Ashleigh Thompson’s Story

Climber, Ph. D Student, Red Lake Ojibwe, She/Hers

The first time I realized route names could hurt was when I discovered a route called “Trail of Tears” featured on the Mountain Project home page. The Trail of Tears was one of the most egregious acts against Native Americans in United States history. Thousands of Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Seminole, and Creek people were forcibly removed from their homelands and marched west of the Mississippi River to Indian Territory at the hands of the U.S. government. As a result, thousands of Indigenous people lost their lives. To see a route named after this atrocious event displays ignorance, apathy, racism, or a combination of all three. Think about it this way: Would naming a route in Red Rocks “Las Vegas Shooting 2017” be acceptable?

I was also appalled to come across a route called “Squaws in Heat.” Squaw is a derogatory term for an Indigenous woman. This name debases Indigenous women as nonhuman and is not only offensive but perpetuates violence against a population of women who already face the highest rates of violence in North America. Indigenous women are murdered at a rate 10 times the national average, and 84% of Native women face violence in their lifetimes.

These route names—and the acceptance of them by the climbing community—are hurtful and dangerous, but unfortunately unsurprising. After climbing for more than four years now, I have noticed that cultural misappropriation, cultural insensitivity, and racism is more prevalent in the climbing community than I first realized. Upholding violence against Indigenous people through route names is just one example of racism in the outdoor recreation community. I would hope that, in the future, climbers can use forethought, intelligence, and compassion in route-naming.

Lor Sabourin’s Story

Climber, Guide, They/Them

Last year I was guiding a group of college climbers in Joshua Tree National Park at Dihedral Rock. There is a route named “Thin Line” on the right side of the wall. On Mountain Project, it is named “Thin Line (Limp Wristed Faggot).” The students had learned about Mountain Project earlier in the trip and often consulted it throughout the day. That day, when they saw the route name, they immediately began using it and calling each other “limp-wristed faggots.” I did my best to stop them, but the damage was done. The route name had given them permission to use hateful language in a joking way. As a queer guide, this made my work environment feel toxic and made it much harder to teach the skills that they needed throughout that day. Holding onto that route name for “historical value” allowed a future generation of climbers to learn that the climbing community tolerates hateful language and behavior. Getting rid of those names sends a powerful message about the type of climbing community that we want to have in the future—one that is welcoming to folks from any background.

Skye Kolealani Razon-Olds

Climber, Founder of @KanakaClimbers, Aloha ʻĀina, She/Her

One concern that we have here in Hawaiʻi, is climbing routes that are inappropriately named by foreigners after Hawaiian gods. Within the Kanaka Maoli (Native Hawaiian) belief system, naming a pohaku (rock or boulder) after a god breathes the mana (divine power) of that god into the pohaku. This practice desecrates the Gods twice: first, when named without following traditional protocol, and again when individuals climb on the rock. This is highly disrespectful and derogatory to the Hawaiian religion and culture.

As a Native Hawaiian, I am working to inspire members of the climbing community to educate themselves on indigenous issues, as well as appropriately engage and consult with indigenous communities all over the world. It is my hope that as we encourage the outdoor recreational community to invite indigenous people to the table, indigenous voices will be lifted and heard.

Irene Yee’s Story

Climber, Photographer (@Ladylockoff), She/Her

I was climbing in Tennessee with a friend, when a man came up and started helping us distinguish the routes in the area. He began listing them off, and I was stopped in my tracks by some of the racist and problematic names. Though I have always believed these sorts of route names should be addressed and changed, that moment solidified something for me. As we keep these names around, it allows these words to not only proliferate but to be used in a casual sense. The man did not even give pause as he said the words like it was his laundry list. There are so many reasons why it’s important to create these changes within our community, and we have a chance to contribute to the dismantling of a power structure that continuously chooses to oppress groups because of race, sex, and sexual orientation. We can make sure words and concepts that should have died out with a previous generation do not have a chance to proliferate.

Identifying Harmful Route Names

As you think about route names through a lens of justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion, here are some questions to guide your thinking and conversations:

• Reflect on a given name: does it seem like a G-, R-, or X-rated name? Does it go beyond humor or grossness, and instead dip into the realm of racism, homophobia, or misogyny, like the use of slurs and other forms of hate speech, or references to historical trauma?
• Is the route name just generally provocative, or does it have a specific target, singling out a particular group of people? What is the effect, intentional or not, of this targeting? Does the name associate violence, degradation, or other forms of mistreatment with this group?
• Was the route named in an earlier era, perhaps innocuous when first named but now considered outdated (i.e., the perception of the language has changed over time)? Can the language be updated to reflect the original intent of the name using modern phrasing?
• Has the route name caught the attention of land managers, landowners, or other nonclimbing local-community members? Is it contributing to negative perceptions of climbers among those groups?
• What if a route name that could be hurtful to a specific group of people was actually named by someone from that group? Does being from the same group as the one targeted by the route name give a person the right to use potentially hurtful language?