Although Samantha ‘Sam’ MacIlwaine only started climbing in 2019, she’s already found her niche in one of climbing’s most unique styles: invert offwidths. Sam has sent multiple 5.13 and 5.12 invert offwidths across Utah, Wyoming, and California, including ‘The Angry Pirate’ (5.13a/7c+) in Canyonlands, the rarely-repeated ‘Space Invaders’ (5.12a/7a+) in Yosemite, and the classic ‘Supreme Manliness’ (5.13-/7c+) in Moab. 

In March 2019, as a third-year college student, Sam read For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway and Confessions by Leo Tolstoy. The resulting existential crisis made her realise that she did not want to spend her twenties stuck indoors. No—she needed a life of outdoor adventure. She wanted to practice courage and full commitment, just like she’d seen in Conrad Anker, Jimmy Chin, and Renan Ozturk do in the documentary Meru (2015).

That summer, Sam returned to New York City and started climbing at Brooklyn Boulders. After graduating from Columbia University in 2020, she moved to Denver to find more climbing partners. A last-minute cancellation in Mary Eden’s offwidth camp led Sam to discover crack climbing and find an unexpected trad mentor in Mary.

In 2021, she was featured alongside Mary and other female offwidth climbers in the documentary Girls Gone Wide. One year later, Sam moved into her Toyota 4Runner and began living in campgrounds and on friends’ couches so that she could climb as much as possible.

Today, Sam splits her time between Yosemite, Indian Creek, Wyoming, and various European climbing destinations. She works as a freelance writer and has published work in Climbing Magazine, Gripped Magazine, Gyroscope Review, and The Moab Sun News. She is also a 2024 Yosemite Climbing Steward, where she helps organize park events, educate climbers on Leave No Trace practices, and explain big wall climbing to thousands of visitors each month.

Sam gravitates toward dramatic, all-consuming projects and enjoys pushing her limits in multiple styles. She has sent up to 5.13 sport, bouldered up to V7/7A+, aid climbed up to C3, climbed big walls in Yosemite, navigated alpine routes in the French and Swiss Alps, hiked Mexican volcanoes up to 18,500 feet, ice climbed in Colorado, and deep-water soloed in Mallorca. But her favorite places to climb are Vedauwoo and southeast Utah, where she enjoys choreographing upside-down, feet-first, and hands-free moves in offwidth roofs.