If you are coming to Michigan Ice Fest, you will be hard to find a person more stoked on ice climbing than Kevin! This Midwest friendly (he is a Wisconsin boy!), climber is eager to share his knowledge on climbing and we are very lucky to have him back instructing this coming fest. Special shout out to our long time supporters over at La Sportiva for making it possible to have Kevin in Michigan this year.

Kevin Lindlau is a professional mixed climber whose expertise focuses on competition Ice Climbing and difficult dry tooling. Kevin has been a member of the USA Ice Climbing team since 2016 and travels around the world competing on the UIAA Ice Climbing World Cup tour during the winter months. In 2019 Kevin became the first American to qualify and compete in a Lead Finals at an Ice Climbing World Cup competition (Cheongsong, Korea 2019). That same season he also became the 2018/19 Lead and Speed North American Ice Climbing Champion.

This past season Kevin competed in the 2022 Ice Climbing World Championships held in Sass Fee, Switzerland where he finished 14th overall in the Lead competition, and 8th overall in the combined Speed/Lead event. Prior to this, he finished 2nd in Lead at the European Cup held in Slovakia, as well as 5th in lead the following weekend in the Czech Republic. Kevin is currently the 2022 North American Ice Climbing Speed Champion and runner up in Lead.

Most recently Kevin returned from a climbing trip to the Dolomites, Italy where he became the third American to climb D15 by completing a route called “A Line Above the Sky”. Kevin was able to finish a handful of other routes while in Italy including “French Connection” D15-, “Je Ne Sais Quoi” D14+, along with three other D14’s, a D13+, and another classic D12.

Originating from Wisconsin, Kevin currently resides in Bozeman, MT where he trains year round preparing for the winter season. Kevin has ambitions to help grow the sport of mixed climbing in the community, as well as to start a youth Ice Climbing team to help share his passion for the sport and get the stoke high for the future generation of crushers! When not climbing you will often find Kevin juggling his ice tools or enjoying large quantities of coffee!