The American climber was a pioneer of free soloing and pretty much lived in the mountains around Lake Tahoe, California, climbing to mental heights without as single rope or piece of protection. Just taking this risk wasn’t enough for Dan though, so he started speed climbing too, racing up routes which most people would be roped in for.

The clip above shows probably his most famous climb, the 400m plus Bear’s Reach route on the side of Lover’s Leap near Lake Tahoe. Dan tops out in 4.25 doing almost 100m a minute and at 1.11 he throws in a dyno that’ll probably make you pee a little. If you can beat that time, even with a rope, we’ll get the intern to eat his hat.

The Monkey King

As far as climbing nicknames go ‘The Monkey King’ is pretty sweet, what isn’t so fun is the journey one guy took to earn it.

Jyoti Raj was a victim of childhood abuse which led him to the rocks around Chitradurga Fort in India, looking to commit suicide. The rocks proved tough to climb and it was only by watching and copying the local monkeys that Jyoti made it to the top. Jyoti’s climb resulted in cheers from impressed tourists and he quickly realised that his life could be better spent climbing rocks than jumping off them.

Today Jyoti is a world famous free soloer, scaling the walls and crags surrounding Chitradurga. He’s even found time to teach the local village kids to climb, preparing a future generation of monkey kings and queens for adventures of their own.

Bob The Builderer

If you can think of a famous skyscraper, chances are Alain Robert has climbed it.

Dubbed ‘The French Spiderman’ Robert has tackled everything from the Burj Khalifa and the Eiffel Tower, to Portland House and the New York Times building. Although he’s sometimes given permission for his climbs, most of Robert’s adventures happen without the building owner’s consent. As a result Bob’s been arrested more times than he can remember, but that doesn’t seem to put him off.

In 1997 Robert decided to have a go at the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur but was arrested by some gutsy police officers on the 60^th floor, 28 stories shy of the top. In 2007 Spidey returned to mark the tenth anniversary of his first attempt by getting arrested again at the 60^th floor. Finally in 2009 he made it to the top and was fined 2000 Malaysian Ringgit (about £300) for his trouble.

It seems there’s no slowing this urban free soloer down. In 2012 he was spotted checking out the inside of the Shard and before you could sing the Spidey theme tune the owner’s had slapped an injunction on him, banning Robert from ever coming back to the tower. Nice try bureaucracy! But a tiny piece of paper can’t stop Alain and his Goldilocks of Justice.

Brave Heart

For anyone who doesn’t know what an epileptic fit is like, here’s climber Kevin Shield’s first hand description:

“Imagine being electrocuted, beaten and trapped inside a nightmare that you can’t run from or scream for help even though you’re trying with every part of your being and multiply by 10, I think that’s quite close.”

The gutsy Scot lives with this disease 24/7 and still has the balls to climb despite the chance of fitting and throwing himself off the top of a cliff. This is made even tougher by the fact that he suffers from depression, a condition which is actually made worse by his epilepsy medication. So climbing can be pretty hard for Kev, who just wants to get on with being the best one handed climber he can be.

You read that right, Kevin’s left hand is basically just a thumb. He was born missing all of the rest of his fingers but he’s still taking on crags that would scare most people silly.

Kev’s story has obviously dawn a lot of attention leading to media interviews and a starring role in rock climbing flick, Single Handed. So next time you’re grumbling about a route being too hard hit the play button on SH and remind yourself that nothing is impossible.

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