Dario Ventura, 35, the co-owner and manager of Miguel’s, said that since his father Miguel went into business 35 years ago, foot traffic has grown “exponentially.”

To adapt, Miguel’s Pizza renovated its kitchen and country-store restaurant, tripled the size of its campsite, and now employs a staff of 42 mostly transient climbers, many of whom live out of vans, like Alex Honnold in “Free Solo.”

The local community in Slade has also adapted. Nowadays, Mr. Ventura said, there are three search-and-rescue teams that respond to calls in the Red River Gorge, where previously, there weren’t any. “The whole area has grown too, there’s a ton of restaurants now, there’s a ton of campsites to compete, and we’re all full every weekend,” he said. “It’s a really healthy environment.”

However, the gorge has been subject to littering and crag erosion from the crowds. There have been efforts by the Access Fund, a nonprofit climbing organization, to maintain the bolts in the rocks so they don’t wear down from overuse and pop out dangerously while climbers are on the rocks.

Mr. Ventura marveled at all this activity. “For so many years, you got into rock climbing because you had some crazy uncle that took you out, but with climbing gyms being so accessible and everywhere now, there’s this giant funnel of people that are getting into climbing in urban areas and come here on the weekends,” he said.

And yet “I’ve heard some numbers where something like 10 percent of all people that climb in a climbing gym actually go climbing outside. Which is mind-boggling to me.”