Competition climbing Aged 19, and in her first year in college, Payne won a clean sweep of all three of the
American Bouldering Series 5, national championship events, (and thus became the overall ABS 5 champion), and two Professional Climbers Association (PCA) competitions, (and also the overall PCA championship), for the 2003-2004 boulder season. Payne finished second overall (2012), and third overall (2006, 2007, and 2015) in the annual
US Bouldering Open National Championships (what the ABS became post-2004). and the 2010 Triple Crown Series at
Horse Pens 40 in
Steele, Alabama),
Bouldering From 2004 to 2009, Payne completed the first female ascent of numerous bouldering problems graded to , and earning an honourable mention in
Climbing magazine's 2007 for her climbs, and winning her the 2007 Everest Award for Female Boulderer of the Year, at the 2007 Teva Mountain Games (
Chris Sharma won the male award). In early 2008, Payne climbed
Chbalank in Hueco Tanks at V11/V12, and in September 2008, she climbed
Dave Graham's European Human Being in the
Rocky Mountain National Park (RMNP) at "hard" and her first V12. In June 2010, she climbed
Clear Blue Skies, and made the first female ascent of
No More Green Grasses, at
Mount Blue Sky, both at grade . On August 17, 2010, Payne became the
first-ever female in history to complete a confirmed boulder, with her ascent of
The Automator in the RMNP (
Anna Stöhr would complete the second-ever female ascent of an 8B (V13) just one month later). She won a second honourable mention in
Climbing magazine's 2010 Golden Piton Awards. In 2012, Payne, rock climber
Ethan Pringle, and mountainer Mike Libecki went to the
Kangertittivatsiaq fjord in south east Greeland on a bouldering and climbing expedition. In July 2014, Payne sent her second boulder,
Freaks of the Industry, in Lower Chaos Canyon in the RMNP, a project she had spent several seasons working on, and which she ranked as one of the achievements she was most proud of in her career.
Rock climbing In 2015, Payne branched into
big wall climbing, ascending the 3,264-foot spire of Poumaka in
French Polynesia, with Libecki, which was captured in the film,
Poumaka (2016). ==Personal life==