Cedar Wright learned climbing at the age of 21 on Northern California's majestic sea cliffs. While he worked toward his B.A. in English from Humboldt State, he quickly progressed as a climber and was soon establishing numerous first-ascent free climbs throughout the area.

After earning his degree he started wintering in Joshua Tree and spending the rest of the year in Yosemite, where he became an accomplished free soloist, speed climber, aid climber and free climber. For five years, Ceder worked for Yosemite Search and Rescue while pursuing a career in writing. Ceder holds numerous speed records throughout Yosemite and is one of the few people to take these techniques to the alpine realm. Cedar is a prolific 'first ascensionist' whose passion and positive energy are inspiring and contagious. His zeal for climbing, however, is balanced by his Zen approach to his downtime, with meditation, yoga, guitar, painting, and writing poetry among the ways in which he relaxes.  

James Pearson began climbing at age 15 and burst onto the scene with a string of insanely hard ascents of Gristone Trad routes at an incredibly young age. In 2005 aged only 19, James made a lightning fast repeat of "Equilibrium" E107a (The hardest traditional route in the world at the time). Equilibirum was fist climbed in 2000 by Neil Bentley and had received only one repeat by Neil Gresham. Both needed multiply years to unlock the intricate moves and lead the route but James took only 4 days.

In 2008, James raised the bar for hard traditional climbing by making the first ascent of The Groove, at Cratcliffe Tor. The Groove had been tried by many of the best climbers over the last 30 years, often being dismissed as impossible of one for the next generation. At a mighty grade of E10 7b, The Groove is now the hardest trad route in England, and a contender for one of the most technically difficult routes in the world.

James has traveled the world, repeating and making first ascents of the toughest

boulder problems and routes. James'focus has recently been on bouldering and last

year he made history with three flashes of confirmed V13 boulder problems.

Over the next few years James plans to keep traveling the world in search of the hardest, most inspiring lines. He has plenty of projects lined up including a few grit routes that will raise the top level yet again.

Kate Rutherford started her wild adventure chipping ice out of the natural spring that her water came from in the rural Alaskan bush. From there she moved south to Vashon Island, Washington and then to The Colorado College where she finally learned to rock climb. Though still working as a biologist and fly fishing/raft guide occasionally, rock climbing is taking over.

Kate has done 3 ascents of El Capitan, most recently an attempt to free the Freerider route. Cracks are her passion but adventure keeps her well rounded. Sport routes in Vietnam are just as fun as splitters in the Argentine Andes.

Travel, art and work in the community are what climbing is inspiring for her future.

It has been five years since Abang climbed for the first time by chance when he was 15 years old. Ever since then, he was deeply attracted by rock climbing from which he has learned insistence, tenacity and freedom.

In 2005, he went to Shanghai and trained for rock climbing for half a year. With passion and hard work, he dramatically improved his climbing skills.

In 2006, he finished the route named X-Man 13c of White Mountain in Yangshuo, which he considers as the most dangerous climbing experience he has ever had.

In 2007, he went to Thailand and finished all routes. This is Abang's proudest achievement in his climbing history.

Currently, he works for China Climb and climbs as much as he can. He is planning trips to the United State, India, France and Spain to climb the hardest routes in all these countries.

The first time Acheng tried rock climbing was in 2000. Ever since then, he has spent tremendous amount of time and energy in climbing training.

Later on, while actively participating in a number of climbing competitions, Acheng improved his climbing skills gradually. He goes outdoors to climb very often. His favorite climbing areas are Yangshuo, Kunming, Beijing and Thailand.

He has climbed many outdoor routes he considered to be very difficult. This has helped broaden his knowledge base of climbing and laid out a solid foundation for his big wall climbing.

During the whole year of 2006, he climbed many big walls at high altitude, including the big wall in Xishan. Acheng and his team overcame a lot of difficulties. They had to withdraw to the foot of the mountain when the gear bag was dropped on the first day. They tried the same route again on the second day, and successfully got to the top.

This was the first summit ever of Xishan, and for him, this is the climbing trip he feels proudest of.

Recently, he has been participating in route setting for many climbing competitions, such as the National Championships and X-Games. Acheng has gained a better understanding about the development of rock climbing in China through the contact and conversations with the other athletes.