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Rock climbing festivals are some of the best ways to make friends, learn new skills, and connect with other members of the community. After all, climbing has always been a community sport, a shared passion that transcends the vibes of a mere hobby or sporting event. We play on the same walls and rocks, fight with the same gravity (9.8 meters per second squared), battle the same doubt and fear, and—let’s face it—share a lifestyle that’s very much built on putting nearly all our free time and resources into getting vertical.
This is also what makes climbing festivals so great: we come together with no need to explain ourselves and our motivations, but instead to—in our own, unique climber way—celebrate and improve the sport, the rocks, our skill sets, and our community. Here are 13 must-attend climbing festivals for 2025, starting in May and running through November.
If you’re looking for climbing film festivals in particular, check out this curated list.
Crack Fest, May 9-11 | Dortmund, Germany
Crack Fest, run by “Wide Boyz” duo Pete Whittaker and Tom Randall, is a unique, indoor event designed in 2020 to celebrate crack climbing. In March 2025, the flagship event in Sheffield, UK, was a one-day comp, but the May event in Dortmund, Germany, will take place across a three-day weekend and feature an evening film, skills workshops, and childcare for participants with kids. Past challenges have included an endurance competition (Can everyone at the festival, taking turns, hold a butterfly stack longer than Whittaker in a single go?), partner-style boulders, an astroturf-lined chimney problem, swinging hand jam boxes, and even a Velcro-lined vertical mat that one must stick and un-stick themselves from.
Boulder Climbing Community’s Backyard Climbing Festival, May 16-18 | Boulder, Colorado
If you’re headed to Colorado’s most famous mountain town and want to experience the environment that bred three Olympians on the 2024 U.S. climbing team, look no further than Boulder’s own Backyard Climbing Festival. Festival options include a morning run in Chautauqua Park, home to the Flatirons, a volume-based climbing competition in Boulder Canyon, a dance party, and in-depth clinic offerings. Compared to other festivals, these clinics include particularly niche skills such as hangboard routines, big-wall technical skills, and board climbing. Don’t miss it!
International Climbers’ Festival, July 10-13 | Lander, Wyoming
This venerable event began in 1994, co-created by the late legend Todd Skinner and other locals to Lander, Wyoming. It was facetiously branded “international” because a friend from Germany was visiting that first year. The event is based out of Lander’s City Park, on local boulders, and along the white dolomite cliffs of Wild Iris, a pocket-pulling, pure-Wyoming paradise with classics from 5.10 to 5.14. WyoClimbers, the local Lander climbing organization, uses money raised at the event to fund local rebolting and stewardship, regional youth-climbing programs, and recreation advocacy. It’s a massive midsummer party, replete with clinics, a dyno comp, pull-up contests, night bouldering, and the Limestone Rodeo redpoint competition up at the Iris.
Alpinehearts, August 21-24 | Göschenen, Switzerland
First launched in fall 2024, this Alps-based weekend event invites women, LGBTQ+ climbers, and self-identified allies to the granite alpine haven of Goescheneralp, Switzerland, home to the iconic El Cap-sized Salbitschijen. If you’ve ever wanted to find female or genderqueer mentors, head to the Alpinehearts clinics for clinics on trad climbing, multi-pitch climbing, falling without fear, and placing gear with confidence. Göschenen is a picturesque Swiss mountain town with dreamy lakes, cozy restaurants, and sweeping landscape views—no better place to make friends in the Alps. In addition to daily climbing meet-ups, Alpinehearts also includes live acoustic music and art classes on drawing climbers in action.
Salt Lake Climbers Alliance Climbing Festival, August 23 | Salt Lake City, Utah
The High Uintas are a great place to beat the Utah summer heat down in the valleys below, which is why the Salt Lake Climbers Alliance holds its annual festival/campout up here, staging the event for 10 years running. Based out of the YMCA’s Camp Roger, the festival takes place on the mountain range’s friendly, featured quartzite crags and boulders, with an emphasis on instruction, skills clinics, and climbing, with fun extras like yoga, a scavenger hunt, a trail run, live music, and a culminating dance party you’d best save some mojo for.
Flash Foxy Trad Fest, Sept 12-14 | Mammoth Lakes, California
Flash Foxy’s Trad Fest is a three-day event for women and genderqueer climbers that centers around mentorship, inclusion, and celebrating underrepresented groups in climbing. In addition to skills clinics and meet-ups, the Foxy Fair offers gear demos, sponsor and artist booths, a clothing repair station, and a unique “Sparkle Station” with face glitter. The rest of the schedule is jam-packed with optional activities for participants, including speaker panels, a game night, and buffet dinners. The Trad Fest is a complement to Flash Foxy’s flagship Climbing Festival, held in Bishop in March 2024, which mostly takes place in bouldering and sport climbing crags.
Horseshoe Hell, September 24-28, 2025 | Horseshoe Canyon Ranch, Arkansas
Horseshoe Hell is a five-day event that centers around two things: loud, colorful costumes and lead climbing as many sport and trad pitches in Horseshoe Canyon Ranch as humanly possible. There are three main competitions: a 12-hour routes comp, a 24-hour routes comp, and an 8-hour bouldering comp. The point system rewards both volume and difficulty. Horseshoe Hell is known for its rave energy and cultlike enthusiasm; in addition to offering multiple dance parties, the festival also includes a tattoo station. Dance along to live music, run a 5k, do some stand-up paddle boarding, check out a film, and, if you’re really lucky, earn your way into the all-time records book.
Yosemite Facelift, September 24-28 | Yosemite, California
Yosemite Facelift is a festival organized around group clean-ups and trash collection of various climbing areas in Yosemite National Park, including the iconic El Cap, Half Dome, and Glacier Point. Founded in 2004 by Ken Yager and hosted by his organization, the Yosemite Climbing Association, this five-day event rewards volunteers with free food, film showings, and Q&As with pro climbers each evening. Since its start, Facelift has removed over 1 million pounds of trash from Yosemite. As the U.S. National Park system faces extreme budget cuts in 2025, it’s more important than ever to help keep the wilderness clean from garbage and graffiti.
Valle Orco Climbing Festival, September 25-28 | Ceresole Reale, Italy
Valle Orco Climbing Festival has it all: free camping across the lush green floor of “the Little Yosemite of Europe,” climbing on incredible Italian granite, acroyoga classes, sponsor booths with prizes, and a huge Saturday night dance party. This four-day event is dedicated to trad climbing and bouldering, with an outdoor boulder competition to introduce you to Valle dell’Orco’s most classic problems. The check-in table even offers each participant a portion of bra sausage, a local delicacy that can be eaten raw, just to get a taste of Piedmont culture.
Joe’s Valley Festival, October 2-5 | Joe’s Valley, Utah
You may have seen it in the Reel Rock 14 film, United States of Joe’s, but if you haven’t, know that Joe’s Valley Festival is more than just a bouldering party. In fact, it’s a critical part of bringing Emery County residents and visiting climbers together. In 2017, the festival codified that mission by becoming a 501(c)3 nonprofit, and in 2018 it received the Economic Impact Award from the Utah Office of Outdoor Recreation. In addition to world-class bouldering clinics, you can try out steer riding, hide racing, chicken chases, cornhole, and ghost tours, or take a class in rodeo sports, beef jerky cooking, copper jewelry making, and fishing. Finally, don’t miss the “Joe-down” dance party or the creative bouldering challenges like table bouldering and crate stacking.
Adaptive Climbers Festival, October 16-19 | Red River Gorge, Kentucky
Based in the Red River Gorge during its loveliest autumn season, the three-day Adaptive Climbers Festival is centered around supporting paraclimbers in all of their climbing goals. Highlights of the festival include catered Miguel’s Pizza at the crag, a fireside dance party, camping by the Lago Linda Highway, and up to 34 different climbing skills clinics, most of which are led by disabled athletes.
Rocktoberfest, October 2025 | Red River Gorge, Kentucky
While the specific dates have yet to be announced, it’s certain that this festival/massive climber party will be held in October or it’s simply not a real “rock-toberfest,” highlighting the month when climbing conditions are ideal at the Red River Gorge, Kentucky. The Red is America’s best sport destination, with monster classics from 5.9 to 5.14+ on grippy Corbin sandstone that feels sculpted by the gods. One of my wildest memories from the Red is sharing moonshine around the campfire with an Appalachian good ol’ boy, in true Kentucky fashion, at Torrent Falls during an early Rocktoberfest. The Red River Gorge Climbers’ Coalition does an exemplary job of crag stewardship, having bought and continuing to maintain nearly all the area’s crags; this event supports the cause. In 2024, it included film screenings, a costume contest, an exclusive bourbon bottle signing with Black Diamond athletes, a live Struggle Podcast Climbing Show recording, and a disc golf tournament.
Blk Out Fest, November 2025 | Chattanooga, Tennessee
This three-day, three-night, retreat-style event is designed to provide a rejuvenating and inspiring space for all climbers of the African diaspora. The Chattanooga-based festival features bouldering meetups, dancing, art, highlining, film screenings, speaker panels, raffles, and an art fair. Run by Tiffany Blount’s First Outdoor Company and supported by the Lookout Mountain Conservancy, Blk Out Fest aims to celebrate Black athletes, elevate Black creatives, and support Black entrepreneurs in the outdoors.