By the time Kai Lightner was in college, he’d already won 10 youth and two open National Championship titles, and he’d medaled in five Youth World Championships. He’d long established himself as one of America’s best climbers, a fact which came with a complicated network of obligations and overlapping travel and training schedules. While most of his peers puzzled over their futures careers, Lightner had one; but as his schedule filled up, he began to wonder just how tenable it was.

“I really wanted to embrace the full college experience, have friends, do extracurricular activities, and not have to focus on juggling a highly rigorous competition climbing career,” he says. Then, when Lightner was just a sophomore in college, the Black Lives Matter movement took off, and he started getting calls from outdoor industry leaders who wanted guidance.

“I realized that I just needed to step in and be the middleman,” he says. “That’s kind of what inspired me to start my nonprofit, Climbing For Change. But it was such a time-consuming job, and there was no space for me to put in the hours and the level of rigor that I needed to perform on rock or in competition. I needed to make a choice, and I chose the community. I was thinking then that the hard climbing part of my career was over; I just assumed it was. I didn’t even question it.”

Climbing For Change went on to be a blazing success, forming relationships with donors to offer funded grant programs to individuals and businesses. Within six months of conception, Climbing For Change had partnered with Kevin Jorgeson’s 1Climb to build a climbing wall in College Park. In a 2023 interview with this magazine, he described that endeavor as “God’s work. It was a lot of effort.”

It wasn’t until college ended that Lightner began to make his way back to training, projecting, and eventually, as he described it, hard climbing. Last December, we caught up with Lightner after he sent Life of Villains (5.14d), a line bolted by Joe Kinder in the Hurricave, in southwestern Utah. Three months later, in late February, Lightner made the FA of a variation of the same line, Death of Villains (5.15a). It was his hardest ascent to date, and he described the emotions that came with it as overwhelming.

“It meant that I’m not just back; I’m better than I was, I’m better than I’ve ever been,” he says.

Climbing caught up with Lightner to learn more about Death of Villains, his training, and what it took for him to access that “try hard” space again. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.

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The Interview

Climbing: What is DoV like?

Lightner: When Joe Kinder initially showed me LoV, he was telling me about a potential project called DoV. And when he showed me the route, I was amazed. I thought, “This looks so beautiful.” It goes directly through this huge arc—it’s like the Eye of Odin looking out into the valley. It’s the king line in the cave, and one of the best lines in America. So I was excited when he showed it to me, and then, years later, after I had done LoV, he said, “I’m thinking of coming back and trying this route; it’d be pretty cool if you were trying it with me.” I was happy that he let me in on that process.

Climbing: What’s the style of climbing?

Lightner: DoV shares the same start as LoV. About half way up, it splits off. You do the crux of LoV, stop at the break, and then continue on through the roof. It has really intense power endurance movement, and I had to do lots of heel hooks above my head. The last difficult move is a really low-percentage dead-point to a slot right at the edge of the lip. I don’t think I ever fell on it, but if I didn’t execute it perfectly, it made the next sequence impossible. Knowing that was waiting for me at the end made the process really nerve-racking, because even executing the move fresh was really challenging.

Climbing: How does the route break down?

Lightner: The route breaks down into three distinct parts. The intro section is about 60 feet of 5.13 climbing to a double jug rest. Most people use a kneebar to get a no-hands here, but I felt more comfortable resting on my arms. Then, the next section is the crux of LoV, which is a eight- or nine-move V10 boulder problem into another five-move V9 boulder separated by a one handed jug (one that my fingers never fit all the way into, sadly). Then, you reach a sideways rest on a large heel hook and two bad hand holds (an optional rest for LoV that people rarely use). After this, you enter the final section of the route, which starts with a V8 into the 180-degree roof that meets up with the final low-percentage V10 crux of Activator, another 5.14d in the cave. The climbing in this section is super futuristic, with lots of heel hooks above my head and feet cuts in the cave. One of the last moves of this section involve a low percentage dead point into a slot at the very end. If you waste too much energy hitting this slot, it’s nearly impossible to pull the last three moves before the victory jug. When you get to the victory jug, the only way to really rest is with an upside-down double toe-cam into a seam. It helps you recover enough for a final traverse to the chains.

Climbing: How many sessions did it take you?

Lightner: We were supposed to be there the entire month of February, but the first week and a half it rained, so we didn’t get there until the middle of February. So the duration of our trip was two and a half weeks. And I was able to squeeze in around nine sessions before I sent. I sent on my second attempt on the last climbable day before I had to leave.

They said You weigh more than 180 pounds and you think that you can climb 5.15? I was like, Yeah. Watch me do it.

Climbing: That’s not a lot of time. Did that surprise you?

Lightner: Kind of. Going into the route, I didn’t really know what I was training for. I knew power endurance was going to be important, but other than that I was going in blind, and I was shocked at how quickly things came together once I got there. By day two, I was one-hanging it. It was more of a matter of pushing through the power endurance part rather than struggling with links or sequences.There was definitely a moment when I had to get over that confidence hump, because I did think it was going to feel harder. I guess I wasn’t mentally prepared to be in fight mode so early. But eventually I was able to get into that mindset.

Climbing: Were you steadily bumping up the one-hang position from day two to day nine, or were you feeling stuck on a particular sequence?

Lightner: I was stuck on the boulder between LoV and Activator. It was really hard for me from a power-endurance perspective, because I had never done that many hard moves from the bottom. And so every day I was bumping my high point up another move in that boulder. It was a slow process, and I was definitely getting annoyed. But the more I was able to get my game face on, the more I was able to really hone it in. I had a big breakthrough in that section the day before I sent.

Climbing: What was the send day like?

Lightner: Send day was quite messy, actually. I knew that I was very, very close. And so at that point, it was just about me connecting mentally. On the last day of the trip, I showed up to the crag, followed my warm-up routine, and then I had a really shoddy first attempt where I fell even lower than I had previously. I was like “Okay, this whole trip may be a wash.” I came down, listened to my music, and refocused myself. On my next try, when I was sitting at the break before I start climbing, I was like, “Okay, this is it, if I don’t send it now, I’ll just have to go home and accept that it’s not going to get done.” To me that wasn’t really an option, so I was really determined. And I was able to enter this flow state to get me all the way to the chains. I didn’t misplace my feet, I didn’t second guess myself, and I was just completely in the zone and focused on getting to the chains. And I didn’t leave that zone until I was at the jug with my toes over my head. And I was like, I did it. Now what?

Climbing: What else was going through your head when you clipped the chains?

Lightner: At first, I was overwhelmed. But then I was also really calm, because it was a culmination of everything. I’d worked so hard to get my mindset and my body back into project shape. LoV was the first 5.14d I’d done in about eight years, and DoV was a completely new level. And so I had been throwing myself in the deep end really fast, in terms of being able to not only match the level I was previously at, but surpassing it. I was feeling this overall, holistic satisfaction.

Climbing: What was your training for the route like?

Lightner: My training for the route was centered around power endurance—lots of lap climbing, lots of four-by-fours in the gym. And lots of cardio, because for LoV, I needed to work a lot on my breathing techniques and to make sure that I was recovering on the wall. But I really only had four weeks to train for the route. Because in December, after I sent LoV, I had so much going on. I went to Jamaica to do our community building project, and I had gone home with my family, and I was doing other work with Climbing for Change. And so I just did not have the time to really follow a program. But I told everyone that January was for me just to be home, to train, and to reset. Aside from flying to Washington to speak in front of Congress, I was able to just say home and train. It was like the chillest month I’ve had in a long while.

 

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It’s interesting because, as a comp climber, it’s the same mindset. You have to show up to a comp with an abundance of resources, with all these skill sets not knowing what’s going to be put in front of you. Training for this felt the same; I had no idea what feeling I was going for, I just knew that I needed a lot of everything. So I was just throwing things at the wall and hoping that they stuck.

Climbing: How was it working DoV with Joe Kinder?

Lightner: I have always been a competition climber, but the rules of outdoor climbing are something that I’ve kind of had to learn along the way. I didn’t come from a legacy of climbers or anyone who even knew this sport existed. And so to have Joe be so willing to teach me the ropes in a lot of ways—I’m forever grateful. He was a really great partner to have in the process.

Climbing: Let’s talk about the route names a little bit. You mentioned on Instagram that the names held meaning for you. Can you explain?

Lightner: When Joe introduced me to LoV and DoV, he didn’t just introduce the climbs—he was very attached to the names. And so he told me about how LoV was about taking the narrative people had given for him and embracing it for himself. He was like, well, if that’s what people are gonna call me, then I might as well take it and turn it into a brand. Basically, he was reclaiming the word. But DoV was about ending a chapter, being able to overcome the villains of the past, and not let them stop him from achieving the next objective. And that really spoke to me, because there have been so many obstacles in my path as a professional climber, whether it had to do with the color of my skin, or people telling me that I was too big for climbing, or some of the health issues that I had gone through with my eating disorder. There were multiple roadblocks along the way, and any one of those things could have stopped my career or caused me to retire from the sport, but I just decided that they weren’t enough to make me quit, and that I would have to be forced out. And so, in that sense, to do the climb felt like the end of the chapter for me. Also, I did feel that in sending 5.15, I couldn’t be told that I wasn’t allowed to be in this professional climber space. It’s like, I’m here, I defy every rule in the book in terms of what a professional climber looks like, and I’m okay with that. I’m okay with making my own footsteps and creating my own path.

Climbing: You’ve forged a unique path in our community. There’s no one else who’s done the advocacy work that you’ve done, climbed as hard as you’ve climbed, and represents a minority in our sport.

Lightner: When I think about the path I took to get here, I sometimes forget about all of the things that have stood in my way. Neither path—climbing hard or the advocacy work—was easy. And I was told in each path that I wouldn’t be able to reach the finish line, because of something that was completely out of my control. I mean, as a kid, there were coaches basically betting on when I would retire from the sport. They were like, “There’s no way he’s going to finish out a career being as big as his parents.” And it’s true that there’s never been a 5.15 climber who looks like me, in every aspect, including color and size. They said You weigh more than 180 pounds and you think that you can climb 5.15? I was like, Yeah. Watch me do it.

And when it comes to my advocacy work, people completely discount the impact of focusing on diversity, equity, and inclusion in the outdoor industry. People have this misconception of the outdoors as being this all-inclusive space. There’s so much work to be done to really make inclusion integrated into the sport. And I just felt that, with the work that I do and what I stand for as an athlete, I can kind of try to make headway in that path of making climbing as accepting as I really want it to be. At the end of the day, climbing is such a therapeutic endeavor. I think that it would be an invaluable resource to the most vulnerable communities we have in this country.

Climbing: Once you were done with college, I’m curious what needed to happen for you mentally to feel ready to try hard again?

Lightner: Once I was able to graduate, I wanted to be able to fill up my time with something that was fulfilling, and climbing has always been the most fulfilling part of my life. So it only made sense for me to really get back into the nuts and bolts of it all. But I knew that I had taken such a large amount of time off of being at that level that I had a lot of catching up to do. My body had grown. I matured a lot in the four years. And so I had to figure out, “What does climbing at a high level look like in this new body?” Most people think that the moment you retire, the moment you take that much time off, it’s not really feasible to get back into it. But I was willing to essentially start from scratch and figure it out day by day. I decided that if working my way back felt good, then everything worked out. But if it didn’t, then it just wasn’t meant to be, but I had to do things that felt sustainable. So that’s what I did. And once the physical part started to come together, I was able to reconnect with having the mental part too.

Climbing: If you could go back in time to that moment in college when you realized how hard it was going to be to keep going the way you were and that you were going to have to pivot, what would you have told yourself?

Lightner: At that point in time, I was thinking that the hard climbing part of my career was over; I just assumed it was. I didn’t even question it. I was thinking, “I’m pivoting out; I’ll stick it out as long as I can maintain it.” But I wasn’t in a place to do it physically or mentally. So if I could go back in time and talk to that person, I would tell them to just keep faith, you know, like, it’s worth sticking it out. And knowing that the key to success is just listening to the inner voice in your head. There were multiple times when I thought about trying to pivot to other things, but that inner voice wouldn’t let me. Once I accepted the direction that life was pulling me into, whether it was through community work, or whether it was pulling me back into the gym, I sort of realized not to fight it. Your life is going to be pulled in directions for a reason. If things feel right, keep going on that path. Eventually things will work out in whatever capacity that looks like for you.