Competition climbing In December 2001, competing in her first-ever event of the
IFSC Bouldering World Cup, Rands came 2nd in the
Birmingham, England stage. In June 2002, Rands became the first American female climber to win a stage of the IFSC Bouldering World Cup, when she placed first at
Lecco, Italy, beating Corine Theroux, and
Sandrine Levet. In July 2002, Rands won her second major international competition coming first in the "Open des Ecrins at L'Argentiere", France's longest-running and largest bouldering competition. During 2002, Rands was ranked first in the IFSC world rankings for female bouldering. and the 2002 Professional Climbers Association (PCA) open bouldering competition in
Salt Lake City, and came second in the 2003 PCA in Salt Lake City to
Alex Johnson. Rands won the world's longest-running and largest outdoor bouldering competition, the Phoenix Bouldering Competition (PBC), three years running in 2002 (19th edition), 2003 (20th edition), and 2004 (21st edition, which became the Phoenix BoulderBlast). In 2004, Rands won all three stages of the southeast's Triple Crown outdoor bouldering competition, and returned ten years later in 2014, to win all three stages of the Triple Crown series. In March 2001, Rands made the first female ascent (FFA) of
Plain High Drifter, becoming the first-ever American female to climb a V11-graded boulder, Rand was also featured bouldering in the 2002 climbing film,
Dosage Volume 1 (2002), where she discusses her preference for "big guy problems" (e.g. committing intimidating lines with powerful moves). In July 2002, Rands climbed a second ,
Du Cote de Seshuan in the Magic Wood, Switzerland, and in March 2003, Rand made the third and fourth-ever female ascent in history, In 2006 and 2007, Rands made trips to
Rocklands, South Africa, where she put up new boulder problems such as
Pinotage SDS, ''Lisa's Arete
, and Backbone'' at , and did the FFA of classic routes such as
Fred Nicole's
Nutsa . Her Rocklands climbs have been captured in several climbing films including
Specimen (2006), In January 2007, her ground-up ascents of intimidating
highball problems in the Buttermilks such as her first female ascent of
This Side of Paradise , were captured in the
Sender Films climbing film,
The Sharp End (2007). In January 2008, aged 32, Rands became the first female to succeed on
Chris Sharma's famous problem from 2008,
The Mandala at . Her highball bouldering and her ascent of
The Mandala were featured in two segments of
NBC's
Jeep World of Adventure Sports, with Rands saying: "Women are perfectly capable of climbing all the hard tall scary things that the guys climb... I really like to put myself out there on the line. 30 feet off the ground you really have to focus to relax yourself. You have to flip your mind back and fourth[sic] from this raw power to a very calm state". In October 2004, she became the first female to climb an
E8-graded traditional route, Rands won
Climbing magazine's 2004 Golden Piton Award for Traditional Climbing, for her ascent of the E8 route. In May 2005, she completed the first female ascent of
Shine On (E7 6c) at
Stanage Edge. In April 2006, she returned to the Peak District, and completed the first female ascent of another Dawes' test-piece,
Gaia (E8 6c), at
Black Rocks. Her ascent of
Gaia is captured in the
Big UP Productions climbing film,
Dosage Volume 4 (2006). Rands also extended into
big wall climbing, and in 2005, made a fast all-free ascent of the 20 pitch 727-metre grade IV, 5.10+ route
Chiaro di Luna, on the northwest face of
Aguja Saint Exupery in
Patagonia. She has also put up new traditional multi-pitch alpine routes with big wall climbing legend
Peter Croft, such as
Gargoyle (5.11b), and
Flying Buttress (5.11a) in 2011 on
Merriam Peak. which was captured in the film,
Reel Rock 5 (2010). ==Personal life==