The Future Is Female: Four Climbers Prove Things Are Changing in ‘Passing the Crux’

Rock climbing means a lot of things to a lot of different people. For some, it’s a way of conquering fears; for others, it’s an exercise in discipline and focus. For most, it’s just a great excuse to get outside and breathe fresh mountain air.

Whatever their individual reasons, Steph Davis, Cail Soria, Katie Lambert, and Erika Moncada all fell in love with climbing and have become inexorably connected to it. They come from different walks of life, and wildly different backgrounds — but this sport brought them all together and changed their lives for the better.

In the Mammut film Passing the Crux, these four female climbers explore the meaning of climbing and how it’s changing. With more climbing gyms opening in more cities than ever before, the doors into the sport are widening.

The demographics are changing, and now women are poised to have their moment. It’s no longer rare to see groups of women-only climbers summiting huge objectives or individual women setting records on walls.

What does the future of the sport look like? As Mammut puts it, “The future is female.”

Runtime: 12:57 minutes