Jimmy Webb
LAKE TAHOE, CALIFORNIA
“I was just so used to being in a town, in a city, skateboarding on the streets. And then I found something that I loved and connected with that then connected me back with the outdoors.”
For much of his childhood, Jimmy Webb would sneak away, descending an old wooden staircase into the river bottom near his grandparents’ farm in Tennessee. With only his dog for company, he explored nooks and crannies, climbed bluffs, and skipped rocks. At nine, Jimmy was obsessed with exploration, but by middle school traditional sports had replaced his river wandering.
Everything shifted when a high school girlfriend brought him to a climbing gym. Their relationship didn’t last, but his bond with climbing did, pulling him back outside. He joined the local climbing team and eventually found his focus and joy in bouldering.
“One of my favorite things to do on a down day is search Google Maps for new rocks in the craziest, most remote places. It ensures that, at most, a handful of people have even been there—that’s where the adventure begins.”
In his early years as a climber, Jimmy focused on repeating hard, iconic bouldering routes around the world, including the second ascent of Livin' Large, a V15 in South Africa. When videos of his ascents began circulating online—with their grainy, strangely intimate style—they carried the quiet conviction of someone who had never needed an audience to believe in what he was doing. Those early adventures down to the river bottom had shaped a sense of exploration that would define Jimmy’s path forward, not just as a talented boulderer but also as a route developer, always searching for the perfect line up a piece of stone.
“One of the more difficult things in general, more than just the climbing part, is putting a team together that’s willing to go to these remote places. It can be wild, scary, and a complete logistical nightmare. But when you add all those things together, successfully, it adds far more to the boulder than just the climbing alone.”
As climbing moved into the spotlight with Olympic medals, Jimmy mainly remains in fields of boulders. His routes are known not just for their technical difficulty, but for the effort it takes just to reach them. The Revenant, a V15 Jimmy established deep in Wyoming’s Wind River Range, demands more than ten miles of off-trail, debris-filled hiking and rapid-filled river crossings just to arrive at the base. Jimmy is constantly scanning the unexplored corners of the map, convinced that somewhere out there, the perfect boulder is still waiting for him to make the first move.
Career Highlights
● Flashed, 17 boulders 8B/V13 & 1 boulder 8B+/V14 (2013–present)
● First Ascent, Swiss Air, 8C/V15, Ticino, CH (2024)
● First Ascent, The Revenant, 8C/V15, Wind Rivers, WY (2023)
● First Ascent, Old Man Winter, 8B+/V14, South Lake Tahoe, CA (2023)
● First Ascent, Fallen Angel, 8C/V15, South Lake Tahoe, CA (2022)
● Second Ascent, Poison the Well, 8C+/V15, Ticino, CH (2020)
● Second Ascent, Empath, 9a+/5.15a, South Lake Tahoe, CA (2020)
● First Ascent, Sleepwalker, 8C+/V16, Red Rock, NV (2019)
● First Ascent, Ephyra, 8C+/V16, Ticino, CH (2019)
● Ascent, Dreamcatcher, 9a/5.14d, Squamish, BC (2018)
● Winner, Psicobloc Deep Water Soloing, Park City, UT (2018 & 2015)
● Second Ascent, Livin’ Large, 8C/V15, Rocklands, South Africa (2015)
● Winner, La Sportiva Legends Only, Stockholm, Sweden (2014 & 2013)