Photos: Sam MacIlwaine, Sav Cummins, Becca Aist





On Episode 314 of the Enormocast, I sit down with climber Sam MacIlwaine. Sam is a sport climber, trad climber, bigwall climber, but perhaps is most well-known for her invert offwidth jones. Somewhere in her kinda “normal” ascension as a climber, Sam ended up in Mary “Tradprincess” Eden’s Offwidth clinic and the two women became fast friends. Soon Sam was right next to Mary sending some of the hardest Offwidths out there including Mechanical Bull, Supreme Manliness, and Belly Full of Bad Berries. As climbing took over her life, here tech job was simply too time consuming so Sam took her love of writing and parlayed that into a freelance career and scored a position as associate editor of Climbing Magazine. As we speak, one more OW project is in the offing as Sam journeys to the underworld of Monument Basin to throw herself at Century Crack. Then maybe, just maybe, she’ll cool it on the OWs for a bit and start sport climbing like a normal person.