Recently the American Alpine Club’s Climb United task force held an online event to present its new guidelines for publishing route names. You can watch the whole thing here. Having read through the Climb United materials, I find myself sadistically compelled to add a few thoughts to this conversation at the obvious risk of enduring yet another public cancellation. I am choosing to write this essay critiquing parts of Climb United’s mission in the spirit of improving the general discourse around this topic, which in my view is currently stuck in an intractable place. We need to be able to talk about this in an honest and intelligent way if we want to move toward fair solutions that actually solve problems, which getting people fired and tarnishing their reputations in the name of “justice” does not. The recent event’s panel included its CEO and some important voices from climbing’s publishing […]