This Group Is Helping Make Climbing Culture Inclusive

On a Wednesday evening earlier this year at Dogpatch Boulders, 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 .... Continue Reading at Outside Online