Climbing magazine has been purchased by Skram Media, the company which is behind the publishing of Urban Climber magazine.

Cover page of Climbing Mag

It will be very interesting to see how Urban Climber balances the two climbing rags in its portfolio. One of our editors Andy from US said:

I have been following the recent trends in Climbing magazines lately, and I am not surprised.  Before there was just Climbing and Rock and Ice, and they held the entire spectrum of climbing. But today in America there are two divergent trends- that towards traditional climbing, and that oriented towards gym climbing and bouldering.  In the past four years Alpinist and Urban climber have catered to these two trends, and that leaves no room in the middle for Climbing. As a slightly inferior publication, it is no secret that Climbing's old competitor, Rock and Ice, has been struggling for years.


Cover page of Urban Climbing Mag

Alpinist readers want real in depth, well written articles- really world class stuff with good photos and little advertisement.  Urban Climber readers want to know what is the latest chalk bucket out, the biggest gym, and which acne pocked teenager campused the latest Fred Nicole test piece. They like flashy advertisements and fluff articles such as interviews with kids that don't have much else to say besides they love climbing. 

On top of that, there is no longer the need to read mags to get the latest
news, because sites like 8a.nu, Kairn.com, PlanetMountain.com  and Czechclimbing.com put it out there faster.

So, it may be the end of the middle of the road Climbing magazine as we know it.

It will be interesting though to see how Climbing's format changes now that it is in the same company as Urban Climber, because for it's last couple of issues it was changing it's format to compete with UC, with such articles as 'what is hot and what is not' in climbing fashion, and many advertisements that have pictures of pretty people but no climbing.

Source:


From the Climbing.com Climbing


From The Mountain World The Mountain World


Climbing magazine is probably the only one foriegn  paper climbing mag (except of the Slovak Jamesak) that has been reguraly available in the Czech Republic. The title is among the foreign suply of the Prague largest book store  Luxor.