Andy Raether

Andy Raether is an American rock climber. A very active route setter, climbing since 1998, Andy has completed nearly a thousand first ascents of boulders and routes up to V13 and 5.15 and 5.13 multi-terrain in Zion. In 2017 Andy Raether does his second FA 9a, Manphibian at Mt Charleston which is an extension of the unrehearsed Spyfiction 8c+ from 2012. This route took around 7 months working on that alone and now he has added four months for the 9a extension . In total, Andy, without sponsors, set up some 300 routes and 600 blocks. Interestingly, the most difficult grades he has repeated are 8c and the last was five years ago. "Honestly, I climb a lot harder on my own routes. For me, I really like all the hard work of bolting, cleaning and sequencing a new line. I'm usually less intrigued by other people's work. Also , I don't have any grants for rock climbing trips. Recently I started bolting on some completely new rocks that previously had no route."