For many years Dalvinder Sodhi has been a common sight on the sport crags of Britain and Europe. Dalvinder stands out - not only is she one of the very few Asian females climbing in Britain, but she also does it to a very high level. With an ascent of Gordale’s mighty Supercool (F8a+), on-sights of F7c, as well as ticking Stanage’s classic hard bouldering testpiece, Brad Pit (V10), she has spent many years at the top of female standards.

Born in Coventry to Indian parentage, Dalvinder left home to study in Huddersfield, where an unexpected interest in the outdoors led to participation in canoeing and several visits to the Alps, before she settled in to climbing.

She has worked as a teacher since qualifying in 1992, and is currently working part-time in a deaf school. Three weeks ago she gave birth to her first child, Yasmin and is currently set to go on a one-month bouldering trip to Switzerland with her partner Steve Dunning.

I was born in Coventry, and had a typical Asian, urban existence.
Our culture doesn’t go out to the countryside much, it’s more orientated around visiting family, weddings and working. So when I was in sixth form and our teacher took us walking in the countryside, I just loved it.

After my very first climb I stood at the top and laughed.
Our teacher had taken us off again, to Cornwall, and I seconded a route with the sea crashing way below. I just loved the feeling of fear, even though it didn’t really scare me that much.

Eric Jones was my hero.
He was successful, exciting, and good-looking. The first time I saw him at Tremadog, I rushed up to him and asked for his autograph, not embarrassed in the slightest. But lately my new heroes are James and Jenny Ibbotson. They’re just ordinary people who live round here, and no matter what the weather is like, they’ll just get out climbing or walking together. It’s really inspiring.

University climbing clubs are all about driving as far as you can to some dodgy crag and doing one route in the pouring rain.

In my first year of climbing I really wanted to top tope Consenting Adults.
It was an E5 at Malham, and when I used to go in to shops and flick through climbing magazines, there’d be pictures of Ron Fawcett on E5’s, so I thought E5’s were for superheroes. By the end of the summer, I’d led it - I was so chuffed.

I’m a very thorough person, which has helped me to train and climb to quite a high level.
If I’m tired, then I won’t train. But the next night I’ll be really itching to, which I think produces good results. Just the same as in school. If I went to a lesson, then I’d make sure I took it all in. I never like to do things in a sloppy way.

I enjoyed being pregnant, it’s different, I knew it was an experience I’d always remember.
But it really is nine months of paranoia. Wondering things like is it OK to eat curries, but being afraid to ask in case I looked stupid.

I climbed all the way through pregnancy.
Mostly top roping. I wanted to enjoy climbing, but also to be safe. But then it got to the time, and it was getting on for twelve days over, so I started thinking, maybe I’ll have to climb harder and push the thing out. I was booked in for a caesarean on the Monday, and on the Sunday I slaved all the way up to Rylstone.

I’m not religious, but I am superstitious.
In Sikhism, books are sacred. You can’t put them on the floor or destroy them. I found a box of books in school one day, heading for the skip. I started worrying that because I’m associated with the school that it would be bad luck for me. So we got them packaged up and sent them off to Bangladesh.

Some Muslim lads came up to me when I was climbing at Gordale. I thought, here we go, they’re going to say something sexist and be all macho. But they weren’t, they were dead positive and supportive. I think that they were just chuffed to see an Asian lass out doing something that looked impressive and scary.

Kids these days are meant to be so bad.
But I’ve been a teacher for fifteen years now, and I don’t think they are at all. But the school system has changed all the same. I work in a deaf school, and we still have to teach the kids the full curriculum. I think they need to learn life skills.

I used to think that climbing was the be all and end all.
But now I think that the most important thing in life is good health. That you and the people you love are safe and well. There’s no point in having perfect conditions if you’re sat in a hospital bed.

I worry that my parents will think that I’m a bad daughter.
Things like having a child so late in my life, living up here in Yorkshire in the middle of nowhere, never coming to visit them at weekends the way the rest of my family does. They think that it’s all because of climbing. Although, it is

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