PAMELA SHANTI PACK

Professional climber preferring offwidth climbs

Pamela is a professional climber, Pilates instructor and hydrographic surveyor with a degree from Yale University and a Professional Certification in GIS and Remote Sensing. She has been seeking out North America’s most challenging inverted and vertical offwidth climbs since 2008, because they continually challenge her physical and psychological limits. In addition, she has done over 50 first female ascents of offwidths throughout the American West including the first female ascent of Lucille 5.13a (onsight) in Vedauwoo, WY.

Birthday: June 21
Home town: Missoula, Montana
Current home: Moab, Utah
Favorite MAXIM rope: MAXIM Platinum

“The difficult is what takes a little time; the impossible is what takes a little longer”

Norwegian polar explorer Fridjof Nansen

“Maxim ropes are simply the best ropes I have ever used for every type of climbing from offwidth to sport. They handle better than any other brand and they are indestructible. I would never use any other rope after using Maxim.”

Pamela Shanti Pack

Get to know Pamela ...

Tell us how and when you got into climbing?
My parents sent me on a Colorado Outward Bound Course and the first day I went climbing I knew I was hooked for life.

What are you doing when you are not climbing?
I also teach Pilates and practice Pilates regularly. I am obsessed with all sorts of training from trail-running to strength training. I was an Art and Architecture major as an undergrad and still love to paint and draw. I did my Professional Certification in Geoscience and spent many years doing sea floor mapping in the Bering Sea and offshore in Alaska. I’m also obsessed with my modified and lifted Tacoma and am working on improving my off-road skills.

What is the soundtrack of your life (favorite song)?
I don’t have any one soundtrack or favorite song, but Metallica has been my mainstay offwidth soundtrack.

Do you have any peculiar eating habits?
I drink a lot of coffee and eat absolutely everything.

What stokes you the most?
Clipping the anchors on a long project almost always moves me to tears. I love teaching climbing clinics and inspiring young climbers to seek out what they were born to do -- whether that’s climbing or some other activity.

If you could choose a super power, what would it be?
I consider climbing offwidths a good enough superpower.

What would you be doing if you weren’t a pro climber?
I would focus on writing, painting, teaching Pilates and modifying my Tacoma.

Climbing picture of MAXIM athlete Pamela Shanti Pack

Career Highlights

The Kill Artist

Country/City: Long Canyon, UT
Grade: 5.13a R
Length: 450 ft, 4-5 pitches

Super Offwidth of the Desert (FA/FFA)

Country/City: Merrimac Buttress, UT
Grade: unrated but one of the most difficult offwidth I have done to date
Length: 300 ft, 3 pitches

The route was abandoned in the late 80s and “disappeared.” I searched for it for 6 years only to discover it was hidden in plain sight. I lay down on the ground and started to cry when I realized this stunning line had been mislabeled in a guidebook and was actually the missing “Super Offwidth.” It was like finding the Holy Grail of offwidth. The second pitch had been deemed “impossible” so sending that pitch was meaningful in many ways – as a significant red-point and as a significant moment in climbing history and as a tribute to the late desert pioneer Earl Wiggins.

Gabriel

Country/City: Zion, UT
Grade: 5.13c
Lenght: 65ft

It was one of my first FAs and changed the paradigm. It was the first invert style squeeze chimney, so it took a great deal of imagination and creative thinking to unlock the puzzle. It’s a 65’ offwidth roof.

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