We caught up with Lightner to learn more about ‘Death of Villains,’ his training, and—after an eight year interlude—what it took to surpass what he believed to be the peak version of himself.
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By the time Kai Lightner was in college, he’d already won 10 youth and two open National Championship titles, and he’d medaled in five Youth World Championships. He’d long established himself as one of America’s best climbers, a fact which came with a complicated network of obligations and overlapping travel and training schedules. While most of his peers puzzled over their futures careers, Lightner had one; but as his schedule filled up, he began to wonder just how tenable it was.
“I really wanted to embrace the full college experience, have friends, do extracurricular activities, and not have to focus on juggling a highly rigorous competition climbing career,” he says. Then, when Lightner was just a sophomore in college, the Black Lives Matter movement took off, and he started getting calls from outdoor industry leaders who wanted guidance.
“I realized that I just needed to step in and be the middleman,” he says. “That’s kind of what inspired me to start my nonprofit, Climbing For Change. But it was such a time-consuming job, and there was no space for me to put in the hours and the level of rigor that I needed to perform on rock or in competition. I needed to make a choice, and I chose the community. I was thinking then that the hard climbing part of my career was over; I just assumed it was. I didn’t even question it.”
Climbing For Change went on to be a blazing success, forming relationships with donors to offer funded grant programs to individuals and businesses. Within six months of conception, Climbing For Change had partnered with Kevin Jorgeson’s 1Climb to build a climbing wall in College Park. In a 2023 interview with this magazine, he described that endeavor as “God’s work. It was a lot of effort.”
It wasn’t until college ended that Lightner began to make his way back to training, projecting, and eventually, as he described it, hard climbing. Last December, we caught up with Lightner after he sent Life of Villains (5.14d), a line bolted by Joe Kinder in the Hurricave, in southwestern Utah. Three months later, in late February, Lightner made the FA of a variation of the same line, Death of Villains (5.15a). It was his hardest ascent to date, and he described the emotions that came with it as overwhelming.
“It meant that I’m not just back; I’m better than I was, I’m better than I’ve ever been,” he says.
Climbing caught up with Lightner to learn more about Death of Villains, his training, and what it took for him to access that “try hard” space again. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.
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Climbing: What is DoV like?
Lightner: When Joe Kinder initially showed me LoV, he was telling me about a potential project called DoV. And when he showed me the route, I was amazed. I thought, “This looks so beautiful.” It goes directly through this huge arc—it’s like the Eye of Odin looking out into the valley. It’s the king line in the cave, and one of the best lines in America. So I was excited when he showed it to me, and then, years later, after I had done LoV, he said, “I’m thinking of coming back and trying this route; it’d be pretty cool if you were trying it with me.” I was happy that he let me in on that process.
Climbing: What’s the style of climbing?
Lightner: DoV shares the same start as LoV. About half way up, it splits off. You do the crux of LoV, stop at the break, and then continue on through the roof. It has really intense power endurance movement, and I had to do lots of heel hooks above my head. The last difficult move is a really low-percentage dead-point to a slot right at the edge of the lip. I don’t think I ever fell on it, but if I didn’t execute it perfectly, it made the next sequence impossible. Knowing that was waiting for me at the end made the process really nerve-racking, because even executing the move fresh was really challenging.
Climbing: How does the route break down?
Lightner: The route breaks down into three distinct parts. The intro section is about 60 feet of 5.13 climbing to a double jug rest. Most people use a kneebar to get a no-hands here, but I felt more comfortable resting on my arms. Then, the next section is the crux of LoV, which is a eight- or nine-move V10 boulder problem into another five-move V9 boulder separated by a one handed jug (one that my fingers never fit all the way into, sadly). Then, you reach a sideways rest on a large heel hook and two bad hand holds (an optional rest for LoV that people rarely use). After this, you enter the final section of the route, which starts with a V8 into the 180-degree roof that meets up with the final low-percentage V10 crux of Activator, another 5.14d in the cave. The climbing in this section is super futuristic, with lots of heel hooks above my head and feet cuts in the cave. One of the last moves of this section involve a low percentage dead point into a slot at the very end. If you waste too much energy hitting this slot, it’s nearly impossible to pull the last three moves before the victory jug. When you get to the victory jug, the only way to really rest is with an upside-down double toe-cam into a seam. It helps you recover enough for a final traverse to the chains.
Climbing: How many sessions did it take you?
Lightner: We were supposed to be there the entire month of February, but the first week and a half it rained, so we didn’t get there until the middle of February. So the duration of our trip was two and a half weeks. And I was able to squeeze in around nine sessions before I sent. I sent on my second attempt on the last climbable day before I had to leave.
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