The Access Fund’s leader is on a mission to keep climbers climbing and protect public lands.
For over two decades, Boulder for the past decade, Brady Robinson, 45, has been intimately involved in many of the biggest issues facing the outdoor community across the U.S. As the Executive Director of the Access Fund (the leading climbing advocacy group in the United States), he leads efforts to secure access to climbing areas across the country. Oh, and he’s not bad on the rock, either.
As a climber first and foremost, Robinson understands the significance of protecting one of our most precious resources, wilderness. “One of our most important values and identities as a nation is how we have protected so much of our outdoor lands,” says Robinson. “Very few other countries are as active as we are.”
As part of its commitment to securing climbing areas for the future, the Access Fund has worked with the Front Range climbing community to rebuild trails in Colorado, recently bought the Bolton Dome climbing area in Vermont—closed since 1990—and has conservation teams out year-round helping to improve climbing areas.
But the Access Fund’s most important campaign to date may be the battle against the current administration’s attempts to gut the Antiquities Act, which allows the President or Congress to preserve and protect land of scientific and cultural significance. “When any part of our government treats the outdoor industry as secondary to other interests we will fight them, because it’s bullshit,” says Robinson. “This is our legacy and we will fight to preserve it.” accessfund.org
—Hudson Lindenberger
