Paths Crossed: Kate Rutherford
The professional rock climber's nonprofit, Farm to Crag, shows us why farmers are the real badasses.
When I met Kate Rutherford in Bishop, California, it was at the end of a very long day. That morning, I flew from New York to Los Angeles, picked up a rental car, and drove a few hours along the road that lights up my spirit like no other. As I-395 edges the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada, the mountains jaggedly soar between sagebrush and sky, light revealing a different part of their aura (and mine) with every new season. And in this season, as soon as I heard that friends were hosting a weekend of art and climbing activities, that was all the reason I needed to get on a plane.
Community, connection, creativity, and climbing: these cravings led me to yet another beautiful weekend in Bishop. That first evening, we all sat around a table at the local brewery, Kate among the crew. An accomplished climbing ambassador for Patagonia who has made several first ascents in the mountains, she is also the founder of Farm to Crag, a nonprofit that hosts educational gatherings that center on regenerative farming. For both reasons, I’d followed her pursuits well before I had the pleasure of meeting her. It is the table that Kate Rutherford has been setting that, to my point, galvanizes a greater good through community and conversation. Farm to Crag takes climbers farming and farmers climbing. It’s a win-win that engages the climbing community in climate solutions that support the rural economies among which they play. Delicious food is shared. Strong bodies and resilient ecosystems are built. Here, I talk to Kate all about the path that led her to this nourishing work.
So I’ve taken a deep dive into Farm to Crag, and into your climbing history, but I’d love to hear how you’d introduce yourself and your work to a general audience.
I'm a longtime climbing ambassador for Patagonia, and that's really sculpted the work that I do, and my life. I've been able to travel the world to witness a lot of natural beauty and incredible humans that live at the base of these mountains I climb. It’s really inspired me to take action on behalf of saving the natural resources that we do have and our wild places. And to honor the communities that are doing that already, and the people that keep the lights on for us while we're in the mountains, who nourish us when we come home.
And so in founding Farm to Crag, we really wanted to honor the people that grow our food and care deeply about healthy soil, and I've been really inspired by the potential for regenerative agriculture to reverse climate change. It’s a fun, fresh way to talk about climate change, especially with the outdoor community. We wanted to find a positive way that people could dive into these really hard conversations about climate change, food insecurity, rural health, or mental health.
Can you tell me a story about the people at the base of these mountains, a favorite moment of connection to the people or the land?
I have two. The first one is in Venezuela. It was really powerful to go to Venezuela and climb on the Acopan Tepui before the government fell apart and made that really hard. After flying into this very small village, they welcomed us with this pineapple. It was the freshest, sweetest, most decadent thing I had ever had, at least on a climbing trip. That started off three weeks of living in the jungle and establishing this new route on the Acopan Tepui. And the people were just so generous. They helped us machete a trail at the base and carried loads for us.
That’s beautiful—memories around sharing food always seem to stick most.
Yes. And the other really formative moment is from Argentine Patagonia. We spent eight seasons down there. Every winter I would go to El Chaltén, the town at the base of the Fitz Roy and Cerro Torre massif. And we would eat at this one restaurant, the oldest establishment in the town. It's called La Senyera, and it's run by these really rad women.
After many years, I eventually decided I wanted to climb all of the seven peaks that are in the Fitz Roy range. And the last year that I was down there and finished that goal, we also climbed Cerro Torre. It's like going to the moon. It's this huge, snowy, icy wilderness that is really unique, and not necessarily my normal climbing style. So that pure ice climb was a big deal for me.
But all that to say we climbed a lot of huge things. And when I returned to town the next season, they had changed the menu. There was an ensalada de Kate on there. They had named this salad because I was always asking, “Can I have a salad, but with no onions, and can I add some squash, etc.” So finally they just gave up and made me my special salad. It was such an honor to recognize that they cared almost as much as I did that I came home. So that was a really sweet piece. The asado is also such an incredible cultural norm down there. Every time somebody would send [accomplish a climbing goal] we would have a giant asado, and all the climbers would come and roast a lamb. It really underscored the importance of food and community, even when you're in the mountains.
Can you tell me a bit about your path to becoming a rock climber? In addition to completing those 7 summits of the Fitz Roy skyline in Patagonia, some of your incredible highlights on the rock include a free ascent of Freerider in Yosemite, the first female free ascent of the Northwest Face of Half Dome in Yosemite, and the first female free ascent of Moonlight Buttress in Zion, all with Madeline Sorkin.
I grew up in Alaska, and we had a homestead in the woods, so I played outside rain or shine year round. In interior Alaska, there wasn't really a lot of rocks to climb, but tons of adventuring in general. Not until it was negative 50 would they cancel school. So you went to school, ice skating at recess in these temperatures. I think having that kind of comfort in that environment from a young age set me up for the adventure climbing that I ended up falling in love with.
I didn't really learn to climb until I was in high school when I went on an Outward Bound trip. That really galvanized my desire to find a university that would support my goals in learning to climb. I ended up going to Colorado College and studying biology and art. That school produces a lot of climbers, and I certainly tried to befriend anybody who knew how to. That gave me a baseline skill set, but then also the community that I needed. We all went to Yosemite to climb, and places like Indian Creek.
Ah yes—then on and on through the classic proving grounds for climbers. That stoke and that all-in energy is the common thread in the mastery that I admire watching you all embody on the rock. So what happens after school?
At one point I had this really incredible job in the Grand Canyon. I was sent down the Grand Canyon in a raft with the Park Service to count bighorn sheep and it was so magical. It felt like the perfect mesh of biology and outdoor play. I had to write up my findings and all these things, but I kept slacking and going climbing instead. That’s when I thought, wow, I’m really not a die-hard biologist. So I decided I’d give myself five years to climb, and then I would go back to grad school for birds or plants or something like that. But that was over 20 years ago, and one thing led to another. I met the photo editor for Patagonia, Jane Sievert, who has been a great supporter of mine, and she started publishing some of my photos. I liked the combination of art and storytelling and using the beauty of climbing landscapes to inspire the larger community to protect wilderness.
What does it mean to be a Patagonia ambassador? Did that dovetail into founding Farm to Crag?
I think through my climbing career, we'll call it, I really learned a lot about being an advocate for places and things that I care about, and Patagonia really helped me refine the skills and helped me be an activist. And they also expected us to do that. About six years ago, they changed their mission statement to be very clear and direct, saying: “We're in business to save the home planet.” So I've been championing public lands and voting on behalf of that for a long time. But it was pretty depressing, especially in that Trump administration, as they rolled back so many protections on places that I care deeply about.
I was out fishing one day with Yvon Chouinard, and he had developed the Patagonia Provisions branch of Patagonia that really focuses on using food as a tool to reverse climate change. I was sort of in a dark place, wondering what I was going to do. And he said to me, “Well, you know, the number one things climbers can do to reverse climate change is invest in regenerative agriculture.” And that kind of stopped me in my tracks. I said something along the lines of, “Dude, why didn't you tell me this 10 years ago?” I could have been doing this for a long time. But that sort of gave me the green light to really focus on these different pieces in my life that I found important. And then being able to weave in the climbing community and acknowledge that climbers are really good at solving problems.
Amazing. So tell me more about Farm to Crag’s programming.
Farm to Crag is really about building mutual respect between climbers and the farmers that feed us, or any food artisans, and part of our founding was to make it really easy to go find small, local, organic farms. My mom has a little local farm stand, and I feel like there's a mom in every community that's growing really beautiful food. How do we find them and support them and invest in them so that it's a reasonable livelihood? Part of our goal was to make a map that listed these farm stands or locally sourcing restaurants that were close to all these climbing areas. So that at the end of the day, when you're hungry and tired, you could easily find beautiful food.
But then we realized if nobody understood why it was important or knew that it existed then we weren't going to have any impact. So we started these educational gatherings to try to get people psyched about the local abundance. We take the climbers farming, and we take the farmers climbing. As well as the soil scientists and the indigenous representatives and the chefs. Everybody goes climbing and continues the conversation during a day out.
Can you share a story in which you’ve witnessed a connection made through these communities you are bridging?
Most recently, we had two farmers come to the Yosemite Farm to Crag event, one from South Dakota, who's a sixth generation rancher, and one from Washington, who's been a vegetable farmer all her life. And they're both so burnt out and devastated and just so frustrated. And they came away from the weekend feeling hopeful and inspired. Not that we were fixing it, but that there was enough hope to carry on, basically. So that was super meaningful to witness. Just giving the farmers support. I think that once people know the small farmers as their friends, it totally changes the way we vote. Now people that come to Farm to Crag events realize that the Farm Bill exists. I think that ultimately we need to have policy shift. But policy is not going to change until the public demands it, and so we're trying to create this cultural shift.
What have you enjoyed witnessing or learning about most throughout having this nonprofit?
Our events usually involve farm work, and witnessing how much knowledge and work it takes to grow food is super valuable in changing our views on food costs. We're going to have to spend more money on food, and so I feel like we're the marketing department for farmers. They don't have time to do that, but I have this creative skill set and this team of rad humans that really want to represent the farmers as our superheroes. We take food for granted, and it's a really extractive way to nourish ourselves. But if we prioritize food grown in a regenerative, organic way that has healthy soil as its top priority, then we will also help solve the climate crisis. Which in turn will solve so many of the social justice challenges that we have. So getting people’s hands dirty, seeing that people really want to work on the farms has been a favorite part.
And then there’s the soil science stuff—people are so psyched. That was a really big deal for me. I, for one, want to learn about the carbon cycle, and I want to understand how photosynthesis is going to save the planet.
Me too! I want to get more connected and tuned into my ecosystem in the second half of my life, I don’t really feel I have been.
It's so powerful to be armed with that really direct link between what's happening in the atmosphere, and what's happening with plants or vegetables. How they are taking that carbon dioxide and feeding it to the microbes under the soil, who are storing it and exchanging it for all these other minerals. And then how that plant matter either becomes our food or feeds animals that become our food. And so I think just learning the basic science of food and carbon has been a really cool tool for folks to take back to their communities. To be the geek in the room and say, “I just learned how we can store carbon in the ground with vegetables.”
I want to touch on creativity. I saw what you did with that piece of clay at Jaclyn’s workshop or when we were playing with paint with Rhiannon. And you make jewelry. Of course climbing is creative too, scouting aesthetic lines in the mountains to ascend. And now your nonprofit. How does this all connect for you? Where do you feel most tapped in, most present or in flow with creativity?
That’s a good question. I feel like I thrive in creative spaces, so almost anything can feel that way that I'm passionate about. I think climbing is a super creative endeavor. An art form, in drawing a line across the landscape with your body. But I think now my ability to gather people in a welcoming, beautiful space that celebrates the potential for food to heal ourselves and the environment is a really hard link up. And you have to get really creative on how to weave all that together in a way that has the right structure and quality to really motivate people to be leaders.
You mentioned a day out fishing with Yvon Chouinard. He’s a legend to many and a man who seems to lives by his ideals. As your friend and mentor, I’m curious if there are other kernels of wisdom he’s imparted that stick with you. It sounds like he was a trailhead for Farm to Crag, certainly.
Yeah, he definitely gave me the spark to start Farm to Crag. He also has a pretty dark view on it all sometimes, but he's said, “Action is the anecdote to depression.” And I, for better or worse, have really bought into that and feel like even if it's not the perfect action, it's worth trying my best to make positive change on behalf of the planet. And that helps me get through the dark times, and makes it all feel less bleak. And the fact that Farm to Crag brings such like-minded humans together and creates a really positive community ecosystem too, I think is really important right now to get people off the little screens and to the dinner table together. So I feel really lucky.
And Yvon cooks me dinner all the time. Sometimes it's a can of beans and rice and some corn tortillas. And sometimes it's this beautiful roast of lamb with all these herbs from his garden. He has such an incredible way of welcoming people to the conversation and to the table. He and Malinda both have been incredible mentors to me. And their commitment to regenerative agriculture has been really inspiring.
There are so many others too. Wild Idea Buffalo is a really inspiring company. Dan O'Brien is an ecologist and a writer, and he wrote a couple books. The first one was called Buffalo for the Broken Heart. Worth a read.
I love that you going down the river and basically deciding climb now, go back to school for plants later really just all came around in its own way, in the way it was meant to unfold. What are you most proud of right now?
I'm really proud of how happy I am these days. And I’m proud of how Farm to Crag has grown really organically and feels needed right now. I didn’t know that would happen. And the team is so cool.
Check out Farm to Crag’s events page for upcoming gatherings, including a weekend this fall in Bozeman, Montana.