Lynn Hill

Early years

Childhood Born in Detroit, Michigan, Hill grew up in Fullerton, California. Thus, even though she was part of a successful YMCA gymnastics team that competed in southern California and performed in halftime shows for the California Angels, she quit at the age of 12. In her autobiography, Hill describes feeling "resistant to rules", an attitude she identified as both normal for her age and influenced by the era in which she grew up: "My awareness of issues like women's rights and the struggle for racial freedom began to grow". She even questioned the chores assigned in her family, noting the differences between the boys and girls—the boys had weekly tasks while the girls had daily tasks. During high school, Hill took up gymnastics again and became one of the top gymnasts in her state, a skill that eventually contributed to her climbing success. In particular, the ability to conceptualize a series of complex movements as small, distinct ones and to thrive under pressure gave Hill a significant edge.

Introduction to climbing In 1975, Hill's sister, Kathy Hill and her sister's fiancé, Chuck Bludworth, took her on her first climbing trip; she was hooked, leading from the first day. For Hill, this activity became an escape from the emotional turmoil of her parents' divorce, and "by her late teens she identified less with her imperfect family in Orange County than with an 'imperfect family of friends' at climbing areas". Hill took her first trip to Yosemite, a central destination for climbers, at the age of 16, where she was introduced to the climbers at Camp 4. There she met Charlie Row, her first boyfriend. Their romance flourished; with him she climbed her first 5.11 and first big wall.

As a young teenager, Hill climbed in southern California, primarily in Joshua Tree National Park. She earned money for day trips out to the park by working at a Carl's Jr. Bludworth initially taught her climbing culture; he subscribed to magazines and read books which Hill then devoured. She was influenced in particular by Yvon Chouinard's ethic of "leaving no trace" on the rock. As she had earlier, Hill worked in order to be able to climb. One summer, she writes, she survived in Camp 4 on only $75. In her autobiography, she describes how climbers eked out a life at the camp, recycling cans to pay for climbing ropes and subsisting on condiments and left-over food from tourists. However, Hill remembers "these dirt-poor days ... [as] among the best and the most carefree of my life, and though my friends were often scoundrels, I felt their friendship convincingly."

Beverly Johnson had previously started to bridge the gender gap at Camp 4, but it remained strongly male-dominated. The community was particularly homosocial; its major historian calls it "edgy" rather than "oppressive" and argues that there was pressure on women to perform to men's standards and that "women had to contend with an army of men trying to maintain Camp 4 as a guy's domain". There was no coherent female climbing community; rather, female climbers tended to adopt the masculine attitudes of their compatriots. In her autobiography, Hill writes that climbing "back then was directed by a fraternity of men, and there was little encouragement of, or frankly, inclination for women to participate. Yet women climbers were out there." For example, from age 18 to 22, Hill climbed with Mari Gingery every weekend, completing an ascent of The Nose and then the first female-only ascent of The Shield on El Capitan over a period of six days. She adopted the attitudes of traditional climbing, a style of climbing which emphasizes using removable protection rather than bolts (which scar the rock) and rewards climbers who climb a new route from bottom to top without stopping or starting over. She also became a dedicated free climber, which emphasizes climbing an entire route without hanging on the rope or relying on equipment to skip difficult sections. Early on she was a fearless climber but after "a few death-defying experiences on routes with long run-outs" she learned to be wary of falling. It was at his suggestion that she attempted to break the world record for the bench press in her weight class ; however, while she could easily lift while training, in competition she froze.

In 1983, Hill was interviewed by Ultrasport. They offered her a free flight to New York for the interview and as part of the trip she was taken to the Shawangunks, a famous nearby climbing area. Finding she liked the climbing environment and yearning for some new challenges, she decided to stay and moved to New Paltz, New York. It was the hardest crack climb in Colorado at the time and there were only one or two harder ones in Yosemite. Her lead of Yellow Crack was a very dangerous ascent, her climbing partner at the time Russ Ruffa calling it "one of the boldest leads I've ever seen ... I had tried leading it. I knew you had to totally commit to doing the moves, otherwise the chance of surviving would be minimal. Those are the moments that really stand out—when you see someone totally on the edge." She was arguably "the best climber in the Gunks", as local climbing legend Kevin Bein called her, and "no man was climbing significantly better" than her. In an interview, Hill has said that this first competition was "disorienting" because she did not understand the language, the "format" or the "judging" nor did the organizers of the competition. "There were a lot of politics involved, a lot of nationalism and disorganization. The rules seemed to change during the event. I remember asking about the disparity between prize money for men and women. The only response I got was, 'If the women climb without their tops, then we'll pay them the same.'" However, she continued with competition climbing because she found it stimulating to climb with "other strong women". In one interview, Hill said that "if there wasn't a Catherine Destivelle or Luisa Iovane ... or whoever there, then it would be anticlimactic."

She became a professional climber in 1988 and the subsequent interviews, photoshoots and media appearances led to her becoming a spokesperson for climbing. From the beginning of her sport climbing career, Hill was aware that the sport was evolving and growing. For example, she pointed out in an interview that some competition organizers would chop down trees and alter rocks just for the sake of a competition; she could foresee that competitions would all eventually take place on artificial walls for environmental reasons. Hill has argued that "the purpose of climbing is to adapt yourself to the rock. You work on yourself to overcome the obstacle of the rock ... I believe climbers should leave the rock as unaltered as possible ... you have a responsibility not only to put in safe bolts but to put them in logical places—to do the least possible alteration of the rock to establish the best possible experience for others". In 1990, at the final stage of the World Cup Final, she was one of three competitors and the only woman to reach the top of the wall—and the only climber to complete the hardest move. As Joseph Taylor writes in his history of climbers of Yosemite, "at that moment Lynn Hill was arguably the best climber in the world, male or female". Hill describes this as her most satisfying win because her competition—Isabelle Patissier—received information on how to do the final climb from the men who had already finished it. Moreover, Hill was starting with zero points in the competition because she had made a mistake in the previous competition, so she had to win big or not at all (the World Cup consisted of a series of competitions in which the participants were given points for a variety of climbing techniques). "It took all of my effort and concentration to pull through the route. The moves I had to make were really spectacular, but I managed to do them. I was so excited to get to the top ... I proved a point about women and what we're capable of—a lot of the best men had fallen off that route." J.B. Tribout, who first ascended the route, challenged Hill, saying no woman would ever be able to climb it—Hill completed it in fewer tries than Tribout, after "nine days of exhausting effort". In 1992, it was described as the hardest rock climb ever made by a woman. She had been training hard for the World Cup and had to stop competing for a few months to recover; she was devastated to miss the first World Cup in the sport. and felt out of place on the professional indoor climbing World Cup circuit, so she left in 1992 and went back to traditional rock climbing.

Hill first attempted to free climb The Nose in 1989 with Simon Nadin, a British climber she had met at the World Cup that year. Although he had never climbed big walls, she felt at ease around him and both had a background in traditional climbing; they both shared a desire to free climb The Nose and agreed within hours of meeting to try the feat together. Their attempt to free climb The Nose failed. Four years later, in 1993, together with her partner Brooke Sandahl, she became the first person to ever free climb the route. Hill's original climbing grade for the "Free Nose" was 5.13b. One of the most difficult pitches—Changing Corners—she rated at a 5.13b/c, but she wrote in her autobiography that "rating the difficulty of such a pitch is almost impossible" and "the most accurate grade would be to call it 'once, or maybe twice, in a lifetime'". The rock face is nearly blank and there are next to no holds; to ascend the section, Hill had to use a "carefully coordinated sequence of opposite pressures between [her] feet, hands, elbows, and hips against the shallow walls of the corner" as well as turn her body completely around.

The next year, in 1994 she surpassed this achievement, by becoming the first person to free climb the entire route in a single 24-hour period. Usually the climb takes four to six days (Hill had previously done it in four) and most climbers are aid climbing; that is, most climbers allow themselves to use mechanical aids to assist their climbing rather than just their own skill and bodies.

Hill wanted to join her effort with that of making a film that "would convey the history and spirit of climbing". Hill started endurance training in the spring for her summer ascent of The Nose, aiming to be able to on-sight a 5.13b after climbing all day. She trained in Provence and tested herself against Mingus in the Verdon Gorge, making the first on-sight free ascent of the route without a fall while simultaneously being the first woman to on-sight a 5.13b. At the time, climbing legend Yvon Chouinard called it "the biggest thing that has ever been done on rock" and Alexander Huber later wrote that this climb "passed men's dominance in climbing and left them behind". He also regarded her statement upon completing the climb of "It goes, boys!" as reasonable although other climbers regarded it as provocative. The Nose saw a second free ascent in 1998, when Scott Burke summited after 261 days of effort. Then, on October 14, 2005, the team of Tommy Caldwell and Beth Rodden also free climbed The Nose, and on October 16, 2005, Caldwell did it in less than 12 hours.

World traveler

In 1995, Hill joined The North Face climbing team and was paid to travel around the world to climb. She first visited Kyrgyzstan's Karavshin Valley to climb with Alex Lowe, Kitty Calhoun, Jay Smith, Conrad Anker, Greg Child, Dan Osman, and Chris Noble. They camped for a month and were cut off from the world, without even a radio. In her autobiography, Hill writes that "such isolation made me feel vulnerable". Hill was not used to mountain climbing (as opposed to rock climbing) and the unpredictability of it unnerved her, with its increased risk of storms and rock slides. Furthermore, she liked focusing on the style of ascending rather than just summiting; she realized on this trip that her style of free climbing was not conducive to summiting or mountain climbing. Rather than pursue ever higher climbs, therefore, she chose to climb in new places, such as Morocco, Vietnam, Thailand, Scotland, Japan, Madagascar, Australia, and South America; many of these climbs were filmed and helped promote climbing in general. As of 2012 Hill was living in Boulder, Colorado, and still travelling widely. From Boulder she runs a small business offering climbing courses and also works as a technical adviser for various climbing gear companies. As of 2013, Hill was a sponsored athlete for the Patagonia gear and clothing company. While Hill used to easily obtain sponsorships, in 2010 she said in an interview that she was "too old" to obtain shoe sponsorships.

Gender politics Hill repeatedly tells a story from when she was 14 years old and bouldering in Joshua Tree: she succeeded on a route when a man came over and commented how surprised he was that she could do the route because even he could not. "I thought, well, why would you expect that you automatically could do it? Just because I was a small girl, was I not to be able to do it? It was a memorable experience because it occurred to me then that other people had a different view of what I should or shouldn't be capable of doing. I think that people should just do whatever they can do or want to do. It shouldn't be a matter of if they're a man or a woman. It shouldn't be a matter of one's sex." Hill has also commented extensively about how American culture encourages women to be passive and to forego developing muscles, which makes it harder for them to excel at climbing. She lamented this trend and was happy that her family and friends had allowed her to be the "tomboy" she wanted to be. In answer to a question about her position as a role model for women climbers, Hill responded that she felt "responsible to communicate something that touches people, that inspires them, that gives them a sense of passion". Climber John Long explains that Hill "was a prodigy and everyone knew as much ... Twenty years ago, no female had ever climbed remotely as well as the best guys, so when Lynn began dusting us off—which she did with maddening frequency—folks offered up all kinds of fatuous explanations. Some diehards refused to believe a woman, and a five-foot article at that, could possibly be so good. Out at Josh, it was said Lynn shone owing to quartz monzonite's superior friction, which catered to her bantam weight. In Yosemite, her success apparently hinged on midget hands, which fit wonderfully into the infernal thin cracks. On limestone, she could plug three fingers into pockets where the rest of us managed two. In the desert Southwest, she enjoyed an alliance with coyotes—or maybe shape-shifters. Even after a heap of World Cup victories, it still took the climbing world an age to accept Lynn as the Chosen One, and perhaps her legacy was never established, once and for all, till she free climbed the Nose." For that production, she and Nancy Feagin had been filmed the previous May crack climbing in Indian Creek Valley in Utah. She also appeared in Vertical Frontier, a documentary about competitive climbing in California's Yosemite Valley.

In 2002, Hill collaboratively wrote an autobiography, Climbing Free: My Life in the Vertical World, with mountaineer and writer Greg Child, published by W.W. Norton & Company. As she describes the process, "He would take my writings and organize them, and he encouraged me to elaborate on certain elements. He emphasized that telling the story is what's important, so he really helped me think about what I wanted to say, and figure out who my audience was."

Personal life Hill met fellow Gunks climber Russ Raffa on her first trip to New York and by 1984 he had become "her constant companion". On October 22, 1988, the two married

In 2015 she was inducted into the Boulder (Colorado) Sports Hall of Fame.

Notable ascents Hill made the first female ascent of Yosemite's Midnight Lightning in 1998. (Others pictured) Hill made the first female ascent of Yosemite's King Cobra in 1998. (Others pictured) 1979, Ophir Broke II 5.12d, Telluride, Colorado − First free ascent and first-ever female ascent in history of a ,

Competitions 1986, Grand-Prix d'Escalade, Troubat, winner

Filmography First Ascent (1982) Bambous (1987) Moving Over Stone (1988) Moving Over Stone II (1991) Climb (1991) Psycho Anthropologist (1992) The New Spider Man (1993) La maîtresse du vide (1994) Sea Kayaking (1995) Rock (1996) Vietnam - Into the Dragon's Teeth (1997) Free Climbing the Nose (1997) Pabbay - Outer Hebrides (1998) L'arte di arrampicare (1998) Extreme Summer (1999) Extreme (1999) Big Stone (1999) Yosemite - Ascending Rhythm (2000) Beyond Gravity (2000) Madagascar - A woman's first ascent (2000) Vertical Frontier (2002) The Center of the Universe (2003) Pro Tips - Volume 1 (2003) Petzl Roctrip Millau 2004 (2004) Petzl Roctrip Squamish 2005 (2005) Wall Rats (2006) First Ascent (2006) Petzl Roctrip Millau 2006 (2006) Petzl Roctrip Zillertal 2008 (2008) Progression (2009) Petzl Roctrip Jonte 2009 (2009) Rocky Mountain Highball (2010) Climbing World Cup in Arco, Italy (2011) Origins - Obe & Ashima (2011) The Fanatic Search 2 - A Girl Thing... (2011) Outside the Box (2011) Petzl Roctrip China 2011 (2011) Best of EOFT No. 8 (2012) Stoney Point (2012) The Network (2012) Reel Rock S1 E1: La Dura Dura (2012) Valley Uprising (2014) Jeff Lowe's Metanoia (2014) Wild New Brave (2014) Climbing the Nose (2015) Reel Rock S3 E5: Young Guns (2016) Reel Rock S4 E1: Break on Through (2017) Fine Lines (2018) Hip Hop Gone Wild (2018) Legends (2018) Liv Along the Way (2018) A Thousand Ways to Kiss the Ground (2020) The Rapture of Free Soloing on Acid (2020) Here to Climb (2024)