Outdoor Allies: Mike Reardon Carolina Climbers Coalition

Ever wondered how you can do more for public lands but you aren’t sure where to start? Outdoor Alliance’s Outdoor Allies series explores how other outdoor adventurers got their start and their advice for how you can harness your passion for the outdoors into protecting the places you love. Mike Reardon has been the Executive Director of the Carolina Climbers Coalition since 2019, where he promotes the expansion of public climbing access throughout the Carolinas.

First, where do you live and what do you like to do outside?

I have lived and explored the mountains surrounding Asheville, NC since 2002. Rock climbing is a big passion of mine but I also love exploring new-to-me areas in the Appalachians.

Tell us how you got into your current gig, as Executive Director of the Carolina Climbers Coalition (CCC).

I first started climbing in the Carolinas in the early 2000’s and quickly gravitated towards finding lesser-known rocks to explore. This exploratory habit turned me on to the Carolina Climbers Coalition, an organization who at that time just purchased the tallest rock face in Eastern America, Laurel Knob. Inspired by the organization’s conservation and access values, I began volunteering with the CCC as a steward of various crags; mostly trail work and bolt replacement, and then joined the board in 2010. From 2010-2019, I was able to work with regional land managers to open new climbing areas to permissible public climbing while simultaneously working with climber volunteers to steward existing climbing areas to make them more sustainable to user impacts. I was a middle school teacher at this time and conducting all of this work as a volunteer. In 2019, I applied for the CCC’s first ever full time position and was honored to be named the first full time Executive Director of the CCC.

How many climbing areas does the CCC now steward?

As of today, we own Laurel Knob, Rumbling Bald West Boulders, Buckeye Knob, and Hidden Valley. We worked with various land owners to steward and open climbing at Big Rock, Sauratown, Barn Boulders, Asheboro Boulders, Little Bearwallow Falls, Eagle Rock, Melrose Mountain, Pumpkintown, Table Rock State Park, Rocky Fork, Whiteside Cove, Bald Mountain Creek Preserve, Chimney Rock Village Boulders, Buffalo Creek Park, and Stony Mountain Vineyard. We work to steward public lands with open climbing like Pilot Mountain State Park, Moores Wall, Stone Mountain State Park, Crowders Mountain State Park, Rumbling Bald, Looking Glass Rock, 221 Region, Linville Gorge, and many more. Our stewardship work consists of trail work, trail building and design, rare species monitoring, bolt replacement, parking lot building and maintenance, signage, graffiti removal, invasive removal, erosion control, and trash clean ups. We average over 5000 hours per year of stewardship work with various volunteers and our C4 Trail Crew. Our website highlights more details on each of these locations we have opened or serve.

Having access to high quality recreation, including climbing and trails for climbers and hikers alike, seems to be a huge boon to local economies. What is your work with towns like?

We see a growing trend of municipalities, towns, and cities embracing outdoor recreation, including climbing, because they see the benefits. One of those benefits is the economic value of having more visitors come to a town or area. A great example is Rutherford County Tourism Development Authority, the Town of Lake Lure, and the Village of Chimney Rock. They have supported our work to open new climbing areas in the vicinity of Rumbling Bald because they see how Rumbling Bald is such an asset to the town. Tens of thousands of climbers visit Rumbling Bald each year and the prime time to climb is in the dead of winter, when tourism is typically at a lull. This helps area businesses extend their season during the slow winter months. Additionally, having access to outdoor recreation and green spaces simply makes towns more attractive and healthy for people to visit, work, and live. Our Rumbling Bald and Rutherford County example is just one of many where climbing has a positive impact on the towns residents, businesses, and visitors.

Let’s talk about policy: what kind of policy work does CCC engage in, and is there particular legislation that most affects your work?

Policy on the management of public lands directly affects how climbers can utilize climbing areas for climbing, stewardship, or new access possibilities on those lands. For that reason, we stay involved in policy in several ways. One aspect of our policy is work is that we collaborate with agencies like South Carolina, Tennessee and North Carolina State Parks to create climbing management plans that are (hopefully) supportive of climbing with clear expectations for stewardship and future development of climbing areas. We attempt to collaborate with agencies and provide our expertise in climbing management, and more often than not, those agencies actually listen and adopt some of our suggested policies. It is not a full proof process but it has proven to be beneficial to climbers for the CCC to work directly with these agencies on climbing management. The Access Fund, our national affiliate, often provides extensive help with our policy work or spearheads it at.

For the last 10 years, we have shared a seat with the Access Fund, working to influence the upcoming Pisgah Nantahala National Forest’s Land Management Plan. This plan will affect how the Forests are managed for the next twenty years. The CCC and Access Fund have met with Forest Planners and Pisgah Nantahala Forest Planning Partnership stakeholders on a nearly monthly basis on and off for the last ten years in hopes that this plan is positive for climbers and for recreation into the future. While we still have some objections to the Plan, we feel strongly that our collaborative work with Forest planners has had a positive influence. As a close friend in advocacy stated, ‘if we are not at the table, we are likely on the menu.’

What role does CCC play in converting outdoor enthusiasts into outdoor advocates? And what do you wish more climbers knew about getting involved in advocacy or stewardship?

If you are a user and lover of outdoor recreation, conserved spaces, and publicly accessible lands, hopefully you have started finding a way to give back to the land and give back to the organizations or people that help protect that land and your access to it. Climbing takes so much personal investment that as a recreational user of climbing spaces, the majority of climbers find some way to give back. At the CCC, we try to provide multiple opportunities for our community to be involved in conservation, stewardship, and access. Trail building is one way but there are so many other ways to give back if swinging a trail tool is not your thing. A great way to help give back is to utilize your personal talents and create a schedule for giving. If time is what you have, give 1 in every 5 recreation days to volunteering for an org that protects the lands where you recreate. If you have funds, set up a giving schedule. Even $5 per month could help fund a major project if every land user gave that much. If you have other skills like design or marketing, create a sample project and send it to your favorite org and send it to them, or share it with your friends to spread the word on their good work.

What’s on the horizon for the CCC?

Right now, we have two wonderful C4 Trail Team staff, Dain and Dan. I would love to expand our hired trail team to more employees and to other regions. If we are able to raise more funds and increase our budget, this would be possible, and it would help us increase our positive impacts. I would also love for us to have an employed community outreach person who organizes community events on a regular basis. Right now, it is myself and several volunteer board members handling all that work. We do it well, but sometimes balancing our on the ground land-based projects with in-person community-based events becomes daunting.

Another big element on the horizon is more access to climbing areas and better maintained existing climbing areas. We have been working on this for 25 years, but the trajectory of our access and stewardship work in the last 5 years has been remarkable.

Lightning Round:

Favorite piece of gear: Misty Mountain Threadworks Cadillac Harness

A book on your reading list: Rock Warriors Way by Arno Ilgner

Your next destination adventure: Costa Rica with my kids! For some personal climbing, hopefully Devil’s Tower or the Wind River Range.