| From: | USA 🇺🇸 |
| Gender: | Female |
| Hardest Sport (Worked): | 8b |
| Hardest Sport (Onsight): | 8b |
| Hardest Sport (Flash): | 8b+ |
| Hardest Trad (Onsight): | HVS |
Katie Brown is a retired sport and competition climber. She started climbing in the early 1990s, around the same time as Chris Sharma, Tommy Caldwell and Beth Rodden, and quickly came to dominate the competition climbing scene at the time. For a period in the mid 1990s she won almost every competition she entered, including adult competitions which she entered as a junior. Lynn Hill described her as:
The best female rock climber in the history of the sport.
As well as competing at an extremely high level she also climbed very well on rock, including being the first woman to onsight 8b with Omaha Beach (pre break) and the first woman to onsight 8b+ with Hydrophobia.
Throughout her career Katie suffered with a severe eating disorder and had a very complicated relationship with her mother.
[1] Interview with PlanetMountain, 1999 https://www.planetmountain.com/en/news/interviews/katie-brown.html
[2] https://www.facebook.com/climbing.in.the.80s/photos/a.270388289694020/440307489368765
[3] XGames 1995, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dijnuZAGw7Q
[4] Brown, Katie. Unraveled: A Climber's Journey Through Darkness and Back. United States, Mountaineers Books, 2022.