Climbing
These female climbers will inspire you to start scaling peaks today
From Janja Garnbret's unbeaten bouldering season to Angela Eiter's route up La Planta de Shiva 25 years later, these women are among the best ever.
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It was back in 1993 that Lynn Hill blew the climbing world away. At a time when men dominated the sport, she free climbed Yosemite National Park's feared El Capitan wall, ascending 900m of slick granite using only her hands and feet, with no rope assistance. Even more impressive was the fact that Hill wasn't just the first woman to scale El Capitan. She was the first person to do it full stop. She believed rock is a great leveler, and her climb proved exactly that.
"No matter what our physical differences, with the right combination of vision, desire and effort, just about any climb is possible," she said. "Short or tall, man or woman, the rock is an objective medium that is equally open for interpretation by all."
Hill has since inspired many others to follow her lead, and cement their own place among the greatest climbers in the world. Here's our pick of them, from the legends to the new generation.
01
Sasha DiGiulian
Sasha DiGiulian is always looking to raise the bar
© Greg Mionske/Red Bull Content Pool
Nationality: American
Often touted as one of the best free climbers in the world today, Sasha DiGiulian has made more than 30 first female ascents, and eight significant first ascents.
Inspired by Hill, she started climbing aged seven and by 18 became the third woman, after Spain's Josune Bereziartu and Charlotte Durif of France, to ascend a 9a (5.14d) route in Kentucky's Red River Gorge.
"First ascents and first female ascents are historical benchmarks in our sport," she says. "Both should be highlighted. Clearly, if women can do more first ascents, in general, this is ideal."
Discover how DiGiulian conquered the 5.14b route Rayu in the Reel Rock episode below:
DiGiulian has done just that, traveling the world to pick off big climbs, including the first female ascent of Magic Mushroom on the North Face of Switzerland's Eiger in 2015, and the first ever ascent of The Misty Wall in Yosemite in 2017.
02
Margo Hayes
28 min
Break on through
Follow American climber Margo Hayes on her quest to make history.
Nationality: American
Margo Hayes raised the bar when she pushed the highest grade climbed by a woman to a 9a+ (5.15a), on La Rambla, Spain, in February 2017. She held the record for nine months before Angela Eiter took it up to a 9b (5.15b).
Hayes competed in national level gymnastics at the age of eight, but discovered climbing two years later, and honed her skills with Boulder's Team ABC. In the year building up to La Rambla, she completed 14 routes of 5.14a and harder.
"When I clipped the chains on La Rambla, the flood of emotion surprised me," she said. "I immediately started to weep. I think it was a combination of joy and disbelief. I will never, ever forget that moment."
Hayes had taken 17 attempts over seven days to complete La Rambla, and quickly followed it up with a send of Realization/Biographie.
See Margo Hayes and Matty Hong take on Kryptonite and Flex Luthor – two of the most legendary climbs in Colorado, USA (no one has climbed Flex Luthor for almost 20 years) in the Flex episode of Reel Rock:
25 min
Flex
Matty Hong and Margo Hayes challenge themselves by ascending two of the hardest climbs in Colorado, USA.
03
Janja Garnbret
Janja Garnbret climbing in Osp
© Tobias Zlu Haller/Red Bull Content Pool
Nationality: Slovenian
Although more recognized as a competition climber, Janja Garnbret laid down a huge outdoor marker when she scaled the 360m of the Trbovlje Power Station alongside Slovenian compatriot Domen Škofic.
The potential of what Garnbret could achieve as she broadens her sights away from the IFSC World Cup circuit seem almost limitless. After all, she's the only climber to have ever gone undefeated for an entire season and looked peerless when claiming the sport's first gold medal in Tokyo.
20 min
The perfect season part 1
Janja Garnbret has been dominating the climbing competition scene. Can she complete the perfect season?
04
Angela Eiter
Angela Eiter preps for her Planta de Shiva climb
© Javipec/ASP/Red Bull Content Pool
Nationality: Austrian
Top competition climber Angela Eiter hit the headlines outdoors in October 2017, when she became the first woman to climb 9b (5.15b) on La Planta de Shiva.
"I really love it that women are breaking barriers, and pushing the limits ever upwards," she said. "There are so many impressive female athletes to draw from, and so many new ones now doing groundbreaking ascents."
Eiter started climbing at school aged 11, won her first world title at 17, and went on to make her first outdoor 8c+ (5.14c) ascent, Claudio Café in Italy, when she was 21 years old. She stepped up to 9a (5.14d) in 2014, with ascents of Hades and Big Hammer in her native Austria, and Era Vella in Spain a year later, when she first began trying out on La Planta de Shiva.
2 min
Angela Eiter breaks new ground in women's climbing
The action-packed story behind Angela Eiter's record-breaking 9b climb on La Planta de Shiva in Spain in October 2017.
Get to know Angy Eiter
05
Jain Kim
Jain Kim climbs in Arco, Italy
© Reinhard Fichtinger/Red Bull Content Pool
Nationality: South Korea
Jain Kim’s parents met through a shared love of mountaineering, and she spent her childhood watching her older brothers climbing walls. Inevitably, one day, she followed their lead and found herself high above ground alongside them.
Kim says: "I have climbed almost my whole life. Climbing is just everything for me, so it's definitely my dream job. I think it’s my destiny and the love of my life."
Since 2009, Kim has made the most of her talents, securing numerous first-place positions in the IFSC Climbing World Cup events. But her feats aren’t confined to competitions, and in May of 2017, Kim climbed the 555m Lotte World Tower in Seoul, South Korea.
Kim became the oldest woman to win a Lead World Cup at 34 years old when she won the gold Lead World Cup in Chamonix on July 9, 2023.
06
Jessica Pilz
Jessica Pilz at the IFSC Climbing World Cup
© Erich Spiess/ASP/Red Bull Content Pool
Nationality: Austria
One month after Jessica Pilz started climbing, she took part in a local competition. That was how it started.
Soon, she started competing in national competitions, and once she was ranked among the top four, she was allowed to move up to international competitions in the Youth B category. From 2011 to 2015, she won six international youth competitions in lead climbing.
Pilz placed 10th in the Combined World Championships in 2019, which qualified her for the Games in Tokyo, where she placed seventh. In August 2023, Pilz placed second in the 2023 World Championship combined event and so qualified for a spot at another Games.
07
Oriane Bertone
Oriane Bertone climbing in Forêt de Fontainebleau
© Bastien Seon/Red Bull Content Pool
Nationality: France
Oriane Bertone was marked for climbing greatness in 2018 at just 12 when she became the youngest person ever to complete a V14 (8B+) boulder problem. In 2020, she made the first ascent of Satan I Helvete Low V15 in Fontainebleau at 15 years old.
Bertone has shown her skills, beating Tokyo champion Janja Garnbret. She won second place at the IFSC Climbing World Cup 2023 in the USA and South Korea.
Her motivation to become more vital matches the level of joy she has in climbing.
08
Natalia Grossman
Natalia Grossman is a climber on the rise
© Erich Spiess/ASP/Red Bull Content Pool
Nationality: USA
At just six years old, Natalia Grossman got her first taste of climbing at a gym, and it was an instant love. Once-a-week sessions quickly morphed into competing.
Climbing quickly turned into a career when Grossman took silver medals in bouldering and combined disciplines at the 2019 IFSC Climbing World Youth Championships in Arco, Italy. After winning the 2020 USA Climbing Bouldering Open National Championship, Natalia announced her arrival on the world stage in one of the most impressive ways the sport has seen during the 2021 season.
She's not just a bouldering specialist, Grossman also scored four podiums in lead climbing and a silver medal at the World Championships.
09
Angie Scarth-Johnson
Angie Scarth-Johnson climbing in France
© Jan Novak/Red Bull Content Pool
Nationality: Australia
Australian-born Angie Scarth-Johnson loved to climb trees as a child. After falling out of a tree when she was seven years old, her father decided to take her to the local rock gym – giving her a safer, more controlled environment to explore her obvious passion for climbing.
Her prodigious talent was evident from the outset: she climbed her first 31 (8b) – Swingline in Red River Gorge, USA, at only nine years of age; a year later, she did Welcome to Tijuana 8c (33) in Rodellar, Spain.
"I'm constantly inspired by the possibilities and opportunities within climbing and its community,” says Scarth-Johnson.
Meet more inspiring female climbers in Reel Rock
10
Petra Klingler
Petra Klingler is a hugely versatile climber
© Erich Spiess/ASP/Red Bull Content Pool
Nationality: Switzerland
"Never give up," is Petra Klingler's motto, "even if the next move seems impossible."
Klingler is a third-generation climber who began to climb at the age of six. She started winning competitions at the age of 12 when she picked up her first success in lead climbing. She's become the World Bouldering Champion, Swiss champion (Speed and Bouldering) and a European bronze medallist (Bouldering).
Another strength of Klinger's is her versatility: she's also world-class at ice climbing. Her sights are set on competing in Sport Climbing at the Games, which features three disciplines: speed climbing, bouldering and lead climbing.
11
Shauna Coxsey
Shauna Coxsey at Red Bull Dual Ascent
© True Color Films/Red Bull Content Pool
Nationality: United Kingdom
The most successful competitive climber in British history, Shauna Coxsey, first went to a climbing wall when she was four. She wasn’t tall enough to scale the walls then but was undeterred and eventually allowed a few months later. From that moment, she knew that climbing was her thing.
She's also one of only four women ever to have climbed a boulder route graded 8B+, the third-most difficult rating.
As Britain's first-ever sport climber, Coxsey competed in Tokyo, but due to a longstanding back injury, which meant she couldn't train, she missed out on the final, finishing 10th overall in the standings. Coxsey has since retired from competition climbing, but she continues to climb outdoors at her local spots and internationally.
At the peak of her training, see what a day in the life of a climber looked like for Shauna Coxsey:
1 min
A day in the life of Shauna Coxsey
Britain's climbing superstar Shauna Coxsey takes us through a typical day, from training at her local climbing wall to getting creative in the kitchen.
12
Ashima Shiraishi
Ashima Shiraishi climbs Norway's Flatanger Cave
© Brett Lowell
Nationality: Japanese-American
The youngest of the new generation, Ashima Shiraishi logged the second female ascent of a 9a/9a+ (5.15d/5.15a) route at just 13 years old and is currently touted as the best teenage climber out there.
She began climbing Rat Rock with her father in Central Park aged six, and excelled in bouldering before making a major mark with the youngest ascent of a grade 8c+ (5.14c), on Southern Smoke at Red River Gorge.
"I always thought I had the same strength as guys, and knew I was capable of showing what was possible," Shiraishi said. "That's the beauty of climbing – you can all climb the same routes. It's something girls can show they're badass at."
In 2015, Shiraishi climbed her first 9a (5.14d), on Open Your Mind Direct, which was initially claimed to be a harder grade – potentially the hardest climb ever by a woman – due to a hold breaking near the top, but ultimately was confirmed at its original level. She went a notch better on the same trip, when she became the second woman to scale a 9a/9a+ (5.14d/5.15a) on Ciudad de Dios, and it's highly possible that one day she'll be the one to raise the climbing bar beyond the current level.
For more on Shiraishi's climbing story watch the clip below:
24 min
Young guns part 1
Two of climbing's fastest-rising stars face the climbs of their young lives in a legendary Norwegian cave.
13
The female legends of climbing
Junko Tabei
Junko Tabei was the first woman to ascend Mount Everest
© Jaan Künnap/Wiki Commons
Nationality: Japanese
Junko Tabei was a mountaineer, not a pure rock climber, but she was making her mark well before Hill's giant wall ascent, becoming the first woman to reach the summit of Everest in 1975. Despite growing up a frail child in a time when gender stereotypes were strong and restrictive, she became a climbing pioneer and founded the Ladies Climbing Club in 1969, because many men refused to climb with her.
She climbed Everest as part of an all-female Japanese team, all of whom escaped being buried alive by an avalanche on the way up. "I didn't intend to be the first woman on Everest. I just simply climbed a mountain," she said. "But the environment around me changed so much, just because I was the first woman."
In 1992, a year before Hill climbed The Nose, Tabei completed the Seven Summits (Messner list), putting her firmly amongst the world's greatest mountaineers.
Lynn Hill
Lynn Hill on El Capitan for Google Maps in 2015
© Google Maps
Nationality: American
A pioneer of free climbing in the 1980s and '90s, Lynn Hill was the first woman to really make a mark on big walls, and what a mark it was – the first-ever free ascent of The Nose on El Capitan.
"We tried to do routes that required us to make decisions about risk," she said. "I don't actually remember backing off from any climb, I just did whatever necessary to do climbs that I thought I could do."
Hill was 14 when she took up the sport, but in just four years she'd sent the hardest route ever free climbed by a woman to that point, the Ophir Broke in Colorado, rated at 7c (5.12d). She climbed The Nose in 1993, taking four days, and then astonished everyone by doing it again in just one day the following year. These climbs made her a superstar, appearing everywhere from Sports Illustrated to the David Letterman show in the United States.
Learn more about Hill's story in Valley Uprising:
1 h 39 min
Valley Uprising
Join Alex Honnold for an inside look into how climbers carved out a counterculture lifestyle in Yosemite.
Catherine Destivelle
Catherine Destivelle (left) with Jeff Lowe before their 1991 Eiger Ascent
© Principal Media LLC
Nationality: French-Algerian
At the same time Hill was doing her thing in America, Catherine Destivelle was hitting the walls in Europe, becoming the first woman to climb the Eiger's North Face solo in 1992. And she did so in less than 15 hours.
Destivelle learned her skills bouldering in Fontainebleau and climbing in the Alps, and was one of the most prolific female first-ascent baggers. Her notable climbs included Chouca at Boux and Trango Tower, but it wasn't until doing the Eiger alone that she gained the respect she deserved.
"After Trango, one or two people said Jeff (her male climbing partner) led all the way," she recalled. "It wasn't true, but back then people still said 'you’re a girl so go second'. For the Eiger, I climbed alone so there could be no doubt."
Beth Rodden
19 min
This is Beth
An intimate look beneath the success of legendary climber Beth Rodden, diving into her struggles and transformation.
Nationality: American
Beth Rodden became embedded in the big wall scene of the 1990s in Yosemite, and went on to become one of climbing's biggest 'rock stars'.
Originally an obsessively organized competition climber, she shifted to the outdoors when she went to Smith Rock State Park in Oregon, USA, to complete a route called To Bolt Or Not To Be and met Lynn Hill, who saw her potential and invited her to join her climbing in Madagascar. When she went back to America, she moved to the walls of Yosemite, met fellow free climbing prodigy Tommy Caldwell, and they became climbing's golden couple.
Together they were the first to free climb El Capitan's Lurking Fear in 2000, and then, after being kidnapped in Kyrgyzstan and falling out of love with climbing for a year, she and Caldwell followed Hill as the second and third to free climb The Nose in 2005.
"Doing The Nose was this lifelong dream of mine," she said. "I started climbing the year Lynn did it. Every comp I went into, every gym I went into, had the poster of Lynn saying 'It goes, boys'. Before I even knew what El Cap was, I was like 'Oh, I want to be like her'."
In 2008, Rodden sent Yosemite's then-toughest climb, an 8c+ (5.14c) that had defeated many climbers, including Ron Kauk. She named it Meltdown, and nobody has climbed it since. For more of Rodden's story, check out how she's intrinsically linked to Tommy Caldwell's The Dawn Wall attempt.
Find out more about Beth Rodden in the This is Beth episode of Reel Rock above.
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