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Articles by Will Gadd
Mad Scrambling: The Grey Area Between Hiking and Climbing
“It’s a hike on AllTrails. I downloaded it, we’re good.” The youngish man telling me this was absolutely confident that he and his party of older “hikers” were on an established trail with some, “scrambling well within our abilities.” I’d just come down the same route, where we’d done two roped-rappels I would not comfortably climb up without a rope and proper gear.
Gadd’s Truth: Interesting Times?
“May you live in interesting times,” is either an ancient Confucian quote or something Einstein said (according to TikTok, any quote you can’t quite remember but want to use to sound smart is now attributable to Einstein). And from the Ukraine to the Middle East; from breathing forest fire smoke in May instead of late July—we’re living in undeniably, and chaotically, interesting times.
Gadd’s Truth: Classroom Earth
Will Gadd paraglides near the summit on Mt Kilimanjaro on 26 February, 2020 in Tanzania, Africa. // Christian Pondella / Red Bull Content Pool // SI202005300150 // Usage for editorial use only // I didn’t know it on the summit of Mt. Savage (name changed, as it’s self-incriminating), but I was in the midst of committing multiple crimes against unbending natural laws.
Der Alpinist am 07. Februar 2026 um 22:35 Uhr auf Sky Documentaries
Heute 22:35 - 00:10 95 min. Sky Documentaries HD16:9 USA 2021 Dokumentarfilm Der kanadische Kletterer Marc-André Leclerc wagt sich allein und ohne Seil an die schwierigsten Wände. Er scheut nur eins: das Rampenlicht. Beeindruckend gefilmte Bergsteiger-Doku.
The Wall of Walls
[This story originally appeared in Alpinist 91 (Autumn 2025), which is now available on newsstands and in our online store. Only a small fraction of our many long-form stories from the print edition are ever uploaded to Alpinist.com. Be sure to pick up the hard copies of Alpinist for all the goodness!–Ed.] The Wall of Walls—WoW!—in Canada’s Kootenay Rockies. Will Gadd and Kirk Mauthner tied in together for the first time when they set out to explore the area three years ago.
Ice Climbing? In South Africa? Will Gadd Thinks So.
Heading out the door? Read this article on the new Outside+ app available now on iOS devices for members! Download the app. “Waterfall ice climbing” and “Africa” aren’t words you see together often, which is why a young local climber’s Instagram photo caught my eye: There was ice, albeit thin and scrappy, yet I’ve enjoyed climbing far worse.
Will Gadd: Training for Climbing Isn’t as Hard as You Think
“I think we’ve forgotten that in order to be good at climbing, you have to climb.”—Jonathan Siegrist, who is a nicer guy than you or me and climbs harder, too. Join Climbing Create a personalized feed and bookmark your favorites. Join Climbing Create a personalized feed and bookmark your favorites. Join for free Unlock this article and unwrap our best deal of the holiday season. Already have an Outside Account? Get the one subscription to fuel all your adventures.
Learn To Ice Climb With Will Gadd. Final lessons: Steep Ice Bulges, V Threads and How To Sharpen Ice Tools
Want to master ice, or at least become competent on the frozen medium? You are in luck. One of the world's most accomplished and knowledgable ice climbers, Will Gadd, is here to help. His nine-part How To Climb Ice series takes you through the entire ice game, from footwork to making V-threads to how to sharpen tools. The information is priceless and comes at you in digestible 10-minute chunks. Here, you find the final installments, lessons seven, eight and nine.
Learn To Ice Climb With Will Gadd: Ice-Screw Placements and Beginner and Advanced Dry Tooling
Want to master ice, or at least become competent on the frozen medium? You are in luck. One of the world’s most accomplished and knowledgable ice climbers, Will Gadd, is here to help. His nine-part How To Climb Ice series takes you through the entire ice game, from footwork to making V-threads to how to sharpen tools. The information is priceless and comes at you in digestible 10-minute chunks.
Learn How To Master Ice Climbing With Will Gadd’s 10-minute Video Series. You’ll Get Better, We Guarantee It.
Want to master ice, or at least become competent on the frozen medium? You are in luck. One of the world’s most accomplished and knowledgable ice climbers, Will Gadd, is here to help. His nine-part How To Climb Ice series takes you through the entire ice game, from footwork to making V-threads to how to sharpen tools. The information is priceless and comes at you in digestible 10-minute chunks.
Ice climbing Tanzania’s Kilimanjaro? Here’s how.
This story appears in the February 2020 issue of National Geographic magazine. On Kilimanjaro, most climbers go straight for the Tanzanian mountain’s famous summit. But those who take the more dangerous western route have found glaciers up to 100 feet tall. These ancient frozen masses are tropical anomalies—ice doesn’t often last long near the Equator. The sun’s rays cause the foot of a glacier to melt first, leading to calving, breakaways, and, sometimes, stand-alone towers of ice (pictured above).
Steep Ice Climbing Skills Special
Join Climbing Create a personalized feed and bookmark your favorites. Join Climbing Create a personalized feed and bookmark your favorites. Join for free Get full access to Outside Learn, our online education hub featuring in-depth fitness, nutrition, and adventure courses and more than 2,000 instructional videos when you sign up for Outside+ Sign up for Outside+ today. I’ve been climbing ice for more than 30 years, and I still get chills before starting up a column of steep ice.
Gadd's Truth: What Is Real-World Fitness?
The signs are obvious and literally large: obesity, diabetes, motorized scooters cruising Big Box stores, seat-belt extenders on airplanes and extra-sized operating tables for ever-larger patients. Thirty per cent of kids are now considered obese, and 70 per cent of the general population is overweight.
Gadd's Truth: We Are All Animals
Credit: iStock We are all animals, and I mean that more as a compliment to animals than an insult to humans. But we seem to have forgotten it. For the vast majority of our 200,000-year “human” history, we lived on the land with our fellow creatures.
Gadd's Truth: We're All Crazy
Watching other people rock climb without a rope makes me feel ill. It’s clear that if they make even a simple human error they will fall and die, graphically. I feel the same way watching people launch their paragliders in strong conditions, or fly a wing’s breadth from a lethal rock wall.
Gadd's Truth: Why I Hate Hammocks
I hate hammocks. Hate is a strong word in today’s world, but I would burn them all if I could. These feelings first started when a hammock tried to kill me in my sleep. It was a model meant to allow “restful” nights on big-wall rock-climbs—before the invention of porta-ledges—but it closed over my face and cut off my already meager oxygen supply, lulling me into a hypoxic death spiral of darkness.
Gadd's Truth: Ban the Speaker!
Technology and the outdoors go together like carbon fibre and paddles, but the role of electricity in wild places is increasing daily. I love techno gear, especially the kind that comes in sexy boxes and costs more per ounce than anything not illegal or made of yellow metal. Even though it was 35 years ago, I still vividly remember ripping the cling-film off my first Walkman.
Gadd's Truth: Mars & Venus
All I’d said was, “Well — it was only a small ledge that you swam over. And you didn’t stay underwater for all that long after the first recirculation. You should get back in your boat and try to do it right this time.” This verbal strategy had worked great for motivating other guys, but like so many male strategies, it evidently was ineffective with women.
Gadd’s Truth: Playing it Safer
The first skill we teach novice climbers is how to tie into the rope. This is roughly analogous to the first step a baby takes; learning to tie into the rope is the foundation from which all other skills flow. I have taught climbing for more than 30 years, and tied into ropes many thousands of times. I know I can tie my knot in a blizzard at night with a dead headlamp, because I’ve done it. I have always put the chances of my climbing knot failing alongside the odds of being hit by a meteor.
Gadd's Truth: The Craft of Outdoor Adventure
Everything in life has a craft—a way of doing things, specific skills, best practises, common errors and “traps” and moves that work well in those odd little situations. Most professions have a system for instilling their crafts in novices. Degrees, apprenticeships, mentorships, recognition from your peers—somehow there is a system that says, “You know the craft and you are competent.” Engineers aren’t allowed to build bridges without a lengthy education first—but outdoor sports are different.
Gadd's Truth: Your Mountain Town Survival Guide
We knew they’d figured out our game when they put locks on the dumpsters and giant lights behind the hippie-gone-industrial organic bakery. The staff had been throwing their leftovers, still bagged, into the dumpster and the bread had been providing about 80 per cent of the daily calories we needed to climb five or more days a week. This was an extreme mountain town survival strategy, but it worked.
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