression of the sport and beloved by the climbing community. He held numerous speed records in Yosemite, pioneered new rout...Read more

After a protracted battle over bolts and sport climbing, American climbers nearly lost the ability to climb on public lands in the early 1990s. It would have completely altered the course of our sport. Fortunately, la...Read more

From our co-creators at the Dirtbag Diaries, we're sharing a story about a type of climbing that we haven’t touched on in this series: Alpinism. In the summer of 2019, Steve Swenson, Mark Richey, Graham Zimmerman, and...Read more

As climbing gyms become a global crag of sorts, how do we welcome people in? Do climbing gyms become a country club or the mechanism for broadening the community and unleashing a wave of new talent into climbing? Memp...Read more

Beth Rodden inspired a generation of climbers with her incredible free ascents of El Cap and hard trad climbs. Her leap into that realm began at an impromptu pizza party hosted by Lynn Hill. When a living legend asks...Read more

By the mid 2000’s climbing was growing, but the ephemeral first ascents were harder to find. Enter BASE jumping. The leaders of our sport stepped to the edge and jumped into the golden age of human flight. With it, a...Read more

El Cap. Free. In a day. Putting those words on your resume puts you in the league of legends. How did that become the bar? Lynn Hill. A singular athlete who stepped up to the biggest stage in climbing, Lynn redefined...Read more

In the summer of 1954, John Gill took his first climbing trip to Colorado. Tired of trudging up the steep mountain peaks and without a partner, Gill hitched a ride with a milkman to solo the east face of Longs Peak, a...Read more

A physical and intellectual anomaly, John Gill’s vision for climbing would ultimately drive the sport’s athletic progression and help bring it to a larger audience. It would just take the sport decades to catch up to...Read more

In the 1980’s, a Wells Fargo parking garage in the San Fernando Valley became a clandestine climbing laboratory and pre-runner to climbing gyms. We talk with the legendary Randy Leavitt about how he and Tony Yaniro in...Read more

Cultural trends, new gear and community have powered the growth of climbing rather than individual athletes. Occasionally though, a generational talent comes along and blows the whole sport wide open. Chris Sharma was...Read more

The online climbing route database Mountain Project lists more than 200,000 routes in the U. S. alone. Behind each route is a person who took the time and energy to create something for their community. How do they do...Read more

Climbing doesn’t have a rule book. So who decides how climbing changes and evolves? Peter Croft and Alex talk about their climbing heroes and pushing the mentality of possible. Discover how 1940’s bebop jazz connects...Read more

What connects the past, present and future of rock climbing? In season one of Climbing Gold, the sport’s biggest star Alex Honnold and co-host Fitz Cahall take you on a tour through climbing, from the early day...Read more

It is coming. Climbing Gold. Stories from the past, present and future of climbing. Alex Honnold and co-host Fitz Cahall share stories from the people who define the sport of climbing by pushing the boundaries and cha...Read more