This North Jersey group makes rock climbing accessible to women of color
Katherine Cedro didn’t always consider herself a rock climber.
The Wayne native embraced the sport when she was in college studying to become a nurse. She would climb on her own indoors, and eventually started working as a party belayer – the person who controls the safety rope for a climber – at the New Jersey Rock Gym in Fairfield.
It wasn’t until her senior year in 2017 that the sport became an outlet, though, after her father died suddenly. The community she found inside that gym, she said, helped her through her grief.
When she moved to nearby Rockland County, Cedro felt she lost the community she once leaned on.
“I didn't know where to turn to or where to go because they really got me through a really tough time in my life,” Cedro said. “I ended up reaching out to organizations and seeing what I can get into to give back to the community.”
That’s how Cedro found Brown Girls Climb, a national nonprofit founded to create an inclusive space for females of color in rock climbing. Since its inception six years ago, the group has evolved into a community that, in New Jersey, is about so much more than recreation.
Brown Girls Climb is more than 1,500 members strong and growing, said the group’s chief executive, Brittany Leavitt. The organization has 10 local chapters run by 31 volunteer leaders. The chapters in bigger city areas, like the Garden State, are usually run by multiple leaders.
The goal of the nonprofit is to create a welcoming space for “people of the global majority,” as the organization describes in its mission statement.
Story continues after photo gallery
“It's a space where the community is able to not only create space for others who are interested in wanting to climb with folks that look like them, but then also create space for growth,” Leavitt said.
One way is by helping climbers in a sport that can sometimes seem intimidating, said Cedro, now a local leader in New Jersey. Cedro began climbing with Brown Girls Climb members and worked her way up the local ranks about a year ago.
Lorena Contreras, 33, another co-leader with the New Jersey chapter, also found Brown Girls Climb after yearning for a community of like-minded climbers. Contreras fell into the sport while living in Australia. When she moved back to the United States, she stumbled upon a virtual meet-up the group was hosting at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I had never found a space that was focused on people of color,” Contreras said, “so when I saw, I think it was an Instagram post, I decided to join the virtual call.” Contreras later joined an in-person meet-up and was drawn by the community.
“If you were a beginner or advanced, there seems to be a person that was there for you for whichever skills you were looking to develop,” Contreras said. “It just felt very welcoming and just overall a place where you could be yourself and not feel intimidated by whoever's around you — or by the sport itself.”
The pair now lead the New Jersey chapter while working full time, Contreras in marketing and Cedro as a nurse.
A sport creeping into the mainstream
The BGC community is growing in lockstep with rock climbing as a whole.
The sport has slowly crept into the mainstream. In 2018, there was the National Geographic documentary called “Free Solo” that profiled professional rock climber Alex Honnold. A similar sport to rock climbing — called sport climbing — made its Olympics debut at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021.
More gyms now provide interior rock climbing walls, and the sport has found its way into high and fast fashion. There’s even a series that was released this year on HBO called “The Climb” that followed amateur climbers.
The sport “has become very front facing,” said Leavitt.
Making a costly sport accessible
The sport can be costly, but organizations like Brown Girls Climb help it remain accessible to all people.
“It's still an inaccessible activity in a sense, when you think about adding up all the pricing,” Leavitt said, “and that’s why a lot of these organizations are important to our community.”
At the national level, Brown Girls Climb recently obtained nonprofit status, Leavitt said. The organization is developing new ventures like securing grants and working with similar groups to participate in festivals. It's also pushing for more advocacy and better educational resources for the outdoor climbing community.
The New Jersey chapter in May hosted one of its monthly meet-ups, where about a dozen people came together to climb inside New Jersey Rock Gym, where Cedro once worked out.
Anyone is welcome to the meet-ups, regardless of age or experience. The local chapter is slowly working on providing members with meet-ups that focus on climbers honing their skills. This summer, the group is planning an overnight climbing retreat in the Shawangunk Mountains region of New York.
“Personally, for me, I feel like I glow when I climb with these ladies, like I am pushing myself and climbing harder than I've ever climbed,” said Cedro. “I am trying things that I'm scared to do, and I noticed that for my climbers, too.”
Cedro describes this community as fearless, joyful and inquisitive.
"It gives you permission to find joy in outdoor recreation and climbing," she said. "It gives you permission to take up space and feel like a community member, and feel like ‘I am actually a rock climber,’ which was very hard for me to do when I first started climbing.
“Now I look at these ladies and say, ‘you are all rock climbers, you're all crushers and you're really making some strides,” she said.
This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: This NJ group makes rock climbing accessible to women of color
