THE LEAD · CLIMBERS
Sasha DiGiulian on coming back, slowly
WORDS BY E. TANAKA · PHOTOGRAPHY BY R. NG · 02.2026
She is not in a hurry. After two surgeries — a hip in 2023, a shoulder in 2024 — and a year off the wall, the most decorated American climber of her generation has decided that comeback is the wrong frame.
"I'm not coming back to anything," she says, in a kitchen in Boulder, taping fingers that have not held a V10 in almost two years. "I'm starting from where I am."
I'm not coming back to anything. I'm starting from where I am.
Where she is, today, is V6 indoors and a 5.12 outside on a good day. She knows where she used to be. She has decided this does not matter.
The work is the work. The wall does not remember.