By Laura Snider

In 1986, the Peshastin Pinnacles in Washington state were closed to climbing by the private landowner. The sandstone towers and slabs near Leavenworth were a popular fall and spring climbing area that had been steadily developed over the previous couple of decades by some of climbing’s legendary forebears.

Nearly every year through the 1960s, there was bold new development in the area. Fred Beckey, for example, noted in the 1963 American Alpine Journal that he and his partners had put up a new, entirely overhanging route on the southeast face of Peshastin’s Grand Central Tower that involved the use of knife blades and “giant wooden blocks” for protection.

The pinnacles were closed during an era when threats to climbing access were ramping up across the country, driven by the sport climbing revolution and an increase in climbers. The threats were becoming so widespread and urgent that the American Alpine Club (AAC) had founded an Access Committee just the year before, in 1985.

Local climbers in the Cascades organized to try and reopen the area. They lobbied political leaders, including a local congressman, who they worked with on a potential bill that would acquire the pinnacles and turn them over to the Forest Service. And they strengthened their relationship with the Forest Service, putting hundreds of hours into trail maintenance. But ultimately, none of these efforts worked.

Five years later, with their options exhausted, the climbers finally reopened the Peshastin Pinnacles by buying the property themselves. The actual purchase was made in collaboration with the Access Committee—which soon spun off and became Access Fund—and the Trust for Public Land. This purchase established a critical precedent for Access Fund’s future work.

Sometimes, the only way to save a threatened climbing area is to buy it.

This principle has guided Access Fund for more than three decades, and since that first purchase of Peshastin Pinnacles, the organization has assisted with more than 90 acquisitions across 23 states. Those acquisitions have preserved access to all kinds of climbing: from bouldering and sport climbing to trad and ice climbing.

“While some regions, particularly in the West, have large swaths of public land, we have still managed to buy or help save a climbing area in every region of the country,” says Access Fund Executive Director Heather Thorne. “Wherever there is private land, there is the opportunity to gain—or the risk of losing—climbing access.”

Saving Treasures

Thorne’s own introduction to Access Fund, which she joined as executive director in February, was through another Washington state acquisition: the Index Lower Town Wall. The spectacular and steep granite cragging area is just an hour from Seattle and a short walk from the parking lot. A significant chunk of the area was also on private land. In early 2009, the landowner posted “no trespassing” signs in response to renewed interest by quarrying companies.

“I was living in Seattle and was a relatively new trad climber at the time,” Thorne says. “I absolutely loved Index, and I was out there every weekend. When the area was threatened with closure, I thought, ‘How can we lose this treasure? How can it just disappear?’”

Through her climbing partners, Thorne learned about the work the Washington Climbers Coalition (WCC) was leading to preserve access. Ultimately, the WCC secured the option to buy the property in May 2009 using a $10,000 loan from Access Fund. They completed the purchase the following year.

For Thorne, this was an eye-opening and inspiring experience that highlighted the importance of local climbing organizations, the complexity of land ownership, and the critical role Access Fund can play in enabling and supporting deals like this.

“I had seen its logo in climbing magazines, but I didn’t really understand what Access Fund was all about until a crag in my own backyard was threatened,” Thorne says. “Through the process, I learned that Access Fund is the only nationwide organization with a funding mechanism that enables multiple local climbing organizations to act quickly when a property is threatened or suddenly comes on the market. We play a critical role in ensuring that crags stay open, for today and for generations to come.”

The Lower Lump at Index, Washington. © Matt Perkins.

Supporting LCOs to Protect the Crags They Value Most

In many ways, the Index Lower Town Wall followed a familiar pattern for Access Fund-assisted acquisitions. Often the fight is led by the area’s local climbers, who may prize access the most. The local climbing organization (LCO) then brings the threat to Access Fund, which can offer in-depth expertise working with private and public entities and negotiating complex real estate transactions, as well as the ability to loan out money.

“A majority of the projects that come our way are initiated by local climbing organizations, which are much more attuned to the issues in their own communities,” says Brian Tickle, Access Fund’s national acquisitions director. “What we value most is what’s valuable to the locals. It’s satisfying to help acquire iconic climbing areas—like our work in the Red River Gorge, Rumney, or Indian Creek—but often there’s equal value in acquiring a really small crag that sits next to a highly populated urban center.”

The latter was Tickle’s own introduction to land acquisition work. Tickle, who also serves as Access Fund’s Texas regional director, lives in San Antonio, a significant urban center without many nearby climbing areas. That’s what makes the small limestone bluff called Medicine Wall so important to locals. It’s small, but it’s near, and it provides one of the only opportunities for after-work cragging and half-day missions.

Medicine Wall sat on private land, and while the owner did not encourage climbing, they didn’t actively ban it either. But a fatal accident in 2015 changed that, leading the owner to shut the crag and strip the bolts. The Texas Climbers Coalition took up the cause and reached out to Access Fund for help.

“It took a couple of years to work through all the details and how long-term ownership would work,” Tickle says. “It was a very involved multi-party project, but we eventually negotiated to have the crag included in a city greenway project that was under development at the time.”

Now climbers can access the 70 or so climbs on Medicine Wall via a paved bike path on a public greenway.

“By no means would most climbers consider this a substantial resource,” Tickle says. “But by virtue of the fact that it’s situated in one of the largest cities in the U.S., we believed it was important to fight to preserve access.”

Medicine Wall is now part of a city greenway system. Peshastin Pinnacles became a state park. In fact, Access Fund holds very few properties long term, despite the fact that the organization is a certified land trust. Owning land is a complex endeavor, and our goal isn't to be landowners but to save these areas and put them in climber-friendly hands for long-term management. The vast majority of purchases go to a land management agency or conservation group. Access Fund’s acquisition at Shelf Road in Colorado went to the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), for example, and one in the Gunks went to the Mohonk Preserve in New York. Others stay in the hands of the LCO, like Alabama’s Hospital Boulders, which are now owned and managed by the Southeastern Climbers Coalition.

Often, Access Fund provides a loan for what is essentially a down payment and then helps LCOs set up a robust fundraising campaign to raise the rest. When LCOs pay back this loan with moderate interest, they ensure that Access Fund’s Climbing Conservation Loan Program continues to grow and enable future acquisitions. This revolving loan program structure allows LCOs to save a threatened crag and simultaneously pay it forward. Repayment of the loan to buy a bouldering area in North Carolina could help buy a crag in California, which in turn helps secure access to an ice climbing area in the Midwest. Access Fund likes to think of this as an investment with infinite leverage.

One of Many Tools to Protect Access

The Citadel Boulders, Alabama. © Caleb Timmerman.

Despite the overwhelming success of Access Fund’s acquisition work, it is only one of the tools in the organization’s toolbox for protecting climbing access. Access Fund also has deep expertise in public lands policy and advocacy, ensuring that the many climbing areas within national parks and national forests or situated on BLM land or other public agency holdings remain open to climbing. Access Fund also takes the responsibility to care for and conserve the lands where we climb seriously. Access Fund staff, our Conservation Teams, and countless volunteers are on the ground building trails, hardening belay areas, picking up trash, and otherwise working to ensure sustainable resource use. Access Fund also works to empower and enable LCOs to take care of their local areas and advocate for their members, as well as work with private landowners on liability issues to encourage them to keep their land open. Finally, Access Fund works to educate climbers—new and old—about how to be good crag stewards.

But regardless of the success of these other efforts, which have been substantial, access will remain a moving target and acquisition will remain an essential part of Access Fund’s strategy. In 2023 alone, Access Fund helped acquire two major climbing areas: the Lower Lump and Inner Walls areas at Index in Washington and The Citadel Boulders in Alabama.

“We work on multiple fronts to protect climbing areas, with acquisitions a key component of that strategy,” Thorne says. “We buy land because sometimes that’s what we have to do to save America’s climbing.”