Climbing has positively impacted our lives and we believe in its power to do the same for others. We are a growing community of climbers, gyms, local authors, and access organizations that believe in fostering a sustainable future for climbing.
Locals Know Best. Locals understand their area’s culture and people, positioning them as the best champions for stewardship. That’s why, when creating new guides, KAYA prioritizes working with existing authors and local climbers with deep ties to their communities.
Authors First. Our first choice when verifying an area in KAYA is always to work with existing guidebook authors. We want to give credit where credit is due, and nothing can replace years and sometimes decades of prior experience in an area.
“I’m really excited to have the guidebook on KAYA because so many people already use it. Popular problems already have multiple user submitted pictures, beta videos, and comments.” - Stella The Giant, New River Gorge
“I still find myself getting lost sometimes when visiting new areas. KAYA virtually eliminates that problem. The best part of the process was having support from a great crew of climbers - the KAYA team are clearly pursuing this project from a place of passion.” - Kelly Sheridan, Leavenworth
“KAYA helps disseminate accurate and timely information around access concerns that are front and center to the bouldering in Wilderness areas. By helping guide climbers, through proper ethics, access can be maintained indefinitely to these areas.” - Jamie Emerson, RMNP + Mt. Blue Sky
“I love the way KAYA’s comprehensive quality of guide information opens up new areas and inspires curiosity in the climbing community. After working on this guide for so many years it’s such a treat to be able to open it up and see the climbs people are trying out.” - Scott Stoddard, Little Cottonwood Canyon
KAYA makes navigating areas, finding lines, and sifting through beta easier than ever before. With your help, our aim is to host the most comprehensive and accurate set of climbing data ever.
MAKE REAL-TIME CLIMB UPDATES
Grab a new FA? Hold break? Area closure? Make updates at any time and share them instantly with the community
OFFLINE CLIMB NAVIGATION
Help climbers find the climb faster with accurate GPS and trail data that can be utilized outside of cell service
REACH MORE CLIMBERS
KAYA is climbing's most engaged digital community. With over 200 partner gyms and more than 80 verified guides, climbers are here
EARN REVENUE
All KAYA Guide Authors earn a revenue share for moderating and keeping their guides up to date. Donate a portion of revenue to your local climbing organization and KAYA will match up to 5%
KAYA partners with climbing organizations of all sizes to provide a direct line of communication with climbers. KAYA enables our non profit partners to share pertinent access updates from seasonal closures to trail days. We believe that more information about access sensitive areas leads to a more responsible community.
“Access Fund appreciates KAYA’s support for our mission to lead and inspire the climbing community toward sustainable access and conservation of the climbing environment. KAYA’s focus on climbing access and conservation in the gym space and outdoors helps build the climbing advocacy movement, and we are grateful for their partnership for years to come.”
“We love the way KAYA built their platform to incorporate information about access and stewardship. We can easily inform climbers of issues like parking, rockfall and nesting birds, attaching them to areas or specific climbs. As well as helping with messaging, KAYA donates a portion of all local guidebook sales to support our work. We’ve also used their platform to host competitions, allowing us to raise money and bring the community together.””
Existing guide authors have the most flexibility for being involved in a KAYA Guide project.
As a KAYA guide author + moderator, you’ll create the guide and help keep it up to date with the latest information and updates.
If you’d only like to contribute your knowledge as author without the responsibility of moderating, we will work with you and your local climbing organization to designate a moderator.
If you have an existing contract that prevents you from authoring a KAYA guide, but you want to contribute your love and knowledge for the area, you can elect to join the project as a moderator. We’ll perform outreach to find the right local climber/developer to help us author a digital guide. We’ll ask you for recommendations first.
You have two options for being involved in the creation of a KAYA guide. You can help author the guide without the responsibility of moderation. KAYA will work with you and/or your local climbing organization to designate a moderator.
If you’re ready to become a steward of your destination - step into the dual role of both author + moderator and help keep your destination up to date with the latest info on a reguarly, monthly basis.
If you are local climbing organization looking to improve the quality of climbing information for the crags you steward, you can step into the role of author + moderator for any area in your region. We remove the middle-person in the equation and give you ful control over moderating your destinations. We believe that more information is better to preserve climbing access, not less.
If your organization doesn’t have the time or resources to author a guide, we’ll work with you to identify a member of the community who knows the area and an act as an author. Once the guide is launched, we enable you to work alongside the author in a moderation role to help ensure climbing access information is updated and communicated on an ongoing basis.
We understand climbing because we are climbers. We actively work to support existing authors as a digital publishing platform. Unlike other digital platforms, we work hard to establish relationships with existing authors and local climbers who have a real connection to the areas they represent.
Our aim as a small team of core climbers is to make climbing more accessible in a responsible way. We believe that a combination of access to accurate information, stewarding and protecting climbing areas, and preserving and documenting climbing history by working with the right authors are pivotal to the brand we are working so hard to create. Here are a few ways we are achieving the above:
KAYA matches donations, up to 5%, from our authors who wish to pay it forward to their local climbing organization.
KAYA partners with national non profits like Access Fund and the Amercan Alpine Club to organize fundraisers, match campaigns, and help facilitate in-person events.
Access sensitive and closed areas/climbs are clearly marked in KAYA so that climbers are well educated before they even step foot outside.
We’ve created a simple reporting feature for climbers to help us stay on top of common issues like old anchors/bolts, seasonal closures, hold breakage, and more.
We provide a collaborative space where climbers, authors, and climbing non-profits can work together to collectively support KAYA’s collection of high quality climbing data and beta videos.
KAYA will always make a best-faith effort to partner with existing print guidebook authors first. The effort of publishing a print guidebook is no small feat and we seek to support these authors by offering a digital publishing platform alongside their print books.
If a print guidebook author is unable or uninterested in partnering with KAYA, we will look to the climbing community and our local climbing organization partners to solicit interest of local climbers who have a relationship to the climbing area.
Each KAYA author earns up to a 50% revenue share for the creation and ongoing moderation of their guide.
All our authors are paid on a quarterly basis.
Most of our guides have been completed in anywhere from a few days to a few month's time. The destination size, how much information you have already collected, and the accessibility of the climbing all play a role in the pace.
Our climbing data is a combination of:
Official guides authored and uniquely written by guidebook authors, local climbers, and non-profit organizations
User submitted climb information that is reviewed and vetted by our team to ensure there are is no copyright infringement before being published to the app
Any data that is available in the public domain. KAYA does not use copyrighted data without permission from the author(s).
By partnering with KAYA you grant us a license to publish your information. You will always retain ownership and rights to your data.
Digital guides have not shown to affect print sales with our current authors that have published print books. The digital and print mediums offer different experiences for discovering and navigating climbing destinations. To support our print guidebook authors, we ink to the shop/store for climbers who want to purchase a print guide in addition to the KAYA guide.
