Climbers

Neil Gresham is a British climber who is notable for his hard trad. ascents, including early repeats of test pieces such as Johnny Dawes' Indian Face E9 and Neil Bentley's Equilibrium E10 as well as making his own contributions to hard trad in the uk with routes such as Lexicon E11 and Final Score E10.

As well as his trad. climbing Neil was an early adopter of deep water soloing in the UK, establishing some of the harder DWS lines in the UK such as

• Cutlass 8a
• Excalibur 8a
• San Simian 8a
• Hydrotherapy 8a+
• Olympiad 8b

References

[1] Interview with Dave MacLeod 2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2wgXc_blao

[2] Interview with Niall Grimes part 1, 2024 https://open.spotify.com/episode/4H9lcr8Fp4lR6lMMmJa8Yt?

[3] Interview with Niall Grimes part 2, 2024 https://open.spotify.com/episode/5cac0uPMB1TYDaUF8XN06f?

References

[1] Features in La Obsesión

[2] Interview with 8a.nu, 2018 https://www.8a.nu/news/dani-andrada-4-015-routes-and-boulders-8a-or-harder

North wales based crusher and first British woman to climb 9a (skipping 8c+!) with her ascet of Big Bang at Lower Pen Trwyn in 2019.

Leo Houlding is a british climber, mountaineer and adventurer. Initially known for his hard trad climbing in the UK, particularly in North Wales and the Peak District, he quickly moved on to climbing big walls in Yosemite with very impressive ascents such as his near-onsight of El Niño. He then moved on to more remote big walls from Greenland to Antarctica.

References

[1] Houlding, L. (2022). Closer to the Edge: Climbing to the Ends of the Earth. United Kingdom: Headline.

[2] Top Gear segment, 2005 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKLsBk5CijQ

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

Arnis Strapcans was a British climber who was active in the 1970s. He was killed in a suspected fall from the Brenva Spur on Mont Blanc in 1980.

References

[1] https://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/rock_talk/the_late_arnie_strapcans-423688

[2] https://www.ukhillwalking.com/forums/rock_talk/arnie_strapcans-390263?v=1#x5631533

References

[1] https://climbingaway.fr/en/climbers/griffin-whiteside

[2] https://kitkaclimbing.com/blog/griffin-whiteside-talks-about-route-setting-and-boulder-competitions/

References

[1] https://open.spotify.com/episode/5SisJOwqwhllLtqX0yZXrb?

[2] Podcast with Sonnie Trotter, 2024 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDX7_mDDTmE

Pete Oxley was a prolific first ascentionist in the dorset area and was one of the driving forces behind the growth of sport climbing on the south coast of England before he moved away from the area in 2005. He's put up over 800 new routes in areas such as Portland, Lulworth and Swanage as well as (slightly) further afield in Avon, Cheddar and The Peak District.

References

[1] Interview with Wil Treasure on the Factor Two podcast.

An influential climber in the UKs Peak District throughout the 1960s and 70s.

I climbed solo for the first year because I had no one to climb with, I didn't know anybody. I treated it like a job, I'd go out at 8 O’clock in the morning and take my sandwiches, climb to about 12, eat my lunch and then climb to about 4 O'clock and then go home. I did about 4,000 foot of solo in a day and that was every week. 1 went about 38-39 weeks on the trot around Birchens, finding new bits to do and treating it as a bit like a workout. [4]

Tom once climbed "157 routes, mostly hard" [3] in a day on Stanage.

References

[1] https://www.ukclimbing.com/news/2001/09/tom_proctor_dies-1249

[2] On The Edge, Issue 112 page 12

[3] Alan Rouse in Two's a Crowd, Mountain issue 21, page 28

[4] The Power of Climbing (1991), page 35

The most successful competition climber of all time and first gold medalist in climbing in the Tokyo 2020 olympics.

References

[1] A profile of Janja from Reel Rock https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yu_W2hT-HDY

[2] Winning the olympic gold medal in Tokyo 2020 https://www.instagram.com/p/CSPRpH_l81i/

[3] Interview with Natalie Berry for UKClimbing.com, 3rd May 2022 https://www.ukclimbing.com/articles/features/climb_for_gold_-_janja_garnbret_olympic_champion-14458

[4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmlSSD7jDSI

[5] Interview with John Bergman for climbing.com, August 2024 https://www.climbing.com/people/janja-garnbret-post-olympic-2024-interview/

[6] Video with Magnus Midtbø, July 2025 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-EsdeUBBVNM

Udo Neumann:

There are two factors which determine the quality of movement: Precision on one side, speed on the other. If you are very precise, like Marc le Menestrel, you tend to be rather slow. If you are fast you tend to be sloppy. It's always a trade-off. In my opinion, Klem is the climber at the moment who balances these factors best and potentially can climb the hardest things.

Of course there is more to hard climbing but this gives you an idea of Klem's style - very accurate and very speedy. A friend once described Klem as "digital", either 'on' or 'off'.

Spending time around him is like being surrounded by a nice, comforting but blurry cloud, whereas Klem himself seems to live in this ultrasharp, high contrast environment where things and thoughts happen very quickly. When tired or bored Klem falls asleep instantly, with little awareness of what's going on around him. [1]

References

[1] Klem Lostkot by Mike Robertson, On The Edge Issue 114, page 54

Mina Leslie-Wujastyk is a British climber. She started out as a comp climber before transitioning to bouldering outdoors, and then on to sport climbing.

References

[1] The Curious Climber Podcast

[2] Interview with RockClimbingUK