United in Yosemite
A collaboration with Matt Dillon - our extraordinary chef and food advisor - Old Chaser Farms
Stronger together - Photo Felipe Tapian
It was such a huge joy to support the United in Yosemite event, amazing to be able to support from behind the scenes, all of the work that is happening by so many organizations that are led by marginalized communities, to create a welcoming space for everyone in the outdoors. Farm to Crag hosts events around the country to help educate and get the word out on regenerative agriculture and sourcing food sustainably. It also helps build community amongst climbers and welcome in new ones who may have previously felt like they didn’t have a place in the climbing community.
Our main goal is to bring people together around the table and make them feel loved; to create a space that is welcoming to any stories, big ideas, or issues that need to be solved. This welcoming energy is a community piece that we didn’t set out to solve with Farm to Crag, but it’s become a really powerful piece of the organization.
United in Yosemite participants gathering for a delicious Farm to Crag meal - Photo by Miya Tsudome
It was a great honor for Farm to Crag to be invited to make dinner at United in Yosemite, a climbing festival put on by Yosemite National Park and the American Alpine Club to help bring marginalized communities into the outdoors and make them feel welcomed. With the help of All Rise Outdoors, Protect Our Winters, and chef Matt Dillon, we were able to provide an organic, local, farm-fresh dinner for the 200 participants!
Our role was to create a space for everyone at the table who maybe hasn’t always felt comfortable climbing in Yosemite. It felt really wonderful to support from a nourishment perspective so that the participants could focus on climbing, learning, and building friendships.
For the event, Farm to Crag sourced all of its food from local farms and worked with Chef Matt Dillon, a regenerative organic farmer, and long-time farm-to-table restaurant owner. We harvested all the vegetables the day before the event in hopes to showcase the beautiful local flavors in the most powerful way.
Our goal was to make people in awe of the abundance that local producers have to offer so that they seek it out on their adventures. It’s really grounding to have time together with a beautiful meal, slow down a little bit to converse, and enjoy everybody’s presence.
It was important for Farm to Crag to be at this event because we recognize that there is a lot of food scarcity in this world, which adds to the challenges of how to take good food to the mountains.
We want to take away that food stress and offer abundant, beautiful engagement with food, which can open up thoughtful conversations in the climbing community.
These impactful conversations may not happen otherwise. Many of them are about how to address racism and the historical exclusion of marginalized communities in the outdoors. We can at least begin, through local food grown with love, to make more people feel welcomed into the climbing community.
Such a feast at United In Yosemite. Photo - Miya Tsudome
We’re setting the table for these big conversations to happen. We’re talking about everything from ways to help people get out on big climbs like El Cap for the first time and ways for people to have enough food to feed their families.
Climbers gathering for a bouldering session during United in Yosemite | Photo by Felipe Tapia Nordenflythc
During the event, we noticed a really supportive energy where people were genuinely glad to be around one another and supportive of everyone’s different projects. The focus was on having a positive experience for each individual more than anything else. There was a lot of hope, laughter, and potential that came out of this event.
While our main purpose is to support creating a more just food system, we also want to prioritize getting more black, brown, LGBTQ+ and other marginalized climbers out into the mountains, onto the farms, and at the dinner table with us.
Thank you Lisa Bediant and Dani Reys-Acosta, Lauren Glikin and Heather Sullivan and Karen Williams, Mia Tsudome and Fliepe Tipain, Emily Fong and Jesse Chrakren, thank you Matt and Brita, Raw Roots and Wondernut Farms, to everyone, so many helpers along the way!
Let the beauty you love be what you do
– Rumi