It’s pouring rain in Mariposa, a small mountain group west of Yosemite. Matilda Söderlund and her fiancé, William Hamilton, are visiting, and we’re discussing all issues climbing. As Hamilton flips via my assortment of coffee-table climbing books—The Stone Masters: California Rock Climbers within the Seventies and The Valley Climbers: Yosemite’s Vertical Revolution—I ask Söderlund if I can activate my recorder and have her share her climbing story.
I pull some peach muffins out of the oven and place them in entrance of them. Söderlund begins sharing tales from her early days climbing indoors to finally beginning her climbing health club, Moumo, in her hometown of Stockholm, Sweden.
She describes her journey from indoor climbing to out of doors aims, the drive that took her to the finals at World Cup occasions, and her achievement as the primary—and to date, solely—Swedish lady to climb 9a. She additionally displays on her shut bond together with her dad and her aim to free a giant venture in Yosemite this season.
I requested her to start out firstly, together with her first day on the climbing health club wall, and what made climbing click on for her.
“I began climbing at a party once I was 11 years previous, and I had no reference to climbing in anyway earlier than that,” she says. “Climbing was a extremely small and obscure exercise in Sweden and Stockholm. I do not forget that I actually loved it, and I felt like one thing simply clicked once I was on the wall. That Christmas, I requested for a harness and climbing sneakers. I cherished climbing, however I didn’t but notice how rather more there was to it.”
With a background in observe and area, Söderlund was aggressive lengthy earlier than she ever roped in. “I used to be very a lot into sports activities and really, very aggressive as a baby,” she says. However climbing felt completely different. Though she knew nothing concerning the aggressive aspect of it—the occasions, historical past, and evolving requirements—she knew this was her sport. She quickly gave up working and teamed up together with her dad, who grew to become her common climbing accomplice. 4 days per week, they have been on the health club collectively. “My dad got here alongside after my first expertise climbing, and he was like, ‘Oh, that is actually cool, actually enjoyable.’ It grew to become our factor to do collectively. With out him, I might by no means be the place I’m in the present day.”
She explains that security requirements have been unfastened on the health club again then; it was exceptional to safe the lighter climber to the bottom whereas belaying a a lot heavier individual. She recounts how, whereas nonetheless in grade faculty, she would catch her dad’s top-rope falls, getting launched every time he fell. “We have been studying as we went,” she says.
Inside her first 12 months of climbing, she entered a contest, and to her shock, she made it to the finals of the Swedish Youth Championships in March 2004, ending second within the youngsters class. By age 13, she had climbed her first 8a, and that very same 12 months, she positioned seventh on the UIAA World Youth Championships in Imst, Austria.
“Sasha [DiGiulian] and I first met round 2006 on the Youth Championships,” she says. “I knew of her from magazines. We grew to become shut pals by 2012 and traveled collectively for competitions, sharing targets and pushing one another.”
Initially, Söderlund had no need to climb open air, viewing it as extra of an journey than a sport. In Sweden, climbing areas are unfold out throughout the nation, providing a wide range of rock sorts—from granite slabs and skinny to hand-width cracks to gneiss in Stockholm’s archipelago and a few sandstone. She additionally had little curiosity in trad climbing, which might come a lot later. On the time, she most popular bouldering, which she dabbled in on the health club, and sport climbing, which she gravitated towards. Nevertheless, her perspective modified inside a number of years, and by age 14, she climbed her first 8a, I Have a Dream, at Sjötorpsberget close to her hometown, nailing it on her second attempt.
For the following seven years, till she entered college, Söderlund competed fiercely and climbed steadily via the ranks of sport climbing. “I believe with competitions, it bought to some extent the place I wasn’t having fun with it anymore. I’d put a lot stress on myself, and it was like all the pieces I did was performance-driven,” she displays.
From 2007 to 2012, she labored below the steering of her coach Carlos Cabrera. As her indoor abilities improved, her out of doors efficiency adopted swimsuit. “My first 8c was Odd Fellows in Frankenjura in 2012. That 12 months, I additionally flashed Associates Like You 8b+ in Frankenjura and Kalea Borroka 8b+ in Siurana. In 2013 I did my first 8c+, Pati noso,” she says. Regardless of her success, the extraordinary dedication remoted her from the world round her, and he or she wanted a break. “I wanted to step again and reevaluate why I climbed,” she says.
“At round 19 or 20, I couldn’t see myself making it as a professional climber. I didn’t even know why I climbed anymore.” She determined to alter gears and enrolled within the Stockholm Faculty of Economics, the place she studied enterprise. After graduating, she labored as an funding banker. “That was the worst 12 months of my life,” she admits.
A short while later, Söderlund displays, “My dad bought identified with most cancers, and he was advised he solely had a number of months left to dwell. That basically affected me, and I spotted that climbing is my greatest ardour in life. I didn’t actually know what place I wished climbing to have in my life, however I made a decision to construct a profession round it. I might relatively try this than work in finance.”
We pause for a second, and I think about what it might be wish to lose an in depth member of the family to sickness. “I’m so sorry,” I say, “that should’ve been very troublesome, dropping your dad.”
William indicators that it’s time for him and Söderlund to satisfy his crew downtown for Mexican meals, so I put the microphone away.
After a protracted lunch together with her crusher pals from Sweden and Scotland, throughout which I chugged down too many Mexican Cokes, we paid our checks and stepped outdoors. I requested Söderlund if we may proceed the interview. Simply then, the clouds parted, and rays of sunshine pierced via the sky and beamed onto the mountainous panorama. I requested her to face within the gentle for a second so I may seize a fast portrait with my telephone, then turned the recorder again on.
“He lived,” she says, stunning me. She explains that after two coronary heart assaults and a sequence of inconclusive blood exams, her dad—a health care provider himself—checked himself into the hospital and insisted on staying till physicians may determine what was unsuitable. “My means of coping was to maintain climbing, like some type of remedy. My dad wished me to maintain going, so I made a decision I might nonetheless attempt for my 9a aim.”
“My aim, and my imaginative and prescient,” she continues, “was to start out a climbing health club and return to climbing. I simply wished to turn into pretty much as good as I could possibly be. Working the health club and balancing my climbing targets has been difficult, nevertheless it’s rewarding to have one thing absolutely my very own. The health club has saved me motivated and given me a steady place to coach and assist others.”
In 2019, she climbed her first 9a, The Elder Statesman—a bouldery, highly effective line with small crimps and technical footwork that suited her strengths. The Elder Statesman is one in all two 9a routes she has accomplished, the opposite being Niemisis, which she despatched in September 2023. She’s additionally bouldered as much as V13.
“A couple of days after I climbed my first 9a, I bought a name from my dad, and so they discovered a brand new therapy that apparently labored,” she says.
It turned out that her dad had a uncommon type of blood most cancers, and, fortuitously, a brand new therapy had simply been found. As a result of protein buildup in his coronary heart, which had precipitated his coronary heart assaults, and the medicine he now has to take, he has low blood stress and isn’t the athlete he as soon as was. Nevertheless, his situation is steady and bettering. “Now it’s been 5 years, and his coronary heart is hopefully recovering. He’s again to climbing slightly bit, principally bouldering. He involves the health club a number of occasions per week,” she says.
In 2021, Söderlund advised Base Journal that she wished to grasp all climbing disciplines: bouldering, trad, multi-pitch, and large wall. “To have the ability to change between all of the completely different disciplines is inspiring,” she tells me.
In 2022, Sasha DiGiulian assembled a feminine group to climb the 5.14b massive wall Rayu in northern Spain. She selected Brette Harrington, a trad and sport climbing celebrity with whom she’d lately traveled to Makatea, French Polynesia, to bolt sport climbs over the seashore. Becoming a member of them was her previous good friend Söderlund, whom she remembered from their days competing at World Cup occasions.
Although the toughest pitches on Rayu are protected by bolts, a lot of the route is a runout trad climb, protected by Totems and wires in brittle, sharp limestone. The group mixed their abilities to succeed as a gaggle, with Harrington main the extra nerve-racking pitches whereas DiGiulian and Harrington each redpointed the 5.14b crux. Their achievement marked “the toughest wall accomplished on this planet by an all-female group,” as I wrote in a narrative for Crimson Bull.
“Climbing with ladies like Sasha and Brette has taught me a lot. It’s motivating to see how every of us brings one thing completely different to the wall,” Söderlund tells me because the clouds cut up aside throughout the sky over the Sierra foothills.
Throughout her go to to Yosemite this fall, Söderlund has been targeted on refining her abilities on Yosemite granite. In late October, she accomplished Peace (5.13+) on Medlicott Dome in Tuolumne Meadows, a route she calls “a journey.” She’s nonetheless right here engaged on a giant venture she’d relatively hold below wraps.
Söderlund says that climbing with Harrington has been an eye-opening expertise. “It has raised my trad recreation rather a lot. Earlier than Rayu, I had little or no expertise. There’s nonetheless a lot to be taught, though I’ve been climbing for over 20 years.”
