2023 Access Fund Climbing Advocacy Conference

November 10-11 2023

Annual Access Fund Advocacy Conference  

Recap by Anchor Maintenance / Advocacy Coordinator, Andrew Brodhead

Every year the Access Fund puts on a Climbing Advocacy Conference. This conference aims to bring together different Local Climbing Organizations (LCO), Land Managers, Gyms, and Clubs to have discussions and workshops surrounding climbing advocacy and like topics. This year’s conference was held in Bentonville, NW Arkansas. Often referred to as the “Mountain Bike Capital of the World”, Bentonville’s commitment to outdoor recreation was the obvious choice for this year’s conference.

This two-day conference is broken into sections. Day one consists of panel discussions, presentations, and is capped with an award ceremony for organizations and individuals in the climbing advocacy field. Day two is more hands-on with a crag visit to Fitzgerald Mountain or a Rebolting Clinic. I was honored to be asked to help host this rebolting clinic alongside the Access Fund, Arkansas Climbers Coalition, and Wichita Mountain Climbers Coalition. During this clinic, we did some program overview and discussed the current challenges we are up against. We then broke into different groups to perform some bolt extractions.

Here at the SLCA I believe the “how to do the work” discussions have been heavily discussed in the past. My main focus was to have in-depth discussions about program design, worker safety, the finer details of quality control, and the mission of the LCO’s rebolting programs. Anchor maintenance is a very nuanced topic. Space needs to be made to have these open conversations that in turn make us all reflect on our own programs at home and at our local crags.

This conference was extra special for me. I was able to reconnect with an old mentor of mine from my time up in Marquette, MI. Bill Thompson, owner of Down Wind Sports and organizer of the Michigan Ice Fest was there to co-accept a Land Conservation Award on behalf of the Upper Peninsula Climbers Coalition (UPCC) for their acquisition of Slugs Bluff. This is Michigan’s first climbers-owned crag. Congratulations to the UPCC!