About Us

WHERE WE’RE COMING FROM

Climbing is a sport, a profession, an activity, a challenge, an industry, and to some, a religion. It seems, sometimes, that there are as many different reasons to climb, pathways to climbing, and sub-disciplines as there are climbers. However, when you distill them all down, what you have left at the heart of it is a group of like-minded people who push themselves and their limits, to ascend and descend, to physically and mentally overcome the challenge set. These challenges may look different, but it doesn’t matter if they are faced with crampons or crash pads, or met on a big wall or on a gym wall — from your first day climbing to your latest project, we are all the same at the face. We push to the crux, and hopefully past it. We end our day with the specialness of a shared experience, with sore hands and bodies, and smiles on our faces (or if not smiles, a determination to “get it” next time)… and for us, there will always be a next time.

Essentially, climbing is a lifestyle -- one that we are a part of and do our best to support with our industry and our creativity. To that end, we make it our mission to provide the tools for every phase of a climbers journey — and to be a part of that journey with them.

Escape Climbing founder, Ryan Angelo, fell in love with climbing during college. He built his first home woodie in his parents barn in Wisconsin (lead routes and all), but he didn’t have much of a budget for holds. What he DID have was an art degree and time to experiment. He sold his first holds as Escape Climbing in 2006. After years of making holds in his spare time while working managing setting crews at Vertical Endeavors in Saint Paul, MN, he and business partner Richard took the leap into running Escape Climbing full time in 2012. Thanks to the supportive climbing community in the midwest, Escape Climbing continued to grow, and in 2017 we purchased the legendary hold designs of The Detroit Climbing Company and Project Holds. Ryan and Richard also forged a new partnership with the stellar Canadian climbing company Friction Climbing, to bring their manufacturing to the USA. In 2018 Escape Climbing acquired Kingdom Climbing and Working Class Climbing to further expand our hold offerings. We continue to push the design and technologies of our shapes, building capabilities and expanding our offerings to support the business needs of gyms and to inspire and challenge routesetters and climbers everywhere.

Our Journey Towards Sustainability

At Escape Climbing, we are committed to sustainability and would like to take a moment to share our sustainability goals with you and explain why they matter. We understand that sustainability is a continuous journey rather than a destination, and we have taken some important steps towards becoming a more sustainable company.

We are especially proud of our fully solar-powered manufacturing facility and our circular product development initiatives, which involve reusing cardboard boxes and recycling wood scraps to create new products. But for us, sustainability goes beyond just environmental efforts. We strive to create products that are durable and long-lasting, ensuring that they remain sustainable for our customers in the long run. Additionally, we aim to implement sustainable business practices, which not only benefit our company but also offer more employment opportunities and benefits for climbers and workers in our community.

By adopting a sustainability-focused approach, we are continually improving ourselves as a company and making a positive impact on the environment that supports everything we do.

What We Do

We exist as a company to enable the sport of climbing. Our mission is to get every hand on a hold. We want to tear down the barriers of climbing by making our sport more accessible to anyone. By designing great climbing holds we hope to bring out the best in route setters, which in turn leads to a better climbing. By being a bulk importer of hardware we can drive down the cost of bolts and t-nuts which leaves a bigger budget for holds and makes building a wall affordable. By offering a wide range of training tools we give you that opportunity to take your climbing to the next level and push your limits.