Jim Holloway

Jim Holloway, born in 1954, is an American boulderer who helped turn bouldering from a recreation into a way of life. He began climbing boulders in the early 1970s in Boulder, Colorado, and in 1973 made his first notable first ascent, a route called Just Right because it suited his very tall frame. In 1975 he climbed Trice, also known as Another Holloway Route, which is now graded V12 (8A+) and is regarded as the first route of that difficulty in the history of bouldering. Before the V-scale existed he rated his own problems with a personal three-level scheme of easy, medium and hard. He was among the first climbers to spend many days working one problem: at Horsetooth Reservoir near Fort Collins he spent twenty days between 1974 and 1975 on Meathook, a line well above the difficulty of the other problems there, and in 1977 he climbed Slapshot on Dinosaur Mountain near Boulder, another early V12. He stopped bouldering around 1980 and took up bicycle racing. Trice was not repeated until 2007, thirty-two years after his ascent.