Closing of SuperTopo Climber's Forum

The Forum has been an amazing digital campfire, with more than 2 million posts over the last 18 years. It has reconnected many climbers with old friends and helped many climbers make new friends. And, there have been many amazing and compelling posts on the site, especially those on climbing-related topics, that have been enjoyed by millions of people.

I have received a ton from this community and feel lucky to have been a part of it. I’ve met a lot of my heroes on this forum and made many great connections. I give warmest thanks to you all. The forum was a big wild experiment with many highs and lows. But mostly highs. Here are some of the things I found the most meaningful on the SuperTopo Forum

The memorial tributes

Help with supporting bolt replacement and access issues. This forum helped the ASCA get to 15,000 plus replaced bolts

The help to create SuperTopo books

The historical threads

Reconnecting friends

Helping collaborate on documentaries and books

Event threads to support non-profits and members

El Cap report

The events that were created and photos and reports that followed

I also want to give a big shout out to RJ who created the forum and kept it running. RJ has been my business partner and a best friend for nearly 2 decades. He has been a big inspiration for me and a co-creator in so many great projects and adventures.

As I noted last week, the SuperTopo Climber's Forum has never been a profitable business venture. It costs us a significant amount of time and money each year to operate the Forum, and we have done so as a service for the climbing community for 18 years. But, the prospect of having to bear increased potential costs in the future, both in time and legal costs, due to litigation related to inappropriate posts by a minority of forum members has changed the math. I am sorry to say this, but we no longer feel we can justify continued operation of the Forum.

I appreciate all the great many posts on climbing related topics that have been made here.

I encourage you to copy and paste any of your content you'd like to save before June 1st.

Starting June 1st, the text of past Forum posts will remain available as an archive. Regrettably, images will no longer be displayed for Forum posts. Trip Reports and Route Beta will remain displaying as they do today with both images and text.

You can continue to post using your existing accounts for the next few weeks, but effective June 1st, the site will strictly become a read-only archive. 

Thank you all for making this Forum something special over the last 18 years. Like many of you, I am sad to see it go. 

Sincerely,
Chris McNamara
Founder SuperTopo