Ellie Rubin

Born with one hand and raised in the South, Ellie’s first exposure to climbing was her eighth birthday party, but it wasn’t until after college and some false starts that she began climbing in earnest.

While in grad school for occupational therapy, she spent her spare time on the wall, working twice as hard to keep up with her friends and cutting her teeth outdoors on southeastern sandstone. In that time she learned about paraclimbing through a local route setter, but never thought about competing, and certainly not internationally. However in 2022, USAC Nationals were held in her hometown of Birmingham, AL, which she took as a sign to enter the competition. In that first year, she surprised herself by taking home silver at Nationals. Shortly after she moved to the Bay Area and later took home bronze at the SLC IFSC World Cup. She’s since followed that with consistently medaling on the national and international circuit as part of the USA National Team. But more importantly, paraclimbing has ushered her into a new world full of people who navigate the world of adaptive climbing with true tenacity and grit. Spending extended time with these friends through traveling and climbing together, Ellie found she’s not a competitive climber in spite of her disability, but because of it.When she’s not competing, Ellie can be found juggling her job as an occupational therapist at Stanford with training at the gym or traveling to visit new crags with friends.