Meet Your Guide Boulder Heart · Boundless Mind

Matt’s climbing story began in San Antonio, Texas, where limestone crags were hidden in plain sight and climbing felt like discovering a secret door in the landscape. He first began guiding with Outpost Wilderness Adventures, helping Boy Scouts learn climbing skills and work toward their Climbing Merit Badges. What started as a fascination with movement quickly became a career built around teaching, judgment, and the strange joy of helping someone do something they were certain they could not do.

A three-month climbing road trip eventually carried him to Colorado—and, rather sensibly, he never moved back. In Durango, he worked as a routesetter, coach, and guide at the Durango Rock Lounge and earned his AMGA Single Pitch Instructor certification. He later led youth climbing programs and outdoor camps with Avid4 Adventure before moving to Boulder and beginning the decade-long chapter that shaped much of his professional approach.

From 2014 through 2025, Matt worked at ABC Kids Climbing as an instructor, senior team coach, lead outdoor guide, program leader, and head routesetter. He taught children taking their first tentative steps off the ground, coached committed youth athletes preparing for USA Climbing competitions, guided outdoor days and overnight climbing trips, and helped lead a busy climbing facility serving hundreds of athletes and families.

As Head Routesetter, Matt led and trained a setting team, managed schedules and safety systems, built progression across the gym, and designed climbs for a remarkable range of bodies and abilities—from four-year-old beginners to elite youth competitors. He set for local and USA Climbing events, helped produce a 130-climber competition, and learned to see a climbing wall as more than a collection of holds. A good climb can teach balance, reward curiosity, expose a habit, build confidence, or simply make someone laugh halfway up the wall.

As a coach, he learned that people rarely need the same cue, the same route, or even the same definition of success. Some climbers need better footwork. Some need permission to slow down. Some need a clear system. Others need to discover that fear does not have to disappear before action becomes possible. Years of working with different ages, personalities, goals, and learning styles taught him to adjust the experience without lowering its substance.

As a guide, Matt brings those lessons outside, where the terrain is less controlled and judgment matters more. He has led climbers across Boulder’s Front Range—from Flagstaff and Boulder Canyon to the Flatirons and Eldorado Canyon—while managing route choice, weather, terrain, equipment, communication, pacing, and the thousand small decisions that make an outdoor day feel calm instead of chaotic. His additional training through the AMGA Rock Guide Course expanded that perspective into multi-pitch systems, transitions, rescue considerations, and efficient movement through complex terrain.

Rope Wranglers grew from the overlap of those three professions. Guiding provides the judgment. Coaching provides the progression. Routesetting provides the eye for movement. Together, they create something more personal than being escorted up a climb. Matt wants you to understand what you are doing, notice what your body is capable of, and leave with more confidence than you arrived with—whether that means climbing your first route, learning an outdoor system, moving more intelligently, or simply spending a memorable afternoon on Colorado stone.