Purity is an overused word in climbing circles and what constitutes a pure approach to climbing has been the subject of endless debate. Sport climbers would assert that climbing on fixed protection allows them to fully focus on technique and the experience. Those daring enough to take a free solo approach would point to the purity of being alone on the wall. Trad enthusiasts extoll the ethical superiority of fixing your own gear to protect a climb, as well as the focus and skill such an approach requires.
It's this quality that sets trad apart. In essence, any wall, cliff, crag, buttress, rib, crack, overhang, chimney or ridge can be a trad climb. With the faff comes the freedom to climb where one will. The world’s greatest trad climbers have tackled some of our planet’s most fearsome lines, leaving behind little trace of their conquest, unlike the bolts left in the wake of a sport climbing project or the emotional toll that free soloing undoubtedly takes on a climber’s loved ones.
In this feature – the more traditional sibling of our greatest sport climbers in history piece – we take a look at some of the world’s greatest contemporary trad climbers. It's a feature that's awash with climbing grades – for context, see our guide to climbing rating systems.
Who are the world’s greatest trad climbers?
The process of whittling down the many legendary trad climbers into the selection below was very much the crux of putting this feature together. Climbers rarely stick religiously to one discipline – the varied joys of trad, sport, competition, big wall, bouldering, free soloing, ice climbing, mountaineering and alpinism mean that the elite often dip their toes into numerous pursuits.
So, with the selection, I’ve tried to focus mostly on those who have made trad their main form of climbing, or who’s achievements in the sport are too impressive to ignore. It would’ve been easy to pop someone like Alex Honnold in here but, despite his trad adventures, he’s better known for other styles and once said that he dislikes ‘all the faffing about that pure trad climbing requires’. So, it’d be rude to leave a true trad disciple out to make space on the list for those less enamored by nuts, hexes and cams.
I’ve also leant towards more contemporary characters that have sent their most impressive climbs in the last couple of decades, rather than legends of the past, such as Lynn Hill, Pete Livesey and Johnny Dawes. Treat the selection as a celebration of great, bold trad climbing and if it sparks debate, so be it. We all love a good debate, after all.
The world's greatest trad climbers
Beth Rodden: American who's up there with the best female climbers in history.
Jacopo Larcher: Tyrloean climber who may have sent the world’s hardest ever trad climb.
Dave MacLeod: Scottish climbing legend and first in the world to climb a graded E11 in 2006.
Hazel Findlay: British all-rounder with a penchant for big wall climbs.
Adam Ondra: Czech climber widely regarded as the best climber in the world today.
Tommy Caldwell: American climber most famous for his staggering ascent of the Dawn Wall on El Cap.
James Pearson: British climber who’s risen to prominence in recent years.
Meet the expert
Beth Rodden
Beth Rodden is bonafide legend of the climbing world, with a string of historic ascents to her name. Her trad journey began in earnest with a 13-pitch climb of Bravo les Filles alongside Lynn Hill, Nancy Feagin and Kath Pyke in Madagascar. She formed a formidable climbing partnership with Tommy Caldwell – they were even married between 2003 and 2009 – claiming the first free ascent of Lurking Fear (5.10) together on El Capitan in 2000. That same year, she endured the trauma of being kidnapped, alongside Caldwell, John Dickey and Jason “Singer” Smith by armed fundamentalists while on a climbing trip to Kyrgyzstan.
Rodden and Caldwell followed Lurking Fear up with the third and fourth free ascent of The Nose (5.14a) in 2005, emulating Lynn Hill’s famous 1994 climb. However, perhaps her crowning glory came in 2008, when she redpointed Meltdown (5.14c or d), a 22-meter vertical seam in Yosemite, thought to be the hardest trad route ever sent by a woman. The line was unrepeated for 10 years before fellow American Carlo Traversi managed the climb. He ended his tribute to Rodden’s achievement with just one word: ‘respect’.
Jacopo Larcher
Like legendary mountaineer Reinhold Messner, Jacopo Larcher hails from South Tyrol, a region characterized by the spectacular mountains of the Dolomites. He started climbing at the age of 10 and soon developed a talent that would see him compete at a national level in both boulder and lead specialities. Victory in the 2010 Italian Championships saw him move away from competition climbing and towards trad, multi-pitch, ice and expeditions.
He's perhaps most famous for his ungraded climb on Tribe in Cadarese, Italy in 2019. He first set eyes on the route in 2013 but the monstrous line took him over 50 sessions to finally conquer. Larcher was unwilling to grade the route, having broken its challenges down to a point where his appreciation of the difficulty had become warped. Instead, the great Adam Ondra weighed in, saying that it was ‘no doubt, the hardest single-pitch trad route in the world’ – it’s thought to be a possible 9a+ (5:15a). He’s also sent Yosemite’s Meltdown (5.14c or d), first climbed by Beth Rodden in 2008, as well as Rhapsody (5.14c), Dave Macleod’s Scottish masterpiece.
Dave Macleod
Dave MacLeod is a staggeringly bold Scottish rock climber who, among other things, has one of the world’s toughest free solo sends to his name, Darwin Dixit (8b+, 5.14a) in Margalef, Spain in 2008. He’s a decorated winter climber and boulderer too, but he’s perhaps best known for his trad prowess.
His magnum opus may very well be Rhapsody, an E11 (5:14c) climb on Scotland’s Dumbarton Crag in 2006. At the time, it was thought to be the hardest trad route in the world. He may have eclipsed this achievement with his 2008 send of Echo Wall, a monstrous 70-meter route on Ben Nevis, Scotland’s highest mountain. He declined to grade the climb, though fellow elite cragsman James Pearson suggested a hard E11 (5:14c) when he claimed the first repeat in 2024.
Hazel Findlay
North Wales based Hazel Findlay’s formative climbing experiences were on the sea cliffs of Pembrokeshire alongside her father. Her passion for trad saw her shun competition climbing, despite being junior national rock climbing champion on several occasions, in favour of grander adventures. She’d go on to achieve the first send of a British E9 in 2011, climbing North Devon’s Once Upon a Time in the South West. In 2013, she chalked off Chicama (E9) on the North Welsh island of Anglesey, a similarly impressive feat.
Great feats in Yosemite and Squamish would follow, including the third ascent of Ron Kauk’s Magic Line (8c+, 5.14c) in 2019, only the second climber to do so while placing gear, after Kauk’s son Lonnie in 2018. She said that it had been ‘so fun to move upwards on and in such a magical place’. She’s free climbed El Cap four times and was the first British woman to do so when she sent Golden Gate in 2011. In Squamish, she claimed the first free ascent of Tainted Love (8b+, 5.13d), a spectacular stem-corner that is accessed from the top of the Chief, in 2018.
In 2022, she joined Alex Honnold on an expedition to climb Greenland’s gigantic 3,750-foot Ingmikortilaq sea cliff, an adventure documented in the 2024 National Geographic series Arctic Ascent.
Adam Ondra
Widely regarded as the best rock climber in the world today, Ondra is, admittedly, primarily known for sport climbing and he features prominently in our greatest sport climbers in history feature. However, his domination of rock climbing disciplines means that leaving him off this list was impossible. This is, after all, a man who has repeated several of the world’s most challenging trad lines.
Born in Brno, Czech Republic in 1993, Ondra began climbing at the age of 6 and by the time he was 8 he was already onsighting grades as tough as 7b+ (5.12c). Since, he’s tackled some of the world’s toughest sport and trad climbs. He made short work of El Cap’s Dawn Wall (5.14d) in 2016, sending it in just 8 days, 11 quicker than Tommy Caldwell and Kevin Jorgeson’s famous first ascent from the previous year. He also repeated James Pearson’s Bon Voyage (E12, 5.14d) in France, which he admitted ‘could be (physically) the hardest route on trad gear in the world'. It took Ondra three days to puzzle it out.
Tommy Caldwell
Like Adam Ondra, it was difficult to leave Colorado-born Tommy Caldwell off this list, despite the fact that he also appears in our greatest sport climbers in history feature. While his masterpiece, the free ascent of the Dawn Wall (5.14d) on El Cap in 2015 was admittedly a mixed trad climb, his achievements across the board warrant his inclusion here.
These include various other free ascents in Yosemite and a staggering traverse of the Fitz Roy massif, one of the world’s most beautiful mountains, in Patagonia alongside Alex Honnold in 2014, for which he earned the prestigious Piolet d’Or prize. He was married to Beth Rodden between 2003 and 2009 and the pair had earlier suffered an ordeal when taken hostage during a climbing trip in Kyrgyzstan in 2000. His climbing career is even more remarkable when you consider that he lost his left index finger in a tablesaw accident in 2001.
James Pearson
In 2023, British climber James Pearson sent Bon Voyage in Annot, France. It was his hardest climb to date and he suspected that it was something very special indeed. However, he hesitated to give the climb a grade. This was because, in 2008, he attracted criticism for claiming the world’s first E12 route on The Walk of Life, a sheer and mostly unprotected slab on England’s North Devon coastline. In the years that followed, some of the world’s best cragsmen tested themselves against some of Pearson’s previous climbs and several of his routes were downgraded. In the most brutal case, Dave MacLeod sent The Walk of Life and suggested a radical downgrade from E12 to E9.
Pearson exiled himself to Europe to rebuild his confidence and his reputation. In recent years, he’s risen like a Phoenix, achieving a repeat ascent of MacLeod’s Rhapsody (E11, 5:14c) in 2014 and, in 2020, putting up a second ascent of Jacopo Larcher’s Tribe – a possible 9a+ (5:15a).
And so, we come back to Bon Voyage, which has since been attempted by Larcher and Ondra, as well as other leading climbers Steve McClure, Sébastien Berthe, and Ignacio Mulero. Only Ondra has succeeded in sending the line and Pearson has been prompted to once again stick his neck on the line and proclaim a world’s first E12. Whatever the grade, it’s clear that Pearson is now right on top of his game.
