Climbers

Shauna Coxsey is a British boulderer and one of the strongest female climbers in the UK. She has won two bouldering world cups, firstly in 2016 and then in 2017.

While she was primarily a competition climber in her early career (up to the 2020 Tokyo olympics) she did occasionally climb outside, with highlights such as the first female ascent of New Base Line 8B+ in 2014, making her one of a handful of women to have climbed 8B+ at the time.

Since retiring from competitions and having a child she has switched focus to bouldering outdoors.

References

[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20171209231653/http://www.shaunacoxsey.co.uk/

[2] https://open.spotify.com/episode/1WiWRSy1JEgXMpx4aBxA0g

Pete Robins is a rock climber best known for his prolific development around North Wales, in particular in opening a huge number of quality new problems and areas.

References

[1] Interview with RockClimbingUK

[2] Profile from DMM, one of Pete's sponsors https://dmmwales.com/climbers/pete-robins

Dave Cuthbertson is an extremely influential Scottish climber who was operating at his peak in the 1980s. He was responsible for some of the hardest routes of the era, for example his route Requiem was established in 1983 and features ~8a climbing on trad gear, making it the hardest route in the UK at the time.

Magnus Midtbø is a Norwegian sport climber and boulderer. He competed extensively between 2002 and 2015 while also climbing hard outdoors at the same time, notably he climbed Ali Hulk (extension sit start) 9b in 2010 (without knee pads!) and onsighted Cosi Fan Tutte 8c+ in 2013.

Since retiring from competitions he has started one of the most successful climbing youtube channels [2], and has also launched an online education platform called Altitude Climbing. [3]

References

[1] Interview with RockClimbingUK, 2012 https://ukbouldering.com/board/index.php?topic=23695.0

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_2GqTlg--Q

Tom Randall is a British climber known for being a crack-climbing specialist, one half of WideBoyz and co-owner of Lattice Training.

Gary Gibson is a massively prolific first ascentionist. He started new routing in 1977 and continued to establish many new routes up until the first half of 2020, where ill-health significantly slowed his efforts. In 2021 he surpassed 5000 new routes, and at the time he had climbed approximately 17600 routes in total. [2]

In more recent years Gary has worked extensively to equip (and re-equip) many lower grade sport climbing venues which have subsequently become extremely popular. Crags such as Horseshoe Quarry and Masson Lees Quarry are prime examples of this, containing many of the most popular lower grade sport routes in their respective areas.

Gary's new routing activities have proved controversial at times with accusations of retro-claims, unsubstantiated ascents and poor quality routes being levelled at various times.

Alongside his new routing activities Gary also somehow found time to contribute extensively to many guidebooks to the UK.

Mark Pretty:

While the elite of British climbing have consistently ignored or dismissed his achievements … they cannot be so easily ignored. He is someone who, more than anybody else, has advanced easy to mid-grade sport climbing in this country — not to mention his trad routes. [3]

References

[1] https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Blood_Sweat_and_Smears/Dvn7xAEACAAJ?hl=en

[2] https://www.ukclimbing.com/news/2021/09/gary_gibson_climbs_his_5000th_first_ascent-72866

[3] https://footlesscrow.blogspot.com/2019/10/gary-gibsons-blood-sweat-and.html

Half Norwegian, half Belgian. Based around Bergen, NO.

Ryan Pasquill is a British climber known for his bold, intuitive climbing style as well as his ability to crimp.

Nico Pelorson is a prolific name and developer in the Fontainebleau scene and further afield. He is known for his ascents of Soudain Seul 9A and No Kpote Only 9A. He subsecquently downgraded both boulders to 8C+ and 8C respectively.

Nico is also known for his interesting music career being behind the masterpiece Mini Drill.

Lucien Martinez:

A last one for the road. In the 65° overhang of Blocage, the small ‘gym’ in Font, Nico Pelorson opened a boulder (red holds) with a move of pure crimping and core strength that seemed to me not to work. Yet Nico managed to do it, and even adding the two moves prior. It was around the time he made Big Island sit [Soudain Seul] and he was a monster. The climbers who passed by the gym and saw his boulder thought it was so impossible as to be a joke. [1]

References

[1] https://fanatic-climbing.com/interview-lucien-martinez-irreductible-acharne-interview-lucien-martinez-inveterate-and-tenacious/

[2] Interview with http://escalade9.wifeo.com/, November 2015 http://escalade9.wifeo.com/nicolas-pelorson.php

[3] https://bleau.info/profiles/nicolas.pelorson.2

[4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBS_nOUZUFY

One thing that one sees in climbing is that over the period of years influential figures come along...and because of their activities they seem to trigger other people off, and I think that Livesey is one of these. Ok he may not be the finest climber, maybe there are others that are better, but his activities were so widespread, diverse and sensational in nature that people were talking about it. He was the controversial figure of the day. [1]

Livsey was an early proponent of training for climbing, a practice that was then taken on board and used to great affect by the following generation of climbers including Ron Fawcett, Jerry Moffatt and Ben Moon.

Mick Ward:

In running, kayaking and caving, he'd been prevented from being the absolute best by lack of natural talent. Pete looked at climbing more carefully, saw an athletic curve just beginning to take off, knew the time was ripe for him to make his move. [2]

References

[1] Ken Wilson in Rock Athlete

[2] https://www.ukclimbing.com/articles/features/the_stone_children_-_cutting_edge_climbing_in_the_1970s-13297

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

Charles Albert is one of the worlds best and most particular boulderers. Charles ability is hard to define on paper due to his unique choice in style: he typically climbs without the use of chalk, climbing shoes, and kneepads. In this style Charles is undoubtedly a master with no one repeating any of his boulders in the the same style as he climbed them.

Charles is notable for his hard first ascents, for example La Révolutionnaire Assis 8C+/V16 and Hypothèse Assis 8C+/V16. In 2018 Charles did the first ascent of No Kpote Only in which he proposed the grade of 9A/V17, however this was downgraded by both Ryohei Kameyama and Nico Pelorson. Though these ascentionists did use shoes despite the translated name being "Bareback Only".

In 2023 Charles did the first ascent of L’Ombre du Voyageur for which he proposed 9A/V17 after spending 60 sessions to complete the problem. He commented that he thought it would be 9A+/V18 for the style he did it in, without shoes or knee pads, but suggested the lower grade for an ascent in a more typical style.

Lucien Martinez:

In Font, many times I saw Charles Albert do things so out of this world I would have called them impossible without having been a witness. Like flash FAs or in a handful of runs of 8A on a move that no one else can get anywhere near, or 7B slabs in trainers by simply annihilating miserable grains of sand with his nails… [1]

References

[1] https://fanatic-climbing.com/interview-lucien-martinez-irreductible-acharne-interview-lucien-martinez-inveterate-and-tenacious/

[2] Reel Rock 16: Barefoot Charles https://www.redbull.com/int-en/episodes/reel-rock-s8-e2

[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVSC9vIb-PU

[4] https://www.8a.nu/news/qa-with-charles-albert-6net8

Legendary British trad. climber and mountaineer with a legacy of many high quality first ascents particularly in SW England and N Wales.

References

[1] https://www.ukclimbing.com/articles/in_focus/culm_dancing_-_a_second_wave_1968-73-13381

[2] https://www.alpin-ism.com/knowledge-base/news/pat-littlejohn-interview-1