Climbers from USA

Daniel Woods is a boulderer and sport climber from the USA. He is notable for the longevity of his career together with the depth and breadth of his climbing CV.

He has climbed over 40 boulder problems 8C or harder as well as sport climbing up to 9b.

References

[1] Interview with 8a.nu, 4th February 2022 https://www.8a.nu/news/daniel-woods-8c+-9a-and-9a+-progress-interview

Dave Graham is an American boulderer and sport climber who is known for his extremely technical climbing style that makes a lot of use of toe hooks and knee bars, as well as his longevity in the sport and his extensive collection of first ascents.

Graham started climbing in 1997 and very quickly worked his way through the grades, climbing his first 8b+ sport route just a year later. By the end of 2000, he had climbed 9a, bouldered 8B and made a historic flash of C'Était Demain (8A). But that was just the start.

Some of his notable ascents include The Story of Two Worlds (fa), Action Directe (fourth ascent), From Dirt Grows the Flowers (fa), The Island (fa) and The Ice Knife (fa).

References

[1] Interview with Udo Neumann in Céüse https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2bZsFZdpgs

[2] Interview with PlanetMountain.com, 2001 https://www.planetmountain.com/en/news/interviews/dave-graham.html

[3] Interview with climbing.com 2022, https://www.climbing.com/people/what-ive-learned-dave-graham/

[4] https://archive.org/details/climbtalk-7-9-2010a

Jimmy Webb is a prolific American boulderer known for opening up a large number of hard boulders all around the world, but particularly in Switzerland, Rocklands and the USA.

Paul has climbed over 1000 boulder problems graded 8A or harder.

References

[1] https://www.planetmountain.com/en/news/interviews/paul-robinson-climbs-1000-boulders-8a-or-harder.html

Chris Sharma started climbing in the 1990s aged 12 before winning the US national championships 2 years later. He went on to reinvigorate hard sport climbing in the US, quickly repeating many of the hardest lines before establishing his own hard routes such as Necessary Evil in 1997, the first 8c+/14c in the USA.

Through the rest of his career he took sport climbing in to the modern era by cementing the 9a+ and 9b grades with a string of cutting edge ascents throughout Europe (Golpe de Estado, Neanderthal, Stoking the Fire and many more), as well as adding some of the hardest routes in America with climbs such as Jumbo Love and Dreamcatcher.

Somewhat uniquely amongst his contemporaries, Chris' climbing has been well documented from a young age due to a close relationship with videographers Josh Lowell and Brett Lowell.

Alongside his sport climbing Chris is a prolific deep water soloist, climbing many of the existing hard lines and then adding many of his own: Es Pontas, Alasha, Black Pearl, Big Fish and Vision Quest being some of the hardest DWS lines in the world.

In 2023 he added Sleeping Lion (9b) in Siurana. Initially suggested at 9b+ it has settled at 9b after several repeats, but remains an impressive new addition at one of Spain's most famous crags.

References

[1] Interview with Jack Geldard for UKClimbing.com, 29th August 2012 https://www.ukclimbing.com/articles/features/chris_sharma_talks_9b+-4894

[2] Rampage by Josh Lowell and Brett Lowell, 1999 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cqe_w2JTlKM

[3] Best of the West, 2005 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6VZzVPnlVA

[4] Interview with Alex Honnold on Climbing Gold, 2nd April 2021 https://www.climbinggold.com/episodes/chapter-03

[5] Interview with gripped.com (2026) https://gripped.com/uncategorized/chris-sharma-on-5-16-and-how-do-you-know-when-youve-climbed-a-new-grade/

[6] https://archive.nytimes.com/tmagazine.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/05/rock-star-3/

Noah Wheeler is a young and up-and-coming boulderer who currently resides in Colorado, USA. He is one half of Wheel Rock with his brother Benn Wheeler.

Noah burst onto the scene in 2022 when he repeated three 8C/V15 boulders with G-Master, Paint it Black, and Delirium. In 2024 Noah repeated Sleepwalker 8C+/V16 and Insomniac 8C+/V16. In the dying days of 2024 Noah repeated the infamous Return of the Sleepwalker 9A/V17 at only 22 years of age, this made him the youngest person to climb 9A/V17 at the time of his ascent. He made short work of Burden of Dreams (9A), finding it suited his board-honed style.

References

[1] https://www.grimper.com/news-mais-jeune-americain-nomme-noah-wheeler

[2] https://open.spotify.com/episode/3O6FI1hbAKBsel83KUqvNS?

References

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajSuf5s2yyo

[2] https://archive.org/details/climbtalk-9-2-2011

Owner of climbing's most iconic moustache.

References

[1] https://www.jamesclucas.com/portraits/blog-post-title-three-tfa7m-p9hwd

Drew Ruana is an American climber with an extensive list of ascents up to 8C+ including first ascents of Distortion (8C+), Insomniac (8C+), and Maxwell's Demon Low (8C+).

Drew grew up in Seattle and was part of the Vertical World climbing team. He established many of the hardest routes in the Pacific Northwest in the late 2010s, including first ascents of Brave New World (9a) and The Assassin (9a), the hardest routes in Washington and Oregon respectively when they were established.

Following a brief spell in Salt Lake City where he competed on the IFSC competition circuit Drew enrolled at the Colorado Schools of Mines in Golden, Colorado. He graduated with a degree in Computer Science in 2025.

Alongside other goals, Drew is trying to tick every problem 8B+ or harder in Colorado. He has an infamous whiteboard where he keeps track of all the relevant problems and whether he's ticked them off.

References

[1] AMA on reddit.com/r/climbharder, January 2023 https://www.reddit.com/r/climbharder/comments/100qfg5/pro_rock_climber_drew_ruana_ama/

[2] AMA on reddit.com/r/climbharder, June 2023 https://www.reddit.com/r/climbharder/comments/14bxa21/drew_ruana_ama_round_2/

Alex Honnold is one of the most accomplished solo climbers of all time. His ascents throughout North America and the rest of the world have pushed the soloing standard to new heights.

Most notably, Alex was the first – and to date only – person to free solo a route on El Capitan in Yosemite with his ascent of Freerider in 2017. The ascent was the product of years of preparation, on top of an already groundbreaking solo ticklist, that included Moonlight Buttress (E6), El Sendero Luminoso (7c) and the Regular Northwest Face of Half Dome (E5).

In January 2026 Alex soloed Taipei 101 in Taiwan in an event that was live-streamed on Netflix. [1]

Other Work

Alex co-presents the Climbing Gold podcast alongside Fitz Cahall.

In 2012 Alex founded The Honnold Foundation. The foundation's aim is to improve access to solar electricity.

References

[1] https://www.netflix.com/watch/81987107

[2] Honnold Foundation https://www.honnoldfoundation.org/

[3] Free Solar? Alex Honnold's Other Mission by Natalie Berry (2023) https://www.ft.com/content/fdc13b02-43de-4fce-9068-0d613fa83760

[4] https://archive.org/details/CLIMBTALK-Alex-Honnold-Chris-Weidner-Dave-McAllister-Dr-Susan-Nicholas-3-1-2019

References

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cc264zE7jGA

References

[1] Ask Me Anything on reddit, 2014 https://www.reddit.com/r/climbing/comments/1whcrp/hi_folks_im_ethan_pringle_ask_me_anything_be_my/

Shawn Raboutou is an extremely strong boulderer from the USA. He's the son of Robyn Erbesfield-Raboutou and Didier Raboutou and brother to Brooke Raboutou.

Since his 2018 ascent of Off the Wagon SDS Shawn has continued to cement his reputation by establishing many hard problems at 8C+ and above, including Big Z, Fuck the System and The Story of Three Worlds. More recently he's pushed the highest levels with his ascent of Alphane for which he proposed 9A and Megatron, another 9A.

References

[1] Down and up Karma https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQ9sCAhRh1M?t=481.

[2] Interview with Magnus Midtbø 2022, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5BiC-ypXGLU