Pro Climber Sasha DiGiulian on Rock Climbing Around the World

Pablo Durana / Red Bull Content Pool

“It’s kind of like that feeling after you get to the top of a climb—without the physicality, but you put in a lot mentally,” Sasha DiGiulian tells me of her emotions right now. After four years of filming, five hip surgeries, and a whirlwind press tour, her documentary Here To Climb has been released into the world, chronicling her climbing career and much of her life. “It was a lot of adrenaline, interacting with people and getting to see their initial reactions. Now it’s about setting it free and seeing how it lands with the rest of the world.”

Climbing is Sasha’s first love. She encountered the sport as a child by chance, when her brother had a rock climbing birthday party. Now, at just 31 years old, she’s a three-time US National Champion, the Female Overall World Champion at the International Federation of Sport Climbing World Championships, and she has racked up over a dozen major First Ascents and more than 30 First Female Ascents (defined as the first documented and successful climbs to the top of a specified climbing route or mountain).

She’s as much an influencer as she is an athlete, with almost 500K followers on Instagram and 13.8 million views on TikTok. And she garnered herself an impressive roster of mentors and friends, including Free Solo star Alex Honnold and climbing veteran Lynn Hill, with whom she established and ascended Boulder’s first women-created route Queen Line last fall.

We hopped on the phone with DiGiulian to hear more about traveling for the sport, navigating her way to the top—literally and figuratively—and the most gorgeous walls she’s climbed around the world.

When did you realize you wanted to take climbing from a passion to a profession?

There wasn’t necessarily a path that I wanted to emulate, as far as what climbing could be for my career. I wanted to be able to climb more. In order for me to go and explore the world and do this sport I loved, I started having these brand partnerships and a bigger platform of people knowing who I was.

Like too many professional sports, it seems like women climbers have to work twice as hard to find the same success as male athletes. How have you navigated that?

There’s been a scarcity model in this industry, because typically it hasn’t been an industry with a lot of money or support for women. If it’s a table, there’s maybe one seat at it for women. So historically, [women climbers have] been pitted against each other for competition and to surpass each other.

But I look at women who have paved a path for women in athletics as total groundbreakers. They’re pioneers for athletes like me today, who now have this opportunity to pursue our passions as our careers. The role that women play in my life is inspiration. When I look at climbs that have been at the cutting edge and have been done by women, it serves as inspiration for me to know it’s possible. We have the capacity to pull more seats up to the table or even better, we can build our own. That abundance mindset is really important for the sisterhood of sport.

What are some of your favorite places to climb around the world?

Mora Mora in Madagascar is absolutely magical, it’s in the Tsaranoro region. It was the highest big wall that a woman’s ever achieved. What was so special about it was the immensity of the granite monolith wall surrounding this beautiful area with lemurs running around and this desert landscape. It was about 18 hours outside of the capital Antananarivo, so we took a crazy road trip to get there.

I went to Sumba Valley, Indonesia, as well as a place called Molo, specifically to develop climbing in that region. I was just going to these areas where I was pursuing this sport while learning so much about the local culture and eating whatever the locals were eating. Because it’s not like you’re going and ordering some Americanized dinner buffet. You get what you’re served and I loved that. I love experiencing a place through the people, food, and natural landscape.

I also went to Brazil and did a first descent of Pedra Riscada with Felipe Camargo who is a Brazilian athlete and a fellow Red Bull teammate. We traveled to this remote region where it seems so untouched and the hills are healthy and rolling. There’s this amazing landscape around us and I realized: it’s climbing that brought me there.

Host Lale Arikoglu sits down with documentary film director Jen Peedom and professional climber Sasha DiGiulian to talk about their respective high-altitude experiences.

Anywhere you’ve loved traveling—that had nothing to do with climbing?

I went on my honeymoon to the Four Seasons in Nevis Island which was a really special experience. Fairmont Hotels have got really great gyms, which is something I admittedly always look for in a good hotel.

Mentally and physically, how do you take care of yourself when traveling the world for this extreme sport?

I’m often packing my own snacks, and bringing my own tea and things that keep me on the straight and narrow based on my nutritional and wellness habits. I lean a lot into the adaptogen space with lion’s mane, reishi, ashwagandha, and turkey tail, which I always bring in tincture form. I’ve also gotten really good at hotel room workouts and traveling with bands. My mentality is that I have to be open when travel demands it.

Deciding who I surround myself with, who I listen to, and whose opinions matter to me is important. And finding ways I can pour light into my journey. The mind is something we need to constantly be training and paying attention to. Owning who I am and putting it all out there enables me to be more fearlessly myself.

Originally Appeared on Condé Nast Traveler

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