Photos courtesy Steph Davis
and Jimmy Chin

Thursday, November 1, 7:30 p.m.
Eric Harvie Theatre

Steph Davis

High Infatuation

Steph Davis is a record-setting free climber. She has made first ascents in Patagonia, Baffin Island, Kyrgyzstan, and Pakistan. In 2001, Davis became the first U.S. woman to summit 3,375-metre Fitz Roy in Patagonia. In 2004, she made the fastest female free ascent of El Capitan in Yosemite, and returned to El Cap the following year to become the first woman to free climb its Salathé Wall (VI 5.13b/c). For Davis, it was the dream of a lifetime.

Growing up in Columbia, Maryland, Davis practiced classical piano six hours a day and brought home straight As. It wasn’t until her freshman year of university that she tried climbing — and she was instantly hooked. She gave up the piano and changed schools to be closer to the mountains, but Davis’s years of practice at the keys were not wasted — they prepared her for the hard work, determination, and sacrifice that success on the wall demands.

Her training for El Cap was vigorous: at least twice a week she’d hike 16 kilometres to the summit, self-belay 600 metres down to the lower pitches, and climb up alone. “Most people don’t just walk up to El Cap and say, ‘Oh, I’m going to free climb it,’” Davis says. “It’s like playing piano: taking something big and breaking it down and then trying to achieve a perfect performance.”

After being profiled in big name publications such as Outside, Men’s Journal, W magazine, and Sports Illustrated, Davis put her masters in English Literature to use by recounting her adventures in High Infatuation: A Climber’s Guide to Love and Gravity, published this year by The Mountaineers Books. Her writing has also appeared in Climbing and Rock & Ice, among other publications.

Festival-goers may remember her from Peter Mortimer’s 2006 film First Ascent: Tombstone in which she and her husband Dean Potter make a first ascent of the three-pitch sandstone tower near their home in Moab, Utah.