"Here to Climb" -- Sasha DiGiulian Doc on HBO

Just watched it last night with my fiancee.  Pretty decent film, and they didn't try to shy away from the fact that she's a pretty polarizing figure in the community (meaning she's into self-promotion and social media and sponsorships).  Honnold has a pretty good line, "Sasha's a really good climber which is why it's frustrating when she overhypes her climbing" (paraphrased).  

Climbing has long been a "sport" where the culture is to downplay your achievements and carry yourself with humility.

However, as I hammered in the last bolt and staggered over the rim, it was not at all clear to me who was conqueror and who was conquered: I do recall that El Cap seemed to be in much better condition than I was. -- Warren Harding after the Nose FA

Instead Sasha adopted a much more bombastic approach to describing her climbs, often to the point of making misleading or outright false claims.  I remember in 2020 Sasha was interviewed by a woman's sports magazine and asked (paraphrasing) "as the best female climber in the world, you have decided to forgo climbing in the Olympics?"  She replied, "I wanted to give the other athletes a chance" (or something close to this).  Sasha was a top comp climber around 2010, but she would have had no chance against Janja and the rest in 2020.  Why not just say that?

The film referenced her public take-down of Joe Kinder (without naming him, which was kind) as well as the controversy around her NF Eiger climb.  It also covered her failure on Pico Cão Grande and her multiple hip surgeries as well as other setbacks.  Finally there was a decent amount of climbing with Lynn Hill (a huge hero for me and many of us here), who is old school and isn't a self-promoter at all (despite being perhaps the greatest female all-arounder on rock in history).

My fiancee was mostly supportive of Sasha, though some quotes were hard to swallow, "when you're an elite athlete, you have to be selfish".

I've met Sasha a few times, and in person she's a really bright ray of sunshine, always psyched, always positive, and a fun person.  But man do I struggle with some of the stuff she says in public.  Today in a local magazine about her doc she apparently said this:

“I’m no stranger to criticism,” DiGiulian says. “I’ve faced it since I was young, and I’ve grown up having even my successes questioned, just because someone thinks it’s hard to believe that a woman could achieve them.

But I've never seen criticism leveled at her because "it's hard to believe a woman could achieve" what she did.  The criticism comes because she overhypes and self promotes and people find it off-putting.

I have mixed feelings: I like her personally, but I'm also kinda old school so I wish she'd just be more evenhanded in her public statements.  Your feelings?  Good or bad for climbing's public image?

Feeling #1. I agree with you. I've never cared for any excessive promotion in climbing, especially over-dramatized, over-hyped promotion. Sports fanatics and reality shows are off-putting.

Feeling #2. We're gonna get canceled. 

The drama that surrounds self promotion and hype with achievements within climbing is an interesting topic. I feel in part it is largely due to the impact that social media has done to outdoor activities and the fact that climbing is another activity where people are trying to make a living from it. Once money is involved things need to be sold and promoted so that sponsors or work contracts get fulfilled. Nothing inherently wrong with that. Its more along the lines of how they do it and what they are doing that may have a positive or negative feedback towards their respective activity.

For climbing, it seems like over-hyping your climbs is just a personal dent to yourself more than anything. You saying you climbed some grade or route isn't gonna effect me in any way. You are only lying to yourself if you are inflating what you have accomplished. Being truthful to the style/level of your accomplishments is a cornerstone of climbing. In the end it is a piece of rock and we are just trying to have some fun while we are at it.

In the end it is a piece of rock and we are just trying to have some fun while we are at it.

Most of us are. But she has to convince a lot of people she’s really good in order to maintain sponsorships and a salary. I think you’re right that it’s largely driven by social media, but that’s kind of what we get now that all the magazines are dead. And I kind of doubt we want to go back to the old days of message boards being the gate keepers of accomplishments.

Sure, some folks keep pretty much everything to themselves. OTOH, Honnold had a major feature film made about one of his (admittedly amazing) climbs, and has leveraged the absolute hell out of that thing to make money on it. Not everyone is going to get that level of media attention for their accomplishments, and so I don’t really hold it against anyone that wants to try to monetize an impressive send. I mean, not that they were incentivized by the same things, but go look through some Dean Potter quotes and tell me he was just some humble dude downplaying his achievements.

Also I'd say the message of "when you're an elite athlete, you have to be selfish". is fairly accurate. There's not many at the top level of sports that didn't get there by putting personal goals ahead of family, friends and other factors. Go watch the olympics and see how many families moved so their kids could train. Sports achievements are inherently selfish, especially individual sports. 

If by “best comp climber” you mean “one of the best sport comp climbers in the American circuit for a couple years”…then sure.

Let’s be real though, she was strong as fuck on sport routes for a few years, saw/earned the opportunity to grab a bag and then decided to do this whole politics and self promotion game since she was past her peak and the money was there. Kudos to her, I ain’t hatin’…..what’s the phrase; don’t hate the player? Honestly reminds me of how Rob Dyrdek got his bag. 

I watched a good bit of it. Definitely worth a look. It was nice seeing Lynn Hill bolt a route with her on the Maiden. I remember back when that other climbing dude got his brand sponsorships pulled for being a dick online constantly with her. The El Gigante climb looked epic, and soaking wet. Yikes.

Tim Stich wrote:

 I remember back when that other climbing dude got his brand sponsorships pulled for being a dick online constantly with her. 

Kinder had a private Instagram account (not his main account) with a handful of friends in it and he posted photos of an obese woman in a bikini joking that it was Sasha.  Dick move? Absolutely.  I mean, making fun of a friend (she was his friend!) and a woman who obviously struggled with body image and disordered eating is super toxic.  And it's unfortunate that Joe didn't see how f***ed up it was to post something like that, even in a private space.

Anyway, someone took screenshots and passed them to Sasha who decided to call him out to her millions of followers and that was it for his livelihood.  Some people were upset with her ("Joe's your friend... why not just call him up and talk to him instead of ending his career?") and some were not ("she has every right to call a guy out for behavior that was clearly abusive and shouldn't be tolerated").  

My view: in a sport where eating disorders are a huge problem, especially for comp climbers and especially for women, there really should be zero tolerance.

Brandon R wrote:

Feeling #1. I agree with you. I've never cared for any excessive promotion in climbing, especially over-dramatized, over-hyped promotion. Sports fanatics and reality shows are off-putting.

Feeling #2. We're gonna get canceled. 

haha yes.

I'm not going to watch any Sasha movie because of my personal bias against how she markets herself and her deceptiveness around her achievements.  I am interested in what they shared about the Eiger climb, that whole thing was sleazy.  They blogged it in real time, trying to capitalize on what Tommy and Kevin did on the Dawn Wall, then they went dark, and did a different, much easier route saying their original objective was too wet. Only one problem with that - two euro teams climbed their objective on those wet days.  OOPS.

John RB wrote:

Kinder had a private Instagram account (not his main account) with a handful of friends in it and he posted photos of an obese woman in a bikini joking that it was Sasha.  Dick move? Absolutely.  I mean, making fun of a friend (she was his friend!) and a woman who obviously struggled with body image and disordered eating is super toxic.  And it's unfortunate that Joe didn't see how f***ed up it was to post something like that, even in a private space.

Anyway, someone took screenshots and passed them to Sasha who decided to call him out to her millions of followers and that was it for his livelihood.  Some people were upset with her ("Joe's your friend... why not just call him up and talk to him instead of ending his career?") and some were not ("she has every right to call a guy out for behavior that was clearly abusive and shouldn't be tolerated").  

My view: in a sport where eating disorders are a huge problem, especially for comp climbers and especially for women, there really should be zero tolerance.

Pretty good synopsis of what happened. Though it should be emphasized the whole “private account” thing. Joe didn’t say these things directly to Sasha. However cowardly, or conscientiously, you want to view that, Sasha is still the one aired dirty laundry to the public (and seemingly continues to do so). Now, people’s perspective of the outcome is where there will be animosity and disagreement. Doesn’t seem to be much middle ground over the years. You either think Joe is a piece of shit and have a zero tolerance policy, of sorts or you think Sasha should have handled something of this sort internally and gotten a mutual sponsor (such as Sportiva) involved. Instead of “ruining” or “canceling” Joe’s career. That’s an entirely different (albeit, adjacent) conversation though.

Isn’t Sasha the one who belayed Magnus on Southern Smoke with her eyes closed, or some shit, just so she could still go for/claim an onsight?

Idk why some of y’all are surprised by the self-promotion. 

John RB wrote:

...some people were upset with her...

Yeah. Ha ha ha. Who cares what those people think? I also really do not give a shit about "professional climbers" in any case. I like to see people's climbing projects. That's it.

I stopped paying any attention to her when she came to a big gym and had the staff clear out the entire lead cave for a few hours so she could train without "being bothered." 

Not Not MP Admin wrote:

If by “best comp climber” you mean “one of the best sport comp climbers in the American circuit for a couple years”…then sure.

She won the IFSC Combined World Championship in 2011 alongside Adam Ondra.  That's more than "one of" and "American circuit" no?

EMFR I wrote:

I stopped paying any attention to her when she came to a big gym and had the staff clear out the entire lead cave for a few hours so she could train without "being bothered." 

No freaking way. That is so cringe. Do you have a source? 

Ben B wrote:

No freaking way. That is so cringe. Do you have a source? 

Yeah, I was there when it happened. In the lead cave. 

Wow, I’m shocked. She can’t stand being around the general population? Talk about elitism…

John RB wrote:

She won the IFSC Combined World Championship in 2011 alongside Adam Ondra.  That's more than "one of" and "American circuit" no?

Sasha finished 8th in sport climbing and 2nd in bouldering that year. I’m pretty sure she’s actually never even made podium at any IFSC competition outside of that year lol. Her success, as I mentioned, was almost exclusively within the American competitions….and outdoors. 

I can't bring myself to watch it. Ignorance is bliss...

I will watch it because I will watch anything with Lynn Hill in it lol.

Odd, I started climbing around the time Sasha was emerging as a top level climber, and somehow I missed all of this controversy and self-promotion until this thread. Have a lot of climbing drama to catch up on. One thing I noticed was that she never seemed to have a lot of “climbing friends” of similar caliber, but I always wondered if she just preferred doing her own thing.

Separate from whatever Sasha may have said, I do find climbers much more self-deprecating/self-loathing than almost any other sport. You never hear snowboarders talking about the meaninglessness of riding a piece of wood down a mountain, or football players talking about how useless it is to run a ball around a contrived set of lines in a field, or bodybuilders talking about how meaningless it all is, and so on, but a common climber refrain is that we participate in the most contrived, selfish, and meaningless sport imaginable. It’s not any more contrived or meaningless than any other sport.

Rock climbing is cool as hell and we should take pride in an activity which brings us joy, health, friendships, relationships, and wild experiences. Shameless self-promotion aside, the climbing community could use a little less “move in silence” and a little more psyche-building.

Can’t complain about how poorly climbing athletes are paid if we also want them to shut up about it and only talk about how we are the conquistadors of the useless.

I’ll preface my comments by saying that I don’t know anything about Sasha, her achievements or controversies other than her name and that she’s probably a damn good climber.



After listening to Climbing Gold’s recent podcast about Sierra Blair (whom I never heard of), I find most of the comments in this thread to be, I don’t know, ironic, knee-jerk and typical for the times.

Honnold has a pretty good line, "Sasha's a really good climber which is why it's frustrating when she overhypes her climbing" (paraphrased).  


After listening to the podcast, I find his comment puzzling. I assume Honnold said this well before the Sierra interview.



Finally there was a decent amount of climbing with Lynn Hill (a huge hero for me and many of us here), who is old school and isn't a self-promoter at all (despite being perhaps the greatest female all-arounder on rock in history).

Lynn was, and still is, certainly a hero of mine when I first started climbing. But I would argue she was about as much of a self-promoter as one could be around the late 80s and early 90s. I mean she was on Letterman in 1989 and has been all over mainstream adverts for like 30 years.