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Community Climbing Groups

The Front’s community climbing groups meet on a regular basis to connect, climb, and grab snacks after at the cafés. Meet them all below!

At The Front, we do not use the word “community” lightly. Our vision was, and always will be, to create spaces and experiences that foster connection. One of our core values is to distinctive facilities with emotional depth, and we focus our efforts around that every day.

An essential aspect of a true community is diversity, but historically that has been noticeably sparse in the world of climbing. We and our members know that intentional space is needed in order to create the safety and security necessary to enter into a sport in which you may not feel represented.

To accomplish this, we have partnered with our members, who have created key climbing groups to promote inclusivity and room for shared experiences. Follow their individual social media accounts for information about scheduled meetups.

Buddies On Belay Program

Get partnered with another Community Climbing Group member and create belaytionships for life! Tell us a little about yourself and the kind of climbing partner you’re looking for, and The Front and its Community Climbing Group leaders will set you up with another rad community member to climb with! It’s a little like online dating, but way more fun.

Filled out the form and still have a couple questions? Reach out to your community group leader.

BOB Program Registration
Ladies Climbing Coalition
Color The Wasatch
Salt Lake Area Queer Climbers
All Bodies Climb

Ladies Climbing Coalition

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Cultivating a high elevation climbing community for women and non-binary climbers to have a safe space to learn and grow with one another.
Briana

Briana

Ladies Climbing Coalition SLC

Born and raised in Los Angeles, Briana moved to Salt Lake in 2021. She fell in love with climbing while living on the East Coast taking weekend trips to the Gunks. Briana believes that mentorship is a fundamental aspect of climbing and is excited to have more accessible welcoming spaces in the Wasatch!

During the week she works as a Civil Engineer focused on transportation design but on the weekends she loves to climb, hike, snowboard, or hang with her dog, Baby Beck.

Brooke

Brooke Rasina

Ladies Climbing Coalition SLC

After dreaming about climbing all over Utah since 2018, Brooke finally made the move to Salt Lake City in 2021. She works as a photographer in the outdoor industry. When not at the gym you can find Brooke out at the crag, hiking, or exploring with her dog, Eddie.

Brooke is passionate about making climbing more accessible and inclusive.

"There are so many barriers to entry in climbing that we as a community need to continue to work to improve. From cost, to people not feeling welcome when they enter the gym or go to the crag, to countless others - we have a lot of work to do. It is community groups, like Ladies Climbing Coalition, that help create that community and start to break down some of those barriers to entry."

In addition to being on the leadership team for the Wasatch chapter, Brooke is the Events Director for Ladies Climbing Coalition as a whole. Have any events you want to see us at or clinics you want to see brought to life? Don't hesitate to reach out to Brooke at brooke@ladiesclimbingcoalition.com!

August

August

Ladies Climbing Coalition Ogden

Raised in Virginia, August grew up climbing at Seneca Rocks with her father. After a long break, She started rock climbing again as an adult in 2020. Shortly after she moved to Ogden, and became a student at Weber State University. She teaches ceramics classes part-time in North Ogden when she doesn’t have classes. August is excited to be part of the LLC community!

Jess

Jess

Ladies Climbing Coalition Ogden

Jess moved from the Midwest in 2019 and was eager to start a new adventure in Ogden, Utah. This included taking an Intro to Climbing class at Weber State University where she fell in love with the sport.

She now is a climbing instructor at WSU and co-created the course Risk, Resilience, and Rock Climbing, a gender studies and climbing course that investigates power and privilege in the climbing world and how to expand the field to be more inclusive, intersectional, and accessible to people from a variety of backgrounds. Jess also works as Weber State's Advocate where she supports survivors of interpersonal violence. Jess's long-term goal is to create trauma-informed climbing spaces for survivors.

When she isn't climbing, you can find Jess trail running, hiking with her dog Chika, or pole dancing.

Color The Wasatch

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Color The Wasatch is focused on creating space for climbers of color in Salt Lake City and along the Wasatch Front, aiming to empower, highlight their achievements and efforts, and make climbing a more diverse and inclusive sport. The group hosts meetups at the Salt Lake City and South Main Front locations.

Priyam

Priyam Patel

Priyam grew up in New Jersey, and did not discover her love for the outdoors until later in her life. She started climbing a little over 3 years ago and was immediately hooked on the problem-solving aspect of climbing. Priyam is a mathematics professor at the University of Utah and much of her activism to date has involved broadening the representation of women and people of color in STEM. As she began to put down roots in Salt Lake City, she knew she had to extend that dedication to her life as a climber as well. Through Color the Wasatch, Priyam hopes to increase access to climbing and the outdoors for communities of color and help others understand that climbers of color are a vital part of our community.

Andrea

Andrea Ramos Campos

Growing up in Florida, Andrea traded the beach and palm trees for mountains and desert landscapes in May of 2018. She believes it’s the best decision she’s ever made. Her roommate took her climbing up Big Cottonwood late one summer in 2017, and she was hooked on the challenge, problem-solving, and mind-body aspect of the sport. The Front became a place for her not only to work out, but also socialize, and build community, it eventually became her workplace as well. As chairwoman of the JEDI (Justice Equity Diversity & Inclusion) committee for the Salt Lake Climbers’ Alliance, she continues to work towards creating more seats at the table for people of color in climbing and giving them a voice. She’s passionate about stewardship, advocacy, and acknowledgments of the beautiful areas we recreate in and their past. 

“This group is really important to me because for the few years I’ve been climbing, I rarely saw people that looked like me. I noticed that climbing was a predominantly white sport, and I wanted to change that, even if I was the only person of color at the table, and many times I was. I joined the team at The Front and I started volunteering for the SLCA for the love of the sport, but also in hopes that maybe I could inspire other underrepresented folks to join. I love that we now have a community of climbers of color in the Wasatch, and I appreciate The Front for giving us a safe space to just be in a sport that rarely represented us.”

Julia

Julia Yang

Julia enjoys climbing of any flavor and has climbed all over the country.  For her, climbing is mostly about the people and the places.  She has learned a lot over the years and hopes she can be a useful resource to this community.  She first started climbing 10 years ago in Kansas of all places!

“I’m super grateful I learned to climb in the flatlands because we were just a community of nobodies who were psyched to touch any rock we could get our hands on. There was a lot of support and genuine excitement just to be out in cool places, while having no pressure to fit some mold of what a “climber” should be.  I hope to give back to my community by helping create spaces where people feel welcome and supported to learn, grow, and have fun new experiences.”Yet, in her many years of climbing, it wasn’t until joining BIPOC at the front last year that Julia first had the opportunity to climb with other people of color.  Since then, she has cherished the sense of community she’s found as part of this group, and recently volunteered to help with the leadership team.“Honestly I didn’t realize the burden I was carrying as the only POC in my climbing spaces, until that burden was lifted. It was truly a breath of fresh air.  I’ve gained so much from climbing over the years, now I feel it’s time I gave back.”

Ryan

Ryan Suen

“I first started thinking about my ethnicity and how it intersects with the outdoors when I was hiking the Pacific Crest Trail. Months on trail and I met hundreds of hikers. Of which, were two Latinos, one black, and five Asians. Since then, I’ve been passionate about creating a world where people of color become just as embedded in outdoor culture, whether that’s climbing, hiking, or any other activity.”

Ryan previously spent life moving constantly until finding a home in SLC, and Color The Wasatch was a huge part of that decision. Through this and as a member of the SLCA JEDI Committee, he’s excited to continue building our community and to help others also feel at home while climbing in and around the Wasatch.

Salt Lake Area Queer Climbers

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SLAQC (pronounced “slack”) is a rock climbing group for LGBTQIA+ identified folks in Salt Lake City and the Wasatch Front.

SLAQC creates a supportive space for all queer people to enjoy climbing. We host regular meetups, raise visibility by collaborating with brands who share our mission, advocate for increased access to climbing with gym partners, and promote queer stories and organizations. Through these efforts, we empower queer individuals, create a more inclusive climbing community, reduce barriers to access, and cultivate collective knowledge.

Check out a great profile of the group from Backcountry.com! >>>

Matt

Matt Kastellec (or Matty or MK), he/him

My climbing story began as a child outside of my uncle’s home in Virginia, learning to climb on top rope at road side crags in the area. Fast forward through about twenty years, a number of different hobbies, and one terrible breakup and I found myself looking for more queer connections in my hometown of NYC. That lead me to my very first climb night with @climbcrux where I both rediscovered the joy of climbing and very quickly learned how incredible it was to be in a space designed for and run by queer folks. When I moved out to SLC in November 2019 I quickly sought out the same experience here which led me to SLAQC and helping to get it back off its feet! Shout out to Chris Doman, the original founder of SLAQC, whom I feel a great debt of gratitude towards for making this space.

Why do I love climbing and why do I think it uniquely suits queer folks? As many of you may have experienced, I did not grow up believing I was athletic or capable of doing much with my body. I was never strong enough or fast enough or coordinated enough to participate in the team sports of school gym class, nor did I fit in with the other boys who excelled at those sports. So I went a long time being disconnected to my body. I love climbing because it forces you to get back in relationship with your body vis a vis the wall in front of you, and there’s nobody else you’re depending on to get up the route but you: breath, muscles, fingers, chalk, grip. Climbing taught me what I’m capable of, and has brought me to places I would have never imagined. It’s also led to so many lasting, trusting relationships with queer folks who want to support each other in every way, and are committed to breaking down barriers to the sport.

Rue

Rue Zheng, they/them

Climbing has become a huge part of my life and my community since I moved to SLC in January this year. I grew up in Kansas where there wasn’t a lot of diversity or access to outdoor activities, so now getting to experience nature in this way with other queer people of color, it feels both unreal and so at home at the same time.

Why do I love climbing? It’s taken me many years and trying a handful of different gyms before I really got into it. I started climbing in 2010 when I was in college and I immediately loved the physical and mental challenges of the sport. However, when you’re new to a gym or climbing and you don’t have the support of climbing friends who hype you, share knowledge, and see you for you, it can be hard to advance, get outdoors, and really feel at ease and enjoy all the amazing things about climbing.

As a queer, non-binary, Chinese-American climber, I’ve found my joy and experience of climbing is deeply intertwined with my identities. It’s no surprise as a historically white, cis-heteronormative sport, that many queer, trans, and BIPOC individuals get discouraged from climbing because we are underrepresented in climbing and outdoor spaces. When you don’t have a climbing community you identify with, it can be difficult to stick with the sport.

This is why when I met Matty by chance this summer, I was thrilled to help him relaunch SLAQC. It’s been such a joy to work with Matty and Lea to create queer spaces for climbers, and foster the communities a lot of us needed when we first started climbing. I hope that new and seasoned climbers feel like they belong and make connections that extend beyond the wall.

Leandra

Leandra Hernández, she/her/ella

Leandra (she/her/ella) is an assistant professor of applied communication at Utah Valley University. Born and raised in Houston, Texas, she moved from Japan to Utah in 2019 for her position at UVU and has loved every minute of living near the Wasatch. As a queer Mexican-American woman, she is thrilled to be a co-organizer and co-facilitator for SLAQC. She is passionate about fostering inclusive spaces for LGBTQIA+ and BIPOC climbers and is also a member of the Board of Directors, Communication Committee, and JEDI (Justice, Equity, Diversity, & Inclusion) Committee for the Salt Lake Climbers Alliance. When she's not climbing, she can be found dedicating her time to her other passions: teaching, reading/writing, and watching horror movies and true crime shows.

“Why do I love climbing? It wasn't always a love-love relationship. I first started climbing in 2013 when my partner and I moved to San Diego. Since I was an athlete my entire life (and played volleyball collegiately), I was frustrated when climbing did not come to me naturally. However, I stuck with it (thanks to the support of my partner and amazing friends that I’ve made along the way), and it has become one of my greatest passions. It’s been painful, though, to reconcile my love for the sport with the exclusionary practices that outdoor recreational spaces and recreators impose upon BIPOC and LGBTQIA+ climbers. As a result of this, I both research academically inequities in climbing spaces and work to foster inclusive relationships and mentorship networks for BIPOC and LGBTQIA+ climbers. The personal is always political, and the same is especially true for those of us who love climbing and work to fight and dismantle inequities in our spaces.

Climbing has given me a space to enjoy the outdoors, grow with my communities, and mentor young BIPOC and LGBTQIA+ climbers. I come from a long family line of community activism and outreach, and when Matty and Rue asked me to join the team, I gave them an emphatic YES! I've developed local and national mentorship networks in academic spaces, and now I hope to help foster mentorship networks within SLAQC. It has provided a meaningful, empowering, and transformative space for me to enjoy climbing with my BIPOC and LGBTQIA+ communities.”

All Bodies Climb

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Building community for climbers of all sizes! Centering plus-size folks or fat folks and those who feel like they don’t belong in climbing because of their body size.

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