14 Climbers Who Broke Historic Records in 2025
“The duty we owe to history is to rewrite it,” penned Oscar Wilde in 1891. In ascents imaginative, daring, and dogged, climbers have been busy doing just that.
In the past 50 weeks, our sport saw many historic records broken and set. Yosemite, as usual, served as a hotspot—so did Italy. We saw a new grade in bouldering established. And we witnessed women shattering grade ceilings and staking out bold firsts.
In chronological order, here are 11 of the biggest historic climbing records of 2025.
Katie McKinstry Stylos: First Woman to Climb D15+/D16-
March 18, 2025
D what? most mortals may be asking. For the uninitiated, D15+/D16- nears the top (i.e., D16+) of the grading spectrum for drytoolers, who use crampons and ice axes to climb pitches of rock. And in March, Bozeman-based McKinstry Stylos became the first to send D15+ when she redpointed Parallel World in the Italian Dolomites.
Read about her glass ceiling-breaking climb
Touchstone Gym Routesetters: First Routesetter Strike
March 24, 2025
After reporting on the unionization of climbing gym employees in 2024, we saw something unprecedented last winter. For the first time, a group of routesetters went on strike. Routesetters at Verdigo Boulders—a location of Touchstone Climbing—in Burbank, California demonstrated to demand fair compensation to correspond with a greater workload. The Touchstone Workers United union continues to negotiate and advocate for fairer labor practices.
Find out what led routesetters to strike
Brooke Raboutou: First Woman to Climb 5.15c
April 8, 2025
The day before her 24th birthday, American comp kid extraordinaire, child of legends, and outdoor crusher Raboutou sent Excalibur (5.15c/9b+). “The way you pushed me was like none before,” she wrote in a poetic letter to the route. “You forced me to confront my fears, detach from expectation, and feed every flicker of belief I could find.”
Read about her groundbreaking ascent
Will Moss: Hardest Trad Rope Solo
April 13, 2025
This record holds the distinction of qualifying as pure training for another objective. Moss, just 20 years old, completed the hardest rope solo of a trad climb on China Doll (5.14a R) in Boulder Canyon, Colorado. Of note: This was also his first lead rope solo, which describes a climber belaying themselves on lead. For him, it was just a stepping stone to his historic in-a-day flash of Free Rider (more on that below).
Get the gear details on his rope solo
Katie Lamb: First Woman to Climb V16
April 30, 2025
Few can say they’ve been the first to do the same thing twice. But since Lamb became the first woman to climb a V16 boulder in 2023 only to have the problem downgraded soon after, she was back to the V16 drawing board. Then, a couple years later, the California-based boulderer made history again as the first woman to climb the grade on Yosemite’s The Dark Side.
Find out how Lamb pulled it off
Adam Ondra: Hardest Trad Flash Ever (5.14 R)
May 19, 2025
Czech legend Ondra once again proved his dominance by flashing Lexicon (5.14 R/E11 7a), which comes with an 80-foot fall potential. Of course, this scary trad route is in the U.K. First ascensionist Neil Gresham—who belayed Ondra on his flash—called the feat on par with winning an Olympic gold medal. Ondra reflected that he had “to give everything” to tick the gnarly route.
Will Moss: First to Flash El Cap in a Day
May 20, 2025
On paper, a 20-year-old from New York snagging a record that’s managed to elude all climbers for decades feels … unexpected. But until last spring, no one had flashed Yosemite’s El Capitan in a single day. The talented Moss made his record on Free Rider (5.13a; 3,000ft) in a cool 22 hours. Then, on November 1, he became the youngest person to free the Nose in a day.
Read about his historic ascent
Kate Kelleghan and Laura Pineau: First Women to Complete Yosemite Triple Crown
June 8, 2025
With 24 minutes to spare, Boulder-based speed queen Kelleghan and French climber Pineau snagged the first female Yosemite Triple Crown: El Capitan, Mounts Watkins, and Half Dome in under 24 hours. After extensive training together, Kelleghan reflected that their achievement was “so many years in the making.”
Read the epic saga of their Triple Crown
Balin Miller: First Solo of Denali’s Slovak Direct
June 13, 2025
“Holy shit,” previous ascensionist Mark Twight remarked when he learned of the late Miller’s historic solo of the Slovak Direct (M6 WI 6 A2; 9,000ft). Miller found the route easier than he dared to dream, downplaying it in our post-climb interview, during which he revealed that he took an impressive 19-hour nap on route. Just a few months later, the 23-year-old Alaskan tragically passed away in a fall on El Capitan.
Explore the epic story of Miller’s ascent
Veronica Aimee Chik: Youngest Person to Send 5.14b
July 8, 2025
“I love this sport so much,” Chik shared with us over WhatsApp shortly after she became the youngest person to redpoint a 5.14b/8c route. At nine years old, she clipped the chains of Fish Eye in Oliana, Spain. While this Chinese climber is back in school now, we’re looking forward to seeing what this now 10-year-old ticks in 2026.
Laura Rogora: Hardest Female Onsight
July 28, 2025
No beta. No rehearsing. Twenty-four-year-old Italian comp whiz Rogora onsighted Ultimate Sacrifice (5.14c/8c+) in France’s Gorge du Loup. In so doing, she dethroned the dominant Janja Garnbret, who held the previous hardest female onsight title with Fish Eye (5.14b/8c).
Colin Haley: First Cerro Torre Winter Solo
September 7, 2025
Patagonia winds and weather are hard enough to contend with during the conventional climbing season of the Southern Hemisphere’s summer. Winter is a whole other beast—and one few alpinists would be confident enough to tackle alone. Yet Haley did just that. The crux of this accomplishment? A vertical crevasse that the American alpinist called “the craziest tunneling experience” he’d ever encountered.
Get details on his mind-blowing ascent
Michaela Kiersch: Hardest First Ascent by an American Woman
September 11, 2025
On a limestone cliff overlooking Vermont’s Lake Champlain, Kiersch became the first American woman to establish a 5.14d when she sent Mad Lib. During that same trip, she also managed to snag the first female ascent of Livin’ Astroglide (5.14c) in Rumney, New Hampshire, and started working Jaws II (5.15a), which no woman has yet sent.
See what Kiersch said of her historic FA
Elias Iagnemma: First to Climb a Proposed V18
November 11, 2025
Climbing a grade that doesn’t yet exist requires both persistence and imagination. Italian climber Iagnemma had both, creating a narrative around his project inspired by the Japanese trading card game known as Yu-Gi-Oh. Four years after starting to work Exodia, he became the first in history to piece together the moves of a proposed V18 boulder problem.
Get the fascinating backstory of the world’s first V18
The post 14 Climbers Who Broke Historic Records in 2025 appeared first on Climbing.