Holly Yu Tung Chen

Journalist | Writer | Routesetter

Holly was born in Taiwan and raised in Hong Kong. Now she lives in Denver.

Holly is an independent multi-media journalist currently reporting on adventure, climbing, climate, and the climbing gym industry. She has bylines in Alpinist Magazine, Ascent Magazine, Vertical Times Magazine, Climbing, Climbing Business Journal, the Click news, the American Alpine Club Publications, Gym Climber, and Sharp End Publishing. She is the host and producer of The Impact Driver Podcast, a production of the Climbing Business Journal, where she interviews fellow routesetters about the young and budding industry of professional routesetting.

Holly has a bachelor’s degree in Literature from the University of California, Santa Cruz. She graduated with departmental honors, the Undergraduate Dean's Award, the Bertha N. Melkonian Award for Undergraduate Research and the Humanities Undergraduate Research Award.

Holly is currently a graduate student at New York University, studying journalism.

Holly’s work has been recognized and shortlisted by the International Sports Press Association and AIPS Sports Media Awards.

Contact

You can reach Holly via email: holly.ytchen(at)gmail.com or via the contact page

Selected Writing

Non-Fiction

 

Climbers have long relied on a patchwork of goodwill to access cliffs on private land–a handshake, a quiet conversation with a rancher, a scribbled note on a fence post, or years of informal use. As the sport’s popularity grows, the access issues have become more nuanced.

Originally published in Vertical Times Volume 125 (only in print)

 

MAY 1985: On Windy Corner, 6,000 feet above Denali base camp on the Kahiltna Glacier, Sarah Doherty found herself airborne.

If Doherty had screamed, it was drowned out by the howling wind that enveloped her and her rope partner, Bill Sumner, so suddenly. The wind had swept underneath her, picking her up and suspending her for several seconds over the rocks and cornices of the ridge, as her arms gripped her crutches, her only connection to the mountain besides Sumner. Tiny, cold crystals slashed her face. She kicked, trying to get her single, cramponed boot back onto the snow. Sumner, short-roping Doherty, hunkered against the slope and dug his ice axe into the crusty surface. The violent wind bit into his down jacket. He could feel the snot running down his face, forming into icicles. He feared the wind would pick him up too and, tied in together, they would fly off into the sweeping Alaskan sky, never to be seen again. Sumner dug his axe in deeper…

Originally published in Alpinist 86 (only in print).

Recognized and shortlisted by the International Sports Press Association and AIPS Sports Media Awards

 

Eleven-year-old Campbell Harrison free soloed ancient tombs. It wasn’t the most engaging activity, and he was a little bored, hanging with one arm off a statue of an ancient Egyptian god. The desert around him was a mess of beige. At this height, 50 feet off the sandy ground, everything blurred into indistinguishable shapes. Harrison would prefer monkeying around the climbing gym, even if it was on toprope. But free soloing tombs was better than homework. If only there were more pixels, he could see the pyramids better…

Originally published in the 2024 print edition of Ascent. Read full story here.

 

Pandemic Impacts of 2020 and 2021 Raise Questions for Adventure Tourism

American alpinist Conrad Anker ducked into the tent, and I followed. There was no mountain scenery outside. It was a tent on exhibit at the Outdoor Retailer Show in Denver, Colorado, where Anker had just taken part in a presentation titled “A Conversation on Equity and the Outdoors.” I could hear the details of a camp-ware sales meeting going on the other side of the tent walls. It was August 2021. I hit the record button, and he began to talk.

“I started going to the Himalaya in 1988. Once a year, every year, until the pandemic hit.” For a man of his renown, Anker spoke modestly. He rarely broke eye contact. When he did, he would thumb through his leather notebook of sketches and chicken-scratch notes.

Published in 2022 in Alpinist Online. Read the full story here.

 

Selected Audio

No Theater on a Dead Planet

(NEW YORK) – At a March 2024 Broadway performance of “An Enemy of the People,” the new revival of Henrik Ibsen’s 1882 social drama starring Jeremy Strong, who would go on to win a Tony for his role, activists from the environmental group Extinction Rebellion, interrupted the performance to remind us that there can be “No theater on a dead planet!”

Listen to the full episode here

The Impact Driver Podcast Ep 9 — Bless its Brushless Heart

In this episode, Yedor covers the ins and outs of managing a multi-gym routesetting program and the importance of strong leadership starting from the top down.

Listen to the full episode here

The Impact Driver Podcast Ep 7 — Keep them Sketched Out

Claire and Holly’s both fun and serious conversation meanders from gender inequities to ladder fiascos and covers Claire’s most controversial setting opinion, the pervasiveness of imposter syndrome, offering inspiration and energy to coworkers, keeping comp climbers “sketched out,” the value of wide representation.

Listen to the full episode here

Routesetting

Available for single-day, multi-day, event chief, commercial, USAC competitions, citizens/community competitions, gym opening sets, showcases, and routesetting related writing/reporting.

Holly is a different voice. She is not here to ask questions that validate what the industry already knows, and neither is she here to argue the classic catch-22 of why there aren’t more women, non-binary, and gender non-conforming people in the industry. Holly is here because the routesetting industry is in its infant stages of becoming a fully-fledged labor profession and needs some objective and unbiased curiosity.

Holly also reports on the routesetting and climbing gym industry for the Climbing Business Journal. She is the host and producer of the Impact Driver Podcast.

Contact Holly at: holly.ytchen (at) gmail.com or via the Contact page.