Climbers

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.

Mina Mason 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

Neil Gresham is a British climber who is notable for his hard trad ascents and deep water solos, whilst being an influential coach and early training guru.

Trad achievements include early repeats of testpieces such as Johnny Dawes' Indian Face (E9) and Neil Bentley's Equilibrium (E10), as well as making his own contributions Final Score (E10) and Lexicon (E11).

Gresham was an early adopter of deep water soloing in the UK, making the first ascents, or first DWS ascents, of some of the hardest DWS lines in the UK, including:

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

Gresham was also an early training guru, writing a regular column in On The Edge magazine in the '90s, and being among the first to offer commercial coaching services.

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?

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

Paul Pritchard is a British rock climber and mountaineer. He was a prominent figure in the 1980s and 1990s, particularly in and around North Wales.

On the 13th February 1998 he suffered a traumatic brain injury while climbing on The Totem Pole in Tasmania which left him with hemiplegia.

References

[1] Features in 80's Birth of Extreme

[2] A Kind of Homecoming by Martin Crook, On The Edge Issue 87, page 18

Elias is an Italian boulderer and one of the world’s strongest.

In 2021/22 he made ascents of Gioia and Ganesh both at 8C+.

He was shot into the limelight in early 2024 with the fourth ascent of Burden of Dreams, using a unique beta. In 2025 Elias first ascented Italys hardest boulder in The Big Slamm giving it 9A/V17, taking him around 35 sessions.

In late 2025 Elias established Exodia, the first proposed 9A+/V18 in the world. He spent over 200 sessions on the boulder, starting in 2021.

References

[1] Profile with Josh Rundle (2026) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9A2CP8QdYJE

References

[1] Stone Free (Film, 2015) by Alistair Lee

[2] Lines, Jules. Tears of the Dawn. United Kingdom: Scottish Mountaineering Trust, 2020.

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

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

References

[1] Brooke Rabotou's World Cup Journey https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPO4sr4pQmk

[2] Interview with Beth Rodden (2026) https://www.climbing.com/culture-climbing/golden-piton-2025-brooke-raboutou/

One of the early developers of deep water soloing in the UK.

Mick Fowler is a British mountaineer and climber. He is known for his adventurous, lightweight and ambitious ascents in the Himalaya as well as a range of very adventurous new routes in the UK.

Tom is a British expat living in Spain, where he has done most of his harder climbing.

References

[1] https://www.climbing.com/people/tom-bolger-interview-pro-climber/