The new year is bringing some changes to the Impact Driver Podcast. The conversations you love are still here, but we’re introducing a new way to enjoy many of them.
This season, the podcast steps into video!
The team at CBJ always wanted to share the human moments that didn’t make it into audio—facial expressions, our pets wandering into frame, and when we awkwardly mime climbing movements. If you’re listening, from wherever you get your podcasts, find a chance to bop on over to CBJ’s YouTube channel for the full experience.
Welcome back to another year of the Impact Driver Podcast. Same conversations, now on camera for many episodes.
Today’s guest brings us full circle to our first-ever episode of the Impact Driver Podcast, as we welcome Sierra McMurry (they/them) back to the show after two years. Sierra has been climbing for over a decade and routesetting for nearly as long, working at commercial gyms and competitions as a contract setter while balancing life as a PhD candidate in wildlife biology at North Carolina State University. Frequently traveling between the East and West, Sierra brings a wide range of setting styles and team experiences into every room they enter. They are a USAC Level 2 routesetter, with a growing focus on competition setting, education, and building safer, more inclusive pathways into the profession. Sierra and Holly dive into all those topics and more on CBJ’s first video podcast episode.
General Topics Covered
- The anatomy of an ideal setting day (hint: good coffee)
- Why competition boulders belong in commercial gyms
- From “rose-colored glasses” to clearer instincts: spotting supportive crews, avoiding tokenism and building confidence through community
- True inclusion versus performative allyship in routesetting
- Soft skills as the make-or-break factor
- USA Climbing pathways, changing rules and unintended “walls”: how language, requirements and culture can discourage emerging setters
- Aesthetics, Instagram and the “before/after” boulder
Show Notes
- Find Sierra McMurry on Instagram and their Ph.D Portfolio
- The first Impact Driver Podcast episode: Sierra McMurry – Routesetting on Common and Uncommon Ground
- Routesetting Tips and Workflow feat. Sierra McMurry
Closing Notes
If you’d like to nominate someone as a guest next guest, have a topic you want to see us tackle or have questions, we’d love for you to reach out. You can find our pitch form here.
The Impact Driver Podcast is a production of the Climbing Business Journal. Today’s episode is sponsored by Rungne, Trango, Rock Gym Pro, Flashed and Onsite. It was edited and produced by Holly Yu Tung Chen, Megan Cheek, Scott Rennak and Joe Robinson, and our theme music is by Devin Dabney.
