Guidebook XV—Balance

[American Alpine Club]

Brooke Raboutou had booked her flight home. She had one final session to send Excalibur 9b+ (5.15c)—an18-move, 40-degree crimpy sport climb near Acro, Italy—before that flight. She felt good about it. She needed the time pressure, similar to a competition. In her mind, two things were true: She might have to walk away from Excalibur for the season, and she could send it during that final session.
On Saturday, she began her day like every other, with yoga and meditation in her Airbnb, breakfast, and a warm up at her friends’ climbing wall. It was the warmest day she had had in Italy, a good sign, since she had previously numbed out on the climb. On her first try on the route that day, she fell on the last move. We’re getting into it, that felt good,Raboutou thought. She fell off the third move on her second try, which hadn’t happened in a while. She wasn’t frustrated; this was part of the process.
“I felt like I mentally was in a place where I was able to try harder than I had before, and had more of a margin than maybe a month ago, from just training on the climb,” said Raboutou.
She rested for 30 seconds and then hopped back on, trying harder than ever. Not every move was perfect, but this time, she stuck the final move from the ground, and time stopped as she clipped the chains.
She topped out the feature, making the moment even more special. Every fall, every moment of doubt, all the ripped skin and sore muscles, the days filled with cold weather, were background noise to this moment, this historic climb—Raboutou believing fully in her abilities and achieving something only a few climbers have.
With her ascent of Excalibur, Brooke Raboutou became the first woman in the world to climb 5.15c.
This cutting-edge success didn’t come out of nowhere. Raboutou has been crushing boulders for the last few years while balancing the Climbing World Cup, the Olympics, and college.
In May 2020, she sent Muscle Car (V14), her first of the grade. Her summer bouldering season in Rocky Mountain National Park saw solid sends with The Automator (V13), The Shining (V12/V13), The Wheel of Chaos (V13), Doppelgänger Poltergeist (V13),and Jade (V14). Raboutou also attended the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics, earning fifth in the overall combined event (speed, lead, and bouldering).
After the Tokyo Olympics, she felt very low and lost for a while. It was a pivotal time—she was a sophomore in college and still figuring out what she wanted to do with her life. She didn’t expect to feel the post-Olympics depression that a lot of athletes deal with. Raboutou worked with a sports psychologist and a therapist to help her process her emotions and goals in this heightened context of elite competition. She started to put her well-being above climbing and training. She is still constantly working on shifting that paradigm.
It’s no surprise that in 2021 and 2022, Raboutou sent a handful of V13s and V14s, most of them documented on her Instagram and Mellow Climbing’s YouTube: Euro Trash (V12/8a+) and Euro Roof Low Low (V13/8b) in Little Cottonwood Canyon, Utah; Trieste (V14) in Red Rocks, Nevada; Heritage (V13), La Proue (V13) and Lur (V14) in Switzerland, snagging the FFA for La Proue; and Evil Backwards (V13) in the Mt. Blue Sky area, Colorado.
By the end of 2022, only three women had climbed V15, and none had climbed V16. But the dream was there.
Early in 2023, Raboutou graduated from the University of San Diego with a degree in marketing—something she was cautioned against since she had a full-time professional climbing career. She also took classes in psychology and was interested in how mental health and climbing interact. Balancing learning and climbing was important to her.
“I love climbing so much, but I’ve always believed it cannot be my everything,” said Raboutou.
In October of 2023, Raboutou sent Box Therapy (V15/V16) in Rocky Mountain National Park, and she promptly downgraded it from V16 to V15. Her brother, Shawn Raboutou, an elite boulderer who has climbed V17, sent the boulder that same day. In an Instagram post, she wrote, “I first touched this boulder in September 2022 and have not stopped dreaming about it since that day. It took me a whole year to get back...

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Guidebook XV—Balance — American Alpine Club

A Profile on Robert Hicks Bates Award Winner Brooke Raboutou By Sierra McGivney Photos by Jess Glassberg/LouderThan11 Brooke Raboutou had booked her flight home. She had one final session to send Excalibur 9b+ (5.15c)—an18-move, 40-degree crimpy sport climb near Arco, Italy—before that flight

American Alpine Club (americanalpineclub.org)