Ukrainian climber Jenya Kazbekova has climbed Dreamcatcher (9a) in Squamish. It is her first 9a and the hardest route she has done. Her daughter Taya was born in August 2025, so she got back to this level in about a year.

Her news came only days after Camilla Moroni sent the same route on 24 September. Chris Sharma bolted and climbed the line in 2005 on the Cacodemon Boulder below the Stawamus Chief. Paige Claassen and Michaela Kiersch made the first two female ascents in 2021. Now it has had the third and fourth within days. Kazbekova started working the route in June, so her sessions probably overlapped with Moroni’s. Both needed around ten.

The route is about ten bolts: a technical slab start, finger locks in thin cracks, hard moves on slopers, and a campus-style crux high up. “Dreamcatcher is the most iconic route I have ever climbed, from start to finish,” she said. “The variety of holds and moves in one line is unlike anything else out there. I never thought I would get the chance to try it, let alone climb it as my first 9a.”

She is 29 and lives with her family in the US, her husband’s home country. She is back in competition too. This season she was 11th at the Koper Lead World Cup and 10th at the European Lead Championships. She thanked her husband Jeremy for looking after Taya so she could focus on every attempt. “Climbing is an individual sport, but you don’t get far without a community.”

The route on climbing.place: Dreamcatcher.

Photo: Jeremy Huckins / Lacrux.

Source: Lacrux.