After a seven-month tour, mostly in Europe, Rands and I (I'm her boyfriend) returned to our nominal "home" in Bishop for the Roc Trip, While away, Rands succeeded in placing her name atop the world ranking for bouldering, winning a World Cup event at lecco, Italy, and taking first at Europe's biggest bouldering comp, the Open Des Ecrins at Argentiere, France. She also climbed a couple of V10s and a beautiful V11 (her second).

How does Rands succeed on problems that few women can manage? The easiest answer is to note that she is naturally quite powerful: pinches, underclings and other burly moves come easier to her than to many other women. Nevertheless, on the world stage Rands often finds herself climbing with top boulderers who are stronger (and taller) than she is. This may be frustrating at times, but no doubt it has also given her some insight into pushing her limits.

Despite accumulating horrendous gobies during the Roc Trip benefit, Rands started working the opening moves to Evilution (V10 to the lip) just a few days later. "I like high problems because they're beautiful. I like the idea of continuous movement and having to push past the hesitation - having to force my mind to maintain focus. The bottom of Evilution is a gorgeous face, and it's finger-friendly."

Lisa's tips: 

Because women often don't have the same power or reach as men, they can't always climb problems using the same sequences. "For me," says Rands, who is 5-foot-4, "learning to figure out my own beta has helped a lot. When I first started bouldering hard, I didn't understand the mechanics of it at all, I [eventually] found that following other people's sequences had been holding me back."

Work your weaknesses. " A lot of people don't like to train what they're not good at," she says. "Over the years I've addressed a lot of weaknesses. I used to think it was slopers, then it was pockets, then steep problems. I get out there and suck it up, even though it means dropping to a lower level, because I want to learn the technique and build the muscles I need to get up the problems I'm most interested in. I still have a lot of weaknesses, and I'm always working on them."