On the climbing wall, everything else fades. Sophomore climber Banlu Rogaway feels “peaceful and fluid.” Rogaway won the national competition for youth circuit bouldering in 2023 and 2024 and placed second in 2025.
Rogaway began climbing when he was six and “more or less never stopped.” He climbed with the Rocknasium team in Davis, California, then moved to Portland, joining the Portland Rockets. Last year, he lived abroad and attended UWC Thailand before returning to Portland. This is his first year at Lincoln, and he currently
climbs independently, practicing three to five days a week at local gyms.
Rogaway competed at the last two International Federation of Sport Climbing (IFSC) World Youth Championships, but competitions are only a fraction of what climbing means to him.
“I’d like to go back to Worlds, which is in Italy this year,” Rogaway said. “Hopefully, I’ll make finals. But in the long term, I just want to have fun. I don’t care too much about competition. It’s just [about] being in nature and spending time with friends.”
His friend, sophomore Carson Weber, says he is “smart, stoic and kind.” “We love discussing philosophy with each other, which is really fun because I’m interested in that and I don’t have any other friends who are,” Weber said.
Senior Brooks McLemore is a climber and a friend of Rogaway. McLemore admires how Rogaway is willing to take risks in climbing and in life.
“He’s always the one who goes up to new people and introduces himself to them,” McLemore said. “He did cross country [for the first time] this season, so [he’s] willing to take risks and put himself out there.”
When McLemore climbs with Rogaway, he admires his resilience and commitment.
“The moment I most admired Banlu… I saw him working on this very hard boulder problem [after six hours of exercise]. A lot of people in that situation would say, I’m going to call it here. He didn’t make any excuses for himself… he spent his remaining energy, and was able to get to the top in the end.”
