Scotland’s ‘spiderwoman’, Caitlin Connor hangs by her fingertips, the handle of a brutally sharp ice axe between her teeth, legs flailing as she searches for a foothold and with a sheer drop below.

In the blink of eye and seemingly in defiance of gravity, the 20-year-old scales rugged rockfaces and brutal climbing walls, ponytail flapping below her safety helmet and a steely focus trained on getting to the top as fast as she can.

Her speed climb up sheer walls may seem fraught with peril, yet the threat of falling to the ground or crashing onto hard rock is surprisingly low on her list of concerns.

“The real goal of speed climbing is to not get injured or stab yourself,” she points out. “The biggest risk is hitting yourself in the face with an ice axe.

“You don’t want your face anywhere near an ice axe.”

Life for the Cambuslang climber, currently Great Britain’s ice champion – a feat managed despite Scotland no longer having an indoor ice climbing wall – is definitely on the ‘up’.

Regarded as a dynamic force in the world of climbing, a member of the GB Ice Climbing Team and currently ranked top among Britain’s women, she has just been named by Fort William Mountain Festival as the 10th recipient of The Scottish Youth Award for Excellence in Mountain Culture.

The Herald: Ice climber Caitlin Connor in actionIce climber Caitlin Connor in action (Image: Robert Hendriksen/@thatcrazydutchguy)

The prestigious award recognises individuals’ accomplishments in the outdoors and spans sport, film, culture, literature and art.

It places Caitlin alongside previous award winners, including freestyle Olympic skier Kirsty Muir and last year’s recipient, outdoors advocate and campaigner, Stephanie McKenna.

And it follows the Festival’s recent announcement that former mountain bike champion Lee Craigie, of women’s cycling collective The Adventure Syndicate, has been given the Festival’s top award, The Scottish Award for Excellence in Mountain Culture.

As well as recognising her personal achievements in sport, Caitlin’s award also highlights her  remarkable contribution to helping grow interest and participation in her form of climbing.

She founded The Scottish Dry-Tooling Club in 2021 alongside Willis Morris. As the Glasgow Climbing Centre based group’s Vice Chair and its Head Coach, she has been key to creating growing interest and participation in the sport, which in turn is said to have been instrumental in the upswing in recent competition results for British climbers.

Last month, the British Ice Climbing Team recently achieved an all-time best start to their season, and currently sits in second place on the UIAA Continental Cup leaderboard.

The achievement said to be linked to the Glasgow club, with its thriving classes, membership base of hundreds of climbers and a youth coaching programme credited with helping create an elite and growing team of athletes.

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Among its events is the 'CIC MEET', when experienced winter climbing hosts are teamed with less experienced climbers for five days on the North Face of Ben Nevis.

Caitlin’s confirmation as the 2024 award recipient came as she crisscrossed the globe: from South Korea last weekend and a semi-final spot in that round of the UIAA Ice Climbing World Cup 2024, to France for the UIAA Ice Climbing Continental Open and a coaching role in World Youth Championship.

She is due to travel to Saas-Fee in Switzerland for another World Cup meet, and in coming weeks there are competitions in Finland and Canada, sandwiched between training sessions and rare trips home to Glasgow.

Her achievements are all the more remarkable given the closure in 2022 of Braehead’s Snow Factor, and the ice climbing wall where she trained.

“I have ended up making four separate trips to the Czech Republic for training, because they have a much better structure than we have in the UK,” she says.

“That training has been a massive confidence boost to me for this competition run and it was much easier to handle the stress of competition.

“It’s difficult to do that in the UK, which is something we have to look at if we want to grow the sport.”

Caitlin was aged ten and a black belt in karate when she decided to swap gymnastics to follow the lead of her father, Michael, a keen climber.

She had been climbing for just a few months when she completed a seven-hour 4,438ft endurance climb at Glasgow Climbing Centre to raise more than £1,100 for Scottish charity, Urban Uprising, which organises climbing excursions and educational programmes for young people.

She went on to become Sottish speed climbing champion in her age group and to scale challenging routes like 'Persistence of Vision', a 7a+ route on Dumbarton Rock aged just 13 and 'Hamish Teddy's Excellent Adventure' a crag near Dunkeld that’s ranked 7b+, at 14.

Her passion for Scottish Winter and Alpine Climbing led her to conquer classic routes like 'Aladdin's Mirror Direct' at Coire an t-Sneachda in the Cairngorms, 'Curved Ridge' on Buachaille Etive Mor,  'Doctors Dilemma' on Beinn Udlaidh and 'Steall Falls' in Glen Nevis.

The Herald: Cailtin: 'I’ve been lucky, I’ve not had any injuries that have put me out for any length of time'Cailtin: 'I’ve been lucky, I’ve not had any injuries that have put me out for any length of time' (Image: Robert Hendriksen/@thatcrazydutchguy)

By late summer August 2018 and still just 15 she was ranked fifth in the world for her age group and preparing to scale three of Europe’s tallest mountains, Mont Blanc, Grandes Jorasses and the Matterhorn for veterans' charity Poppy Scotland – her parents Mick and Susanne are both ex-military.

Then, at 17, she became the youngest UK female climber to conquer M10 and M10+ grades routes.  M10 routes require climbers to conquer at least 30 metres of overhanging routes, or 10 metres of pure vertical climbing, with little or no rest and often involve a mix of dry rock and ice to climb a route.

Although her sport comes with risks, she has few concerns. “I’ve been lucky, I’ve not had any injuries that have put me out for any length of time, and most have been when I’ve been bouldering, when I’ve gone over on my ankle or got stuck in a hole," she says.

“When speed climbing though, there are people who have lost their finger or stabbed themselves in the face or in the thigh with their ice axe because they are moving so fast.”

Now in her fifth year of competition ice climbing, her sights are on the ice climbing becoming part of the Winter Olympics – booming World Cup attendances suggests it is a distinct possibility.

Lydia Rohmer, Principal and Chief Executive, UHI North, West and Hebrides, said: “Caitlin clearly displays not only the resilience and determination needed to compete in this challenging mountain sport, but also the passion and drive for excellence that success at the highest level requires.”

The Fort William Mountain Festival 2024 runs from Thursday 15 to Sunday 18 February 2024.