Retired and Extremely Active

Paul Ross started climbing in 1953, in Borrowdale in the Lake District. In 1953, he did his first new route: Troutdale Pinnacle Superdirect (HVS) on Black Crag, Borrowdale. Since then, he has done 500 new routes, including Team 500, 5.11- , in the Three Finger Canyon, Utah. Ross is following the age-kicking trend in climbing and continuing to be very active at the age of 73. He emigrated the USA in 1968 and over the next 20 years, put up routes all over the US. He moved back to England for ten years in 1988 and proceeded to find 60 new lines to do. “I never had too much interest in established rock climbs,” Ross says, with considerable understatement. After he moved back to the U.S. in 1998, he settled in a relatively unexplored area in Utah and devoted himself to climbing even more unclimbed lines. Canada has more than its share of senior new route freaks, including Karl Siedenschmid on the Escarpment, Urs Kallen and Chris Perry in the Rockies and Squamish’s elusive Robin Barley whose incredible new route output may be the highest in the world.