BURSTJamie Lowther, 23, is a climber from Aviemore, a town in the Scottish Highlands beneath the Cairngorm Mountains and, in Jamie’s case, climbing was there from the beginning.
Both his parents climbed and John, his father, became an important influence. Jamie was being taken outside from the age of four, top-roping local trad crags before progressing to seconding routes by the time he was five. The family climbed throughout the Lake District, where his father grew up. Jamie was surrounded by wild places before he really understood his fortune. He shared with Gripped,
“Being so young I was too used to being in such beautiful places,” he says. “I didn’t have an appreciation for how lucky I was.”
Learning to Climb
Jamie’s dad kept him tied in and, along the way, Jamie developed the basic skills and an appreciation of the mountains. An important part of learning trad, however, was learning the lessons that came with it. His father understood that experience could not be rushed. Jamie would eventually want to climb hard, but first he needed to learn how to read rock, place protection, manage exposure and make good decisions when the consequences mattered.
There was a period when climbing slipped into the background. Other sports took his attention and he pursued them competitively, but in 2016, aged fourteen, he entered his first climbing competition. Something clicked. The competitions gave him a new connection to climbing and, importantly, a community at a time when school was proving difficult. Sound familiar? Read on.
Jamie was never a standout youth competitor. He described himself as, “A pretty rubbish youth competitor,” but the result sheets tell only a part of the story. He loved the atmosphere, the people and the struggle. He learned how to work for small gains and how to deal with the mental pressure of trying hard when things were not going his way.
Those years in the gym became an unlikely apprenticeship for what would come later. Competition taught him how to cope with stress, frustration and failure. Skills that would become increasingly useful when the consequences of failure changed from a disappointing result to a long runout above questionable protection.
The conventional path from competition climbing might have taken him towards sport climbing outdoors and harder grades. Jamie followed that road for a while. Then Covid arrived and shut down the final two years of his youth competition career. When restrictions eased in Scotland, he wanted something different from his home hangboard. He also wanted to climb more with his father.
By then, Jamie had begun to appreciate the climber his father was. “I realised he was actually pretty cool,” Jamie says. As a dad myself, that brings a smile to my face.
They climbed a bit of everything, but trad began to exert a stronger pull. Creag Dubh, a schist crag near Aviemore, became one of the places where Jamie developed his craft. He describes it as his best local trad crag, with a roadside mountain crag feel and a collection of old, historic and often bold test pieces. It has already provided some memorable lessons. On The Fuhrer, E4 5c (5.11a/b)Jamie went off route and missed the only gear placements protecting the upper section. He eventually found himself thirty metres up in leg-shaking technical territory with the possibility of a ground fall if anything went wrong. The lesson was simple; get better, build strength, and read the rock as well as the guidebook.
Jamie had been watching climbing films and the routes that held his attention were not necessarily the cleanest sport climbs or hardest boulder problems. They were the ones of true grit where the climber had to leave the protection behind and keep going.
He remembers watching videos of James Pearson’s, Redemption and Dave Macleod on Rhapsody. Emily Harrington’s ascent of Golden Gate on El Capitan also stayed with him. The attraction was not simply difficulty. He was as drawn to climbers persevering when things get funky and look unlikely.
Initially Jamie wanted to skip the apprenticeship altogether and jump straight into hard headpointing. His father persuaded him otherwise. The older generation had learned trad climbing by building experience gradually, Jamie was told, and he should do the same. The objective was still to climb hard, but to arrive at those routes with the skills required to do so safely.
His first real breakthrough came with Dalriada, E7 6b (5.13a/b), a celebrated Scottish route on The Cobbler above Loch Long. Jamie climbed it during his first proper period of trad climbing and regarded it as a final examination of what he had been learning. His competition background had given him movement skills and fitness. Trad demanded that he combine those with judgement, protection and composure. Dalriada meant something more to Jamie.
“It let me believe that one day I could go on to doing routes I wouldn’t have previously thought possible for myself.”
Beyond the Apprenticeship
Since then, Jamie’s progression has gathered pace. In spring 2025, Jamie made a three-week trip to Bohuslän in Sweden. The destination had already begun to play a huge part in his development and would become increasingly important over the following years. The climbing is world class, but spending time with a close group of Swedish friends lit Jamie’s fire. He improved exponentially.
That spring he sent significant climbs including Minaret, 5.13a R/X, E8 6c, and Electric Avenue, 5.13b R, E8 6c. Minaret begins from a huge ledge before the climber steps onto an exposed arete where falling is not an attractive proposition. Four days later Jamie climbed Electric Avenue, a route he had first encountered years earlier through a film of Hazel Findlay climbing it. He had already been climbing for seventeen consecutive days when he arrived at that route, but somehow found a flow he had never experienced before. At the top, when that flow disappeared, he simply tried harder than he ever had. On subsequent visits he has nailed Walk the Line, 5.13b, and Crackoholic, 5.13b.
In September 2024, before the Sweden trip, a mission with Robbie Philips on The Great Arch, E8 6c, on Pabbay in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland, had shown Jamie the importance of partnership as much as personal performance. Jamie had tried the route himself and found it beyond him at the time, but remained keen to support Robbie. The day became an exercise in managing ropes, exposure, uncertainty and the changing fortunes of a serious sea cliff route.
He found similar lessons on El Capitan in December 2024, where he spent six days supporting Hannes Puman on his free ascent of The Nose via the Schnoz variation. With the wall almost empty because of threats of storms, Jamie experienced the scale and rhythm of big-wall climbing without the crowds normally associated with the route.
That trip to Yosemite left a deep impression on Jamie. He had arrived tired after a season of onsight trad climbing in Scotland and a succession of trips, but the Valley still inspired him. There were epics, wrong approaches, difficult descents, offwidths and chimneys that fought back. The baby’s-bottom granite provided its own education.
More importantly, Yosemite showed him what climbing could become when rock, history, adventure and technical difficulty were combined. He told me, “Everything there is just calling to be climbed!”
This year, in June, Jamie sent Divided Years, E9 6c, in Ireland with his friend Robbie Philips. It was a dream route and a grade Jamie had previously associated with the very best trad climbers. It also carried a family connection; his father knew the first ascentionist, John Dunne, one of the Apostles of UK climbing. His dad had tried climbing there years back, but Jamie beat the rain and can now enjoy winding his father up with the story and success. Jamie has the Weather Gods to thank for that one.
For Jamie, however, the list of successful ascents is not the best measure of his development. The failures matter just as much. So do the days spent supporting friends on routes he cannot climb himself. That attitude explains why he has not become obsessed with a single discipline. He climbs indoors, boulders, sport climbs, climbs trad, goes into the mountains and has developed an interest in big walls. Scotland itself encourages such versatility.
“If you only sport climb you’ll never get to climb in the mountains here,” he said.
Trad remains the discipline closest to his heart, particularly onsight trad. Jamie sees it as the most complete test because nothing can be separated from anything else. The sequence has to be solved while climbing, gear assessed and placed, the rope managed and fear controlled while everything is happening at once. Hard climbing is something. Hard climbing while making every decision yourself is a whole other thing. It’s the real thing for Jamie.
What Matters Now
Jamie’s climbing has continued to evolve through 2026, and Sweden has remained part of that progression. A later trip to Bohuslän this year followed a heavy winter of hard bouldering and sport climbing that had left him tired. He had hoped Sweden might give his fingers a break. Instead, three weeks of exceptionally crimpy climbing and demanding routes gave them anything but rest. By the time he returned home, the warning was clear. He rested, adjusted his climbing (more jamming less face climbing) and protected the injured fingers during his subsequent trip to Ireland. It was another lesson in managing ambition rather than simply feeding it.
The people around Jamie are important to that ambition. Robbie Philips remains a major influence, not simply for what he climbs but for how he behaves when things become complicated. Jamie said, “I’m thankful for Robbie’s mentoring and assistance in teaching me some of his skills and passing on his experience.”
Robbie see’s in him great promise. He shared with Gripped,
“Jamie Lowther is a breath of fresh air. He embodies the spirit of climbing, understanding the importance of style, a climber’s connection with nature, and of course having fun. He’s a selfless climbing partner, an impressive all-rounder and a true climbing lifer. The future for Jamie is limited only by his imagination, and my only selfish hope is that I get to follow along on some of his dreams.”
From across the Atlantic, Amity has also caught his attention. He says of Robbie and Amity, “Together I acknowledge their ability to just try super hard and this is the quality I admire most.”
What he is taking in is that grades matter less than the commitment behind the effort. His father sees something similar in him. John shared with Gripped,
“It’s fantastic watching and sharing some of Jamie’s vertical footprints,” he says. “Climbing or spending time in the mountains with your children is a powerful way to strengthen bonds, blending the gift of nature with perhaps some triumphs as a parent or mentor.”
It is a telling observation from the man who first put a rope around Jamie when he was three or four, and later encouraged him not to rush the apprenticeship. The relationship has changed, but the shared climbing experience remains.
Jamie’s climbing now stretches well beyond the Cairngorms. Yosemite remains high on the list, with the possibility of free climbing one of El Capitan’s routes. Squamish is also calling. He had hoped to visit this September but things haven’t worked out. The Shadow, 5.13a, remains on his mental tick-list. He wants to climb its blank corner, attracted as much by the line as the grade.
Beyond his home Jamie dreams of North America, Kyrgyzstan, the Bugaboos and Patagonia, along with Verdon, Switzerland, and the Dolomites. A recent week in the Alps only reinforced his desire for bigger things. The list is long because Jamie does not seem interested in narrowing his climbing world.
That breadth is fitting for someone whose introduction to climbing came from a father who understood the value of learning the old way. Jamie has inherited an appreciation for trad climbing’s history without becoming trapped by it. He is taking the apprenticeship seriously, while carrying the skills of competition climbing, the physicality of bouldering and sport climbing, and the curiosity of a young climber who wants to see what lies beyond the next anchor.
What matters most to him now is not grade.
Bouldering and sport climbing can offer quick satisfaction, but an onsight of an old sandbagged Scottish mountain route stays with him for longer. My take is that he is seeking a particular kind of moment, the ones where everything is decided in real time, where judgement, movement and consequence converge with courage. Grades may mark the effort, but it is those moments, not the numbers, that he carries away.
An old soul on young shoulders pretty well sums Jamie up. The grades will come and go for sure. For Jamie, the commitment to trad and to those who choose the same, now have a sound base that will withstand any crack.
The post From El Cap to E9: Jamie Lowther and the Next Generation of Trad appeared first on Gripped Magazine.