Catherine Destivelle

Common card · No. 259772

Catherine Destivelle (born 24 July 1960) is a French rock climber and mountaineer who is considered one of the greatest and most important climbers in the history of the sport. She came to prominence in the mid-1980s for sport climbing by winning the first major female climbing competitions, and by being the first woman to redpoint a 7c+/8a sport climbing route with Fleur de Rocaille in 1985, and an 8a+ (5.13c) route with Choucas in 1988. During this period, she was considered the strongest female sport climber in the world along with Lynn Hill; however, in 1990 she retired to focus on alpine climbing. In 1990, she made the first female alpine ascent of the Bonatti Pillar on the Petit Dru, which she followed up in 1991, by becoming the first woman to create a new extreme alpine route, also on the Petit Dru, which was named Voie Destivelle in her honor. From 1992 to 1994, Destivelle became the first female to complete the winter alpine solo attempts of the "north face trilogy" of the...

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