Lara Neumeier has made the first female ascent of Rhapsody at Dumbarton Rock, near Glasgow. On 7 October 2026, the German climber reached the top of the world's first E11, exactly 20 years after Dave MacLeod established it. She is the first woman to climb the British E11 grade.
A wet crack, a runout headwall, no gear
The 35-metre line starts on an easy slab. It then rises through a hand crack to a big ledge. There Neumeier took a rest and pulled on her crack gloves, then placed a small cluster of gear: two brass nuts and a micronut.
Above the gear came the crux headwall, about 25 moves on small crimps with a 10-metre runout. A wet patch low in the crack nearly pushed her off, but she held on. "It always felt like I was going to slip, and sometimes I did," she said of the footholds.
Neumeier topped out as rain moved in, the castle walls below and a Scottish flag in the wind. In spring she fell three or four times; on the autumn trip the count rose to roughly 20 or 30. To celebrate, she ate pizza, then went to a pub for whisky and darts.
From the Alpine Trilogy to Scotland's hardest line
The ascent makes Neumeier the fifth woman to climb a 5.14c trad route. She joins Beth Rodden, Barbara Zangerl, Hazel Findlay and Emma Twyford. MacLeod needed two years to set the route, and his hard falls caused several lower-leg injuries.
She was the second woman to finish the original Alpine Trilogy, and the first to do it within a year. In 2023 she made the first female ascent of El Corazón via the Muir Blast with Barbara Zangerl, and in 2024 she freed El Niño by the Pineapple Express variation.
Recalling the final move, she said grabbing the top hold and pulling over the lip "was a crazy feeling." British climber Buster Martin had sent the line days before, and Austrian Nemuel Feurle followed hours after her.
