Katie's incendiary climbing career first gained public attention when she won the Junior World Championships in 1995. She went on to win the coveted Arco Rockmaster twice. She also placed second at the prominent Serre Chevalier, and won a World Cup event in Besancon in 1999. She also won the much-hyped X-Games, not once, but three times.

On rock, Katie made headlines in 1996 when she on-sighted Convicted (5.13a) in the cavernous, arm blasting Mother Lode of the Red River Gorge. She was then 14. Preferring on-sights to projecting, Katie's top redpoints shadowed her maximum flash abilities.

In October 1999 she flashed a route in Siurana, Spain called Hydrophobia. The route, completed with draws in place and a scrap of beta, was rated 5.14a. That feat placed Katie among four others, all men, who, at the time, had flashed a similar grade. Though Hydrophobia was later downgraded to 5.13d, one has to question the objectivity of the grade, especially given Katie's slight stature and limited reach. What's unarguable is that her on-sight was no fluke, for Hydrophobia came on the heels of another ground-breaking effort-an on-sight of Omaha Beach (5.13d) in the Red River Gorge.

But that being said, it took quitting climbing to develop the other component that makes Katie so eminently qualified to write this book. In 1999, Katie escaped the gravitas of climbing to attend school. There, far from the expectations heaped on a climbing prodigy, she discovered a penchant for literature-and writing. Her first published pieces have been met with acclaim and controversy-enough so to earn her a position of Contributing Editor to the prestigious Rock & Ice magazine.

Two years after dropping out, Katie reemerged, this time as a force in trad climbing. In 2005, she freed the West Face of the Leaning Tower, a Grade V, big wall rated 5.13b, A0, in Yosemite. Her partner was no less than climbing legend Lynn Hill. Hill says, "Katie is a woman now, not the girl I remember. And she's chosen to learn the trad stuff."