No, I’m not exaggerating: racist and sexist route names have roots in colonial violence
“Third Reich.”
I was casually flipping through the climbing guidebook when I saw this name of a bouldering problem at Hueco Tanks, a world-famous climbing area near El Paso, Texas.
I was surprised — as one typically is when they see something referencing Hitler where they aren’t expecting it — but continued to flip through. I was naively hoping, as a novice climber, that it was reference to something I wasn’t aware about.
More appalling things popped up, however: A Woman’s Place was a route on the Butcher Block. At Anxiety Ledge, there was A Few Screws Loose and Schizophrenia; next door, on Disorder Boulder, there was Bipolar and Panic Attack. Elsewhere, there was Electric Aunt Jemima and Spanking the Clitoris. Home of the D-Cups. Full Figure.
Surely, I thought, this book is old and outdated. I gave them the benefit of the doubt. But as I flipped to the copyright page, I groaned. This book was literally published in 2020.
After flipping through the guide, I began to just expect innocuously named routes to have an innuendo underbelly that would go unnoticed. It was like being in middle school again, where boys tell you a dirty joke and snicker because you, an eleven-year-old girl, have no idea what “69” means.
I began to realize that this moment touched exactly on my underlying discomfort as a white Indigenous woman who likes to climb. Like anything in the US, climbing is not untouched by colonialism because colonialism and slavery have established every American institution; it is intertwined with settler-colonial misogyny.
As Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, author of An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States, asserts, everything in US history is about the land. The theft and commodification of land, the stolen labor used to extract resources from it, along with the violence inflicted upon it, is integral to understanding the instruments of settler colonialism.
Before settlers stole stole Indigenous land and renamed it, Indigenous communities had already developed a relationship with that land and thus named it accordingly. However, this history is often erased in favor of establishing settler ownership over the land.
The famous “John Muir” trail is an example of this erasure. Before it was called “John Muir,” the trail was called Nüümü Poyo, a place where the Paiute people of the High Sierra would use the “trail to trade and travel and likely to manage the landscape as stewards of the land,” according to Anna Hohag, a Paiute attorney and member of the organization Indigenous Women Hike.
Though the Paiute people were the stewards of the land — using techniques like controlled burns to regulate the High Sierra — they were forcibly removed to make way for national parks. In order to eradicate them from the region, California laws in the 1850s made it legal to enslave Indigenous people and use military force on them. The legacy of national parks is often attributed to John Muir; but before Muir, these lands were thoughtfully cared for by Indigenous people. Settlers purposefully obscured these communities’ relationship with the land in order to claim ownership; forging a narrative of discovery masks the violence perpetuated to ensure the outdoors was controlled by settlers.
Mapping itself is a mechanism of colonial restructuring. Mishuana Goeman, a UCLA scholar of Indigenous studies, addresses the necessity of Indigenous-centered feminist spatial practice in her article “Notes toward a Native Feminism’s Spatial Practice.” By creating borders and policies over communities bound to land, mapping land effectively “rip[s] that grounding [of land] from under Native people.” Recreating cartography and erasing Indigenous place names is a tool for cognitive dominance. Like the displacement Paiute people, whose home was taken from them for the sake of tourism, naming climbing route names racist or sexist euphemisms executes power and sends a message to climbers who can and cannot recreate freely.
Drawing arbitrary borders over established communities also justifies over-policing and weakens these communities’ power by separating them, as was done at the US-Mexico border.
Indeed, the mapping of stolen land — a violent theft of sovereignty for subsistence communities — polices spatial claim to Indigenous environments, physical bodies, and communities.
Using racist and sexist names to identify climbing routes continues this colonial tradition.“John Muir trail” is not just a name. “Slavery Wall” (a real climbing route name that was not changed until last month) is not just an edgy name for a climb. “A Woman’s Place” is not just a funny joke. These are tactical moves by settlers that erase Indigenous histories, marginalize climbers that are not white men, and justify colonial power.
The work done by Black and Indigenous women to address the issue of climbing route names has been historically swept under the rug by companies with power. However, the move to address anti-Black racism in workplaces and communities is illuminating the issue more than ever before. Recently, the movement to get organizations such as Mountain Project to acknowledge this issue has been lead by women of color, specifically Black and Indigenous women. Meagan Martin, a competitive climber and one of the first women American Ninja Warriors, as well as Molly Thompson-Smith, another competitive climber, are among those who have outwardly expressed disappointment in their communities for allowing these names to exist.
It’s not just the names, either. Black and Indigenous climbers, as well as other women and non-binary climbers of color, have been open about their discomfort within the climbing community. Thompson-Smith described her experiences with racism at the climbing gym: “When it has happened in a climbing gym it’s been ‘harmless’ comments or jokes I’ve just shrugged off.”
Women and non-binary climbers of color have made it clear: the white, male-dominated realm of climbing is taking a toll on their mental health. But what do these climbers get in response?
“Your quest to change historical names because you think they may have an offensive word in them is dumb. You are hypersensitive and one of the problems with society.”
This is what one climber received they sent a request to Mountain Project to change the name of a climbing route called “Everybody’s Slave.” Mountain Project has since stated an apology for this response, along with the intent to work with climbers to change route names. I won’t name them here for privacy, but they’re not alone.
There is a forum on Mountain Project’s website that discusses this very subject. Most recently active in March 2020, some of the discussion echoes that disgruntled Mountain Project employee’s response, with opinions ranging from slippery slope arguments…
This is probably why people assume it will be a slippery slope with more demands to change names moving forward. There is already an easy solution to this, but that’s not enough for a vocal minority.
…to openly sexist stereotypes
Its an art that the average millennial doesn’t understand or appreciate. Try the local stitch and bitch club?
….to the slightly more thoughtful takes.
Personally, I think that whoever has the right to name the route has the right to name it whatever they feel is appropriate. That being said if the route is on sacred ground or has some meaning to locals, religion, or natives etc. that should be respected and names should be chosen that are respectful to the culture etc
Though this conversation has been ongoing for some time now, it’s because of climbers like Melissa Utomo, who proposed a button feature in 2019 to REI, who used to own Mountain Project, that allows users to flag oppressive route names. The same day Mutomo pushed for awareness of this proposal, Mountain Project released a very similar feature without crediting her work. Melanin Base Camp has an immensely helpful, in-depth article about this history on their website.
Some argue that the first people to climb and establish a route, also known as the first ascenders (FAs) of a route, have the rights to name that climb whatever they feel is best. But let’s be real: no white man can be the true “first ascender” of any mountain on Indigenous land. Whether they rock-climbed the way we think of it now or were hikers, farmers, or caretakers of these lands, climbers owe their sport to the Indigenous people that cared for their land. And it is time we, at the very, very least, respect that work through names that aren’t sexist or racist.
Change, though long overdue, is underway, only due to the hard work of Black and Indigenous folks. If you’re a white climber, hiker, or lover of the outdoors, it is your responsibility to advocate for and ensure that powerful voices in the outdoors like REI and Mountain Project are being held accountable to their actions or inactions. Actions to take now include:
- Emailing the REI Board of Directors directly using the template on Melanin Base Camp’s website.
- Paying rent to the Indigenous people whose land you live or recreate on. (I wrote more about this here.)
- Going through the resources guide at Diversify Outdoors — a coalition aimed amplifying outdoors-centered platforms of people of color — and choose a book to read, a video to watch, or a podcast to listen to that furthers your education.
We’re in a time of change. Be part of a revolution and demand justice.
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