44 Facts About Steph Davis

Stephanie "Steph" Davis was born on November 4,1973 and is an American rock climber, BASE jumper, and wingsuit flyer.

Steph Davis is one of the world's leading climbers, having completed some of the hardest routes in the world.

Steph Davis is a blogger who writes about her interests in climbing, BASE jumping, yoga, and veganism.

Steph Davis was born in Illinois and grew up in New Jersey and Columbia, Maryland.

Steph Davis's father, Virgil, was an aeronautical engineer and her mother, Connie, a school teacher.

Steph Davis describes herself as an unathletic child; she was a straight-A student and very musical.

Steph Davis grew up playing the piano from the age of three using the Suzuki method.

Steph Davis describes herself as "lit up" after climbing for the first time; she did not have this same love for piano, so she quit.

Steph Davis enjoyed climbing so much that she moved to Colorado, where she was an exchange student at Colorado State University for a year.

Steph Davis graduated with a bachelor's degree from the University of Maryland and then moved to Colorado and attended CSU to get a master's degree in English.

Steph Davis's thesis focused on the canon of mountaineering literature and "the ways in which reality can be so disparate and shifting for each individual who is living through extreme circumstances", as Davis describes it.

Steph Davis considered attending doctoral programs in English, but decided against it.

Steph Davis attended University of Colorado's law school beginning in September 1995, but quit after five days, knowing it was not the life for her.

Steph Davis did it by herself, with no help from us.

Steph Davis drove around to climbing areas, guiding and waiting tables to make ends meet, earning only about US$6,000 a year.

Steph Davis read throughout her journeys, from novels by Gabriel Garcia Marquez to an autobiography by Kirstie Alley, to French short stories in the original language.

In 2004, Steph Davis started working on Freerider, a 38-pitch climb on El Capitan.

In 2004, Steph Davis became the second woman to free climb El Capitan in one day.

Steph Davis initially planned for the climb to take five days and had cached water and food along the route for that length of the time, but poor weather, high numbers of climbers on the route and difficult climbing made the climb take eleven days.

Steph Davis wore only light climbing shoes, climbing tights, long underwear, and a light wind jacket.

Steph Davis is the first woman to climb Torre Egger, a difficult summit in Patagonia, of which she made the first one-day ascent, with her then partner Dean Potter.

When Steph Davis arrived in Patagonia, Potter was already established, and they both climbed Cerro Stanhardt via what might have been a new route on the east face.

Steph Davis has made free solo climbing a specialty and is "one of the world's most experienced" free solo climbers.

Steph Davis has said that she is not into free soloing for the "death-defying buzz" but rather for the sense of "control".

Steph Davis began her free solo experience of the area by soloing Kiener's Route July 7,2007, working up to harder routes.

In September 2007, Steph Davis free-soloed Pervertical Sanctuary, which was her goal, a difficult route on the east face of Longs Peak, a thousand-foot granite wall known as "The Diamond" in Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado.

Steph Davis is the first woman to free solo the Diamond and the second person to free solo the Pervertical Sanctuary route.

In May 2008, Steph Davis free soloed the North Face of the Castleton Tower, at the 5.11 grade.

Steph Davis has said in an interview that while she had always refused to have her free solos filmed in the past because she has known him so long and because he knows how she climbs, having him film was not an imposition.

Steph Davis has made first ascents around Moab, including the Tombstone.

Steph Davis described it as her most technically demanding climb ever.

Steph Davis has been on successful international expeditions to climb new routes in alpine, big wall, and solo styles, including in Pakistan, Kyrgyzstan, Baffin Island, Argentina, Italy, and Patagonia.

Steph Davis was the first American woman to summit Fitzroy in Patagonia and to summit all seven major peaks of the Fitzroy Range.

Steph Davis was inspired to go to the Karakorum by photographs she saw of the Trango Towers and Shipton Spire.

Steph Davis began her mountain climbing career in 1998 by climbing Inshallah with Kennan Harvey and Seth Shaw, which is on the southeast face of Shipton Spire in the Karakorum.

Steph Davis returned to the Karakorum in 2000, this time to the Kondus Valley, making a first ascent of Tahir Tower via All Quiet on the Eastern Front with Jimmy Chin, Brady Robinson, and Dave Anderson.

Steph Davis has written in the past about the hurdles she faced being a woman in a male-dominated sport, but in 2009 she commented to an interviewer that she felt much of that discrimination had disappeared.

The venture ended when Richard died wingsuiting August 18,2013; Steph Davis had jumped successfully just before him, but Richard hit the wall of a cliff and died.

Steph Davis, who loves reading and writing, has said about this book that "I've just always really loved writing and I do it all the time," describing the book as "a kind of ongoing conglomeration of what it is like to live this lifestyle".

Steph Davis had faced a lot of fear free soloing, BASE jumping and sky diving and felt that she could offer people advice about facing fear in general.

Steph Davis had dropped out of the University of New Hampshire in 1992 and been living out of his Volkswagen Jetta so that he could pursue climbing.

In Moab, Steph Davis turned a doublewide trailer into a small cottage, complete with a piano.

In 2011, Steph Davis married BASE jumper Mario Richard on the Parriott Mesa near Moab.

In 2018, Steph Davis married Ian Mitchard, a tandem instructor at Skydive Moab, and a wingsuit flyer and BASE jumper.