Climbers from USA

References

[1] https://www.instagram.com/p/C_qcwvIO4NV/

[2] https://www.climbing.com/people/remembering-johnny-goicoechea/

Landers Gaydosh is a younger climber who started at the age of three in a family-owned gym that his father worked at in Fayetteville, North Carolina. Landers family moved to the Asheville, NC area where Landers would find his love for climbing outdoors. Landers spent most of his time bouldering and trad climbing at Rumbling Bald and on Looking Glass Rock in the Pisgah National Forest. Currently he is based out of the Salt Lake, Utah area where he has excelled in all disciplines of climbing. At the age of 12 he became a world champion in ice climbing and has won multiple USA Climbing youth national championships in sport climbing. In the summer of 2025 he participated in the IFSC Youth World Championships in bouldering, placing fifth. Some of his notable outdoor ascents are freeing Moonlight Buttress (E6) at the age of 13, The Big Smile (8c) and Transience (8B+).

References

[1] What Ever happened to Mason Earle? by Meaghen Brown, February 2023 https://www.climbing.com/people/whatever-happened-to-mason-earle/

Ray Jardine is an American rock climber and pioneer of hard crack climbing. However, perhaps his most significant contribution to climbing was his invention of cams, ushering in a revolution in trad climbing, and making climbs that were previously unprotectable possible.

Ray put his new invention to excellent use, establishing routes such as The Phoenix in 1977, then one of the hardest trad routes in the world.

On a visit to the Peak District in 1977, he climbed the off-width roof crack Ray's Roof, grading it 5.11c (E4); today it is rated E7 and rarely repeated.

More controversially he was also involved in chipping on El Capitan, in particular in an early attempt to free climb The Nose he chipped holds on what is now known as The Jardine Traverse as well as purposefully using pegs to enlarge peg scars and make free climbing those pitches easier.

References

[1] https://www.instagram.com/p/C0V_Im8tneX/

Never pass up the opportunity to get pumped! [1]

Legendarily strong Californian rock climber. Early adopter and enthusiast for systematic and specific training for climbing. Developed the offwidth crack techniques now known as Leavittation with Randy Leavitt. One of few climbers to have a specific technique (the figure four is called a Yaniro in Francophone countries) named after him, along with Gaston Rébuffat and Hans Dülfer.

References

[1] https://studyrockclimbing.com/climbing-training-for-rock-climbing/

[2] https://www.instagram.com/p/CIyY7hTjoGG/

[3] https://www.instagram.com/p/CjufJdpjQKv/

References

[1] https://archive.org/details/segal-aikman-6-14-2012

Southern Californian trad., sport, big wall and alpine climber. Leavitt operated close to the cutting edge of climbing the in the 1980s-1990s with many first ascents. He co-developed (with Tony Yaniro and others) and promoted the stacked hands off-width climbing techniques branded Leavittation.