Hazel Findlay

Hazel Findlay is a British traditional climber, sport climber and big wall climber, born in May 1989 and the daughter of the climber Steve Findlay. She began climbing on the sea cliffs of Pembrokeshire with her father at the age of six, became a six-time junior national rock climbing champion, then gave up competition climbing in favour of traditional climbing. She studied philosophy at the University of Bristol and now lives in North Wales. In June 2011 she made the first female ascent of a British E9, Once Upon a Time in the South West in Devon, and she was the first British woman to free climb El Capitan in Yosemite, which she has done four times, including Golden Gate in 2011, the Pre-Muir Wall in 2012 and Freerider in 2013. In 2019 she made the third ascent of the Yosemite route Magic Line, graded 5.14c, and in 2022 she made a first free ascent of Ingmikortilaq in Greenland with Alex Honnold. Climbing magazine gave her its Golden Piton Award for traditional climbing in 2013. She has also founded a mental training business for climbers called Strong Mind Climbing. The account here rests on her English Wikipedia article alone.