Topics / Climbing
Climbing Podcasts
46 shows and 5,587 episodes sit under Climbing.
Hear climber interviews, oral histories, training talk and community stories from The Nugget, Enormocast and Dirtbag State of Mind.
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A field guide
Getting into Climbing podcasts
A rest day, a long drive to the crag, a finger taped and healing: climbing hands its people a lot of hours to fill. The best climbing podcasts fill them with talk the sport rarely makes room for at the crag. A climber explains why a line mattered, how a body learned a strange move, or what a partner made possible. The range is wide. At one end are training shows that read a research sentence aloud and argue about it. At the other are loose, generous visits with people who have spent decades on rock.
The form is still busy and getting narrower. In July 2026, a creator introduced Born From Stone to a route-development community on Reddit as a podcast about development, stewardship and crag care. In October 2026, the magazine Gripped announced that Gripped: The Climbing Podcast would publish every other Thursday from October 8. These show activity and specialisation, not proof of a listening boom.
Listeners mostly argue about manners. Some want a host who wanders off topic, and others hear every tangent as a toll on the way to the climbing. Grades are another live wire. They are useful shorthand for difficulty, but some climbers worry they become a scoreboard that crowds out the friendships that brought people to the sport. The shows below take different approaches.
Long interviews with room to wander
The Enormocast: the climbing podcast, hosted by Chris Kalous, is the place to hear a conversation drift and then land. In Enormocast 233: Bradley “Chum” Carter – Mountains and Music, the drift is the point. Carter, a climber and musician, moves from his modest chess rating to summers on small East Tennessee crags. From there he turns to songs he wrote after a partner stopped calling him while she was away on a long trail.
Elsewhere the talk turns sober. After watching The Alpinist, Carter says, "I wish that he could have lived longer," while admitting he still free solos himself. Kalous plays Carter's tracks. Near the end he plays a full song Carter recorded in tribute to Paul Nelson, a Fayetteville, West Virginia climber who had died. Kalous marks the episode as his ten-year anniversary, and it sounds like a celebration: unhurried, a little indulgent and warm.
Other episodes of The Enormocast: the climbing podcast point that patience in other directions. Enormocast 314: Sam MacIlwaine – The Way of the Offwidth Warrior takes on wide cracks, a style many climbers dislike. It makes the case for inverted offwidth with real relish: "It's acrobatic. You're doing these vertical cartwheels." The gear talk is detailed, and MacIlwaine also describes her work as an associate editor at Climbing Magazine, helping freelancers get published.
On The Enormocast: the climbing podcast, Enormocast 275: Anna Liina Laitinen – Born to Kiivetä has the best small moment. After a story about a finger injury, Laitinen explains that in Finland the ring finger is the "nameless finger." The joke opens onto a serious discussion of the pressure of performing as a professional climber.
Stories that start on the printed page
Dirtbag State of Mind podcast, from The Climbing Zine, works outward from a printed magazine. Host Luke Mehall builds Poetry in Motion with Karly Rager around her article in volume 26 of the zine. It covers the first free ascent of Guerreras in El Salto with her partner, Mango. Rager describes the doubt she has met when proposing big objectives, including remarks such as "that's a big boy climb." She talks about the work of sorting fair caution from conditioning. She also describes an approach so loose that the ground crumbled underfoot, which she thinks is probably why the line sat unclimbed for so long. Rager also appears on The Enormocast: the climbing podcast in Enormocast 327: Karly Rager – Days of Glory, so you can hear her in two very different rooms.
From Prodigy to OG with Chris Sharma rewards a different curiosity. Mehall admits he assumed he knew Sharma and by the end found "this burning flame" beneath the calm. Sharma recalls coming up among the first gym-raised generation. He mentions a deep-water solo clip that drew "like 150 million views or something." He also describes a multi-pitch project he bolted, saw chopped, and re-established in the style local climbers preferred.
Training, fuel and Tuesday's session
The interview shows explain why people climb. The TrainingBeta Podcast: A Climbing Training Podcast is for the listener who wants to know what to do on Tuesday. Neely Quinn, a nutritionist for climbers, hosts. Its most recent listed episodes date from 2021, so treat it as an archive.
In Running for Climbing Fitness: Does It Work? And How to Avoid Common Mistakes, Quinn and coach Matt Pincus take on a habit they say they often see in clients' schedules. The episode includes a sentence from a study and reports that running did not improve climbing endurance in it, adding that it is one study. The episode's most useful idea is about recovery: "it's all stress that we have to recover from." For a weekend climber, that means protecting the day you try your project.
Also from The TrainingBeta Podcast: A Climbing Training Podcast, Carbs for Climbers: How Much, What Kind, Timing, and Why runs 31 minutes and works through listener questions from a five-day nutrition challenge Quinn ran the previous year. Asked how to hydrate without adding carbs, she answers, "Uh, water?" Diet advice here reflects one practitioner's approach with her clients, so weigh it as that. The archive also includes Grades - How to Keep Your Ego in Check with Matt Pincus, a title that goes straight to the grade argument. If running is your other sport, the Running page is the next stop.
A national scene, with the arguments left in
ScotRock narrows its focus to Scotland and widens it to the institutions that make climbing possible. Calum McBain and Robert MacKenzie host. In a two-part conversation, Kevin Howett, whom the show introduces as Mountaineering Scotland's first paid staff member, looks back on 35 years.
Episode 39: Kevin Howett - Climb Now, works Done (35 years of Mountaineering Scotland) covers access, conservation and safety. One story involves a plan to descale a crag by levering blocks with a six-foot crowbar to see which ones moved. Howett also admits he thinks one access project's path went in the wrong place. Episode 40: Kevin Howett - The Northumbrian Halfwit (35 years of Mountaineering Scotland) - Part 2 turns to indoor walls and coaching, down to why a teaching wall needs a slab at the right angle.
Episode 32: The Controversial Panel Show with Rebekah Drummond and Robbie Phillips shows ScotRock at its loudest. A baby sits at the table, and the panel argues over channels that repurpose other people's footage. In a stewardship exchange about climbers cleaning rare mosses off boulders, one panellist asks, "Why do we need to climb everything?" The counterargument about access and hypocrisy gets a full airing. Near the end of all three episodes, listeners are told to do their buddy checks. For outdoor pursuits beyond rock, the Outdoor Sports page is worth a look.
Desert towers, new gyms and the wider outdoors
Sender's Game Podcast is an older archive, with listed episodes from 2019 to 2021. In 29 - Crusher (feat. Steve Bartlett), Bartlett describes first ascents on desert towers with no previous climbing, on soft rock where pins bend and a perfect-looking crack can turn out to be full of mud. The bolt ethic voiced near the end is plain: if a bolt goes in, "it should be a good bolt." La Vida Vertical gives the floor to The Climbing Zine's publisher. His stories include a free soloist who, 50 feet up, grabbed the guest's top rope and downclimbed it.
theDIHEDRAL Podcast is the gentlest show here and the one most interested in climbers as neighbours. In Zac Shoulders - MoCo: Bouldering and Fitness, the host's "hard-hitting question" is "Why are you so nice?" Shoulders then explains losing his job in 2020 and building a bouldering gym in North Houston, including horizontal routes for newcomers nervous about the drop.
Britney Berkstresser - Climbing with Tiny Holds features a jewellery business that began with one pair of earrings. It becomes a frank account of living with Lyme disease, which she says went undiagnosed for 11 years, before swerving into hot root beer and matcha. That swerve is the show's bargain. Listeners who want only climbing may get restless, while those who want company will find it easy to like.
Where to start
- If you want a whole life in one sitting: The Enormocast: the climbing podcast, Enormocast 275: Anna Liina Laitinen – Born to Kiivetä.
- For a famous climber, freshly seen: Dirtbag State of Mind podcast, from The Climbing Zine, From Prodigy to OG with Chris Sharma.
- If your next session needs a plan: The TrainingBeta Podcast: A Climbing Training Podcast, Running for Climbing Fitness: Does It Work? And How to Avoid Common Mistakes.
- For an argument worth joining: ScotRock, Episode 32: The Controversial Panel Show with Rebekah Drummond and Robbie Phillips.
- For old-school adventure tales: Sender's Game Podcast, 29 - Crusher (feat. Steve Bartlett).
Pick the conversation you want on your next rest day, and listen for the detail a guidebook would never print. For other sports, the Sports page has the rest of the section.
Featured shows below are part of the PlayNext catalog. Updated weekly.
Featured shows
8 shows, described rather than listed
Each has a short write-up and a note on what it does best here.
A solo fan-analyst tracks WVU recruiting, transfer-portal moves, practices and game previews in brisk spoken runs. It suits Mountaineers listeners who want frequent roster and news updates.
A recurring interviewer gives climbers room for long, specific conversations about training, longevity, comebacks and climbing culture. It suits listeners who like warm, guest-led stories and practical detail.
A seasoned climber frames long-form interviews with informal intros, local observations, sponsor riffs and self-aware jokes. It suits climbing-culture insiders who enjoy personality around the guest conversation.
Guest-led conversations begin with shared climbing references, writing, films or remembered meetings, then move through identity, place, movement and philosophy. It suits listeners drawn to climbing as culture and story.
A complementary duo works through WVU roster moves, basketball prospects, schedules and fan expectations with quick pivots and practical beat-writer context. It suits listeners following Mountaineers team building.
Relaxed, guest-led conversations move among one-to-one interviews, live groups and panel debates about walls, trad routes, gear, competitions and access work. It suits listeners already comfortable with climbing talk.
Open, generous interviews let guests linger on route names, gear, grades, road trips, dirtbag history and training, with quick jokes and guide-brain observations. It suits listeners who enjoy an unpolished room feel.
Climbers recall routes, crags, grades, weather and kit in long, first-person accounts that keep corrections and spoken pivots intact. It suits listeners who value patient oral history and the emotional turn inside a memory.