Steph Davis

Athlete Feature

By KAVU

May 28^th, 2024

Who is Steph Davis?

When we think of adventurous souls.... someone who's focused their life to explore, learn, and prioritize happiness as a choice, all while doing some of the most radical things a human can do, Steph Davis is at the top of that list.

She's one of the most dedicated and iconic climbers of our generation. Having free soloed up to 5.11a (6b+), she was also the first woman to summit all the peaks of the Fitzroy Range in Patagonia, she helped to establish first ascents in Pakistan, was the second woman to free climb El Capitan in a day, the first woman to free climb the Salathé on El Capitan, the first woman to free solo the Diamond on Longs Peak in Colorado, and the first woman to summit Torre Egger. She's also an experienced skydiver, wing suit BASE jumper, a trail runner, musician, speaker, writer, vegan and hard core animal lover.

But, I think anyone who knows Steph, or has had the luck to meet her, would most immediately remember her huge smile, approachable nature, her honesty and her contagious passion for living well.... and of course, her obvious love for the important people and animals in her life.

So, if you're interested in learning more about an incredible human; someone we're extremely proud to have in our KAVU family.... Read on!

When you were a kid what did you want to “be” when you grew up?

I wanted to be a vet because I loved animals so much. I got dissuaded from science pretty early in third grade because I thought I was bad at it. Now I have a dog and 3 cats, and I kind of go to pieces when they’re hurt or upset, so it probably turned out for the best.

Did you do the “standard” school route? Or did you take more of an unconventional approach to education? Elaborate if needed.

I have a Master’s degree in literature, and I went to law school for a week before I dropped out and moved into an Oldsmobile. From that point on, it’s all been learning by doing.

How did you get started doing what you do as a professional athlete for Team KAVU? Basically, can you give me a little background on your journey of how you got to this point in your life of being a pro athlete/ ambassador for KAVU?

It was 1995 when I jumped off the academic track and started climbing full time. At first I was waiting tables and guiding in Moab to earn money, but my overhead was really low—I was living out of my car and my expenses were basically gas, food, health insurance ($25/month in 1995), and a little bit of climbing gear. I got clothes at thrift stores and books at libraries. I didn’t think I could make a living as a pro athlete, because that wasn’t something I saw existing in climbing. If you wanted to get good at climbing, you had to drop out of society, get money through whatever means possible (usually restaurant or construction work), and then spend as much time as possible on the rocks.

But in 1997 I got a couple of small sponsorships, and it was enough to replace what I was making waitressing (but not enough to move out of the Olds). That allowed me to keep going with climbing, to travel the world on expeditions, and to achieve some of my biggest climbing dreams, as well as to start skydiving and BASE jumping almost 20 years ago. Along the way I also learned how build my own brand, negotiate contracts, become an author, run events and become a corporate speaker. At this point I’ve been a professional athlete for almost 30 years. I’ve worked with a lot of different brands, and I’ve seen the outdoor industry grow in ways I never could have imagined back in 1995. My good friend Jeff Shapiro is the one who introduced me to KAVU in 2015, and it is one of my most cherished partnerships.

What are you most passionate about? Like... if you finished checking off all the things on your “responsibilities” list, and you had a day fully free and open to do anything you wanted, what would you do with that free time?

I find myself pulled between a lot of different things between the types of climbing I like to do and the types of jumping I like to do. So what I’m excited about is totally dependent on the season and the conditions I find (hot/cold/sunny/cloudy/windy/calm) when I wake up in the morning. That being said, I almost always want to climb gently overhanging face routes and fly a wingsuit off a cliff.

What is your favorite thing to do that is not related to the sports you get paid to do as an athlete?

I love trail running, going down the river in summer, skate skiing and peak bagging. I’m also kind of obsessed with trees and gardening, and I love cooking and baking. One of the best parts of my day is the morning walk with my dog Cajun, who’s almost 14 and likes short, non-steep walks now.

How many years have you been a KAVU athlete? Do you have a favorite memory/ trip over the years of being on Team KAVU?

I’ve been with KAVU for 8 years, and my favorite trip was the 25th anniversary celebration in the San Juan Islands when we went out to see whales in sea kayaks.

What is your favorite part about being on Team KAVU and what makes it special to you?

I’ve worked with a lot of different companies, and I’ve also seen a lot of small climbing and outdoor companies grow and then sell to big corporations. I can understand why those decisions get made, but I’ve also directly learned that a company is never the same when it’s not being run by the original founder who is truly passionate about the brand and the company. KAVU is the only outdoor company I know that is still owned and run by its original founder and many of its original employees, and has also been genuinely successful at growing in a sustainable and profitable way. I know how special that is, and that culture of integrity and teamwork is in everything KAVU does.

Have you ever had any close calls/ injuries/ near death experiences in your sport/ craft? What did you learn/ take away from this moment?

Yes, the highest highs and the lowest lows. I lost my husband Mario on a wingsuit BASE jump we were doing together in the Italian Dolomites in 2013. I came close to losing my husband Ian in a paragliding accident in Moab in 2018, and went through a long journey of recovery with him that is still going on today. I’ve learned that you don’t get to choose many things that happen in life, but you do get to choose how you experience it.

What do you feel is your most important resource in life and why is it the most important resource to you? Examples; money, time, physical or mental health, family, friends

Health, happiness and time are all things I’m incredibly thankful for in life. I used to see freedom as my number one priority, but how I would say that freedom and love are in balance with each other as my number one priorities. I used to put climbing before almost everything else in life, and now it’s still up there, but it’s up there along with my husband, my animals and my family.

What is a piece of wisdom you would give to a graduating high school class?

When you’re young, you can live super minimalist and it’s fun, so this is the time to follow your passion. Always keep the overhead low, and always live below your means. It’s not hard, if you always stay there, and knowing how to thrive with little will carry you all through life. You do have to figure out a way to take care of yourself in the long run. Becoming extremely good at something, no matter what it is, almost always puts you in a position to do that, even if you don’t yet see how that will be. One of the best things I did when I was in my twenties was put myself in position to say yes to any opportunity that came my way to travel the world and climb. A lot of people today struggle with anxiety and focus, and when you’re living in service to something you are truly passionate about, it’s effortless to focus completely, and it’s easy to sacrifice any sort of comfort or convenience for it. The difference between want and need becomes very clear and simple. And nothing feels better and more fulfilling than that kind of focus.

What Book are you reading right now?

The Vaster Wilds by Lauren Groth.

What is your favorite food to cook/ make?

I make sourdough bread every day. I really like making banana bread too, when there are old bananas that need to get used.

Have you learned/ started anything new recently?

I’ve been wingsuiting since 2007, and at that time we were all mainly focused on surviving, especially in the BASE environment flying off cliffs. Skydiving was simply a tool to learn how to fly a wingsuit well enough to survive BASE jumping. When Mario died in 2013, wingsuiting carried a lot of heaviness for me, even when I started flying again. Around that time, people were starting to do acrobatic flying in skydiving, flipping on their backs, flying upside down, and doing tricks. I’d always been able to do simple barrel rolls and front flips in a wingsuit before then. But now I discovered I simply wasn’t able to do any form of flying that felt unstable. Any time I tried to flip on my back, I was somehow instantly back in a rock solid, stable flying position again—it was like I actually blacked out and didn’t even know how I got there. My brain wouldn’t allow my body to get into any position that felt unsafe. I tried harder and harder, and it got more and more impossible. It was kind of a good problem for the BASE environment, because no matter what happened, I could never be unstable in my wingsuit for more than a fraction of a second. But skydiving started to get incredibly frustrating instead of fun, especially as all around me everyone was now acroflying their wingsuits. It was starting to hurt my ego too, and destroy my self confidence. And that started to carry over to how I felt when I was doing things that had nothing to do with skydiving or wingsuiting. Eventually I decided to do whatever it took to learn to fly on my back. In 2018, I traveled to the new indoor wingsuit tunnel in Sweden with the single goal of getting on my back, and I did get upside down on my last day there ….and then when we got back home Ian had a paragliding accident and crushed his feet, and life changed completely for both of us. Skydiving, and everything else, got placed on the backburner as we worked through his recovery. Ian got back to flying in 2022, and we both fully returned to skydiving and wingsuit BASE. At this point it had somehow become years of not breaking through to acroflying for me, with seemed to me like a pretty good amount of effort and a lot of mental energy. I was starting to think that for me, it might be impossible. The mindf*@k had become enormous.

A year and a half ago, Ian finally convinced me that I had to go back to square one in skydiving without a wingsuit, (something he’d been suggesting for years already) and he supported and coached me through it. This was incredibly intimidating, because I could count the number of non-wingsuit skydives I’d made in the last 15 years on one hand, and I didn’t have even the most basic regular skydiving skills. We started by making beginner-style belly jumps together, and he physically flipped me upside down in the air the first couple of times, to get on my back. Then we went to the wind tunnel in Arizona where I learned basic backflying skills without a wingsuit, while being coached by a tunnel instructor. That was also pretty painful and intimidating, coming into the tunnel basically at rock bottom, despite having done thousands of skydives and BASE jumps in a wingsuit. Between the tunnel sessions, Ian and I did jumps at Skydive Arizona, still without wingsuits, where I started to practice backflying and doing transitions from back to front in the sky, which was a huge breakthrough for me.

After the Arizona trip, I bought a very small beginner wingsuit (again, weird and intimidating for me, because as a BASE jumper, I only flew big mountain wingsuits) and made solo wingsuit skydives in Moab for a full summer season in the small suit, gradually starting to leave the plane on my back, and finally doing barrel rolls, transitions and backflying on every jump. That was the biggest breakthrough yet! And, things were finally, finally starting to get fun! I went back to Arizona last February on my own, did some more coached time backflying in the tunnel, also finally fun!, and at long last graduated to my big wingsuit for acro. What a journey…. The summer skydiving season here in Moab has already started off to be as much fun as I always knew it would be 

My journey to acro flying was almost ridiculously painful, long and arduous, especially lugging all that baggage behind me for much of it. There were a lot of years where I was 100% sure I would never get there. But I’m here now, and it’s a great place to be. The experience was tough, but worth it, in so many ways.