73 Facts About Lynn Hill

Carolynn Marie Hill was born on January 3,1961 and is an American rock climber.

Lynn Hill has been described as both one of the best female climbers in the world and one of the best climbers in the history of the sport.

Lynn Hill has publicized climbing by appearing on television shows and documentaries and writing an autobiography, Climbing Free: My Life in the Vertical World.

Lynn Hill was a gymnast early in life, nearly broke a world record lifting weights, and ran competitively.

Lynn Hill took to climbing at a young age, showing a natural aptitude for the activity, and became a part of the climbing community in Southern California and Camp 4 in Yosemite Valley.

Lynn Hill traveled around the United States during the early 1980s climbing increasingly difficult routes and setting records for first female ascents and for first ascents.

From 1986 to 1992 Lynn Hill was one of the world's most accomplished competition climbers, winning over thirty international titles, including five victories at the Arco Rock Master.

In 1992, Lynn Hill left competitive climbing and returned to traditional climbing.

Lynn Hill set for herself the challenge of free climbing The Nose of El Capitan, her greatest climbing feat.

Lynn Hill continues to climb and has not stopped taking on ambitious climbs.

Lynn Hill is the fifth of seven children; her mother was a dental hygienist and her father an aerospace engineer.

Lynn Hill was an active child who climbed everything from trees to street lights.

Lynn 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.

Lynn Hill earned money for day trips out to the park by working at a Carl's Jr.

Lynn Hill was influenced in particular by Yvon Chouinard's ethic of "leaving no trace" on the rock.

Lynn Hill had succeeded and she'd given women climbers like me enormous confidence to be ourselves and not feel limited by being a minority in a male-dominated sport.

Lynn Hill attended Fullerton College in the late 1970s, but she did not have a strong interest in any academic subject; instead she was focused on climbing.

Lynn Hill learned the essence of her climbing technique from the Stonemasters group during this time.

Lynn Hill adopted the attitudes of traditional climbing, a style of climbing which emphasizes using removable protection rather than bolts and rewards climbers who climb a new route from bottom to top without stopping or starting over.

Lynn Hill became a dedicated free climber, which emphasizes climbing an entire route without hanging on the rope or relying on equipment to skip difficult sections.

Lynn Hill climbed with and became involved with climber John Long at the end of the 1970s.

Lynn Hill was recruited by the track coach even though she had no competitive running experience.

Lynn Hill started to participate in climbing competitions in the mid-1980s, but one of her first significant accomplishments was in 1979.

Lynn Hill became the first person to free climb Ophir Broke in Ophir, Colorado, which has a difficulty rating of 5.12d and was the hardest route ever climbed by a woman at that time.

Lynn Hill has said "that's when I knew for certain that this woman had extraordinary talent".

The regional guidebook credits Long with the first free ascent of the route; Lynn Hill speculates the reason for this is that at the time she was an unknown climber and known only as Long's partner and protege.

Lynn Hill 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.

Lynn Hill felt an immediate affinity for French culture and climbing.

Lynn Hill particularly enjoyed climbing on the limestone common in France because it has many pockets and edges, producing "wildly acrobatic climbs" with low risk.

Lynn Hill tried sport climbing in France for the first time that year.

Lynn Hill competed against other women on extremely difficult routes, gaining points for style and speed.

Lynn Hill lost to Catherine Destivelle in a "disputed ruling" but won in the following year.

Destivelle in her autobiography, reckons she won that year because she planned to climb fast from the beginning, as speed was decisive in case of equality, which she doubts Lynn Hill was aware of when starting the competition.

Lynn Hill became a professional climber in 1988 and the subsequent interviews, photoshoots and media appearances led to her becoming a spokesperson for climbing.

From 1986 to 1992 Lynn Hill was one of the world's top sport climbers, winning over thirty international titles, including five victories at the Arco Rock Master.

In January 1990, Lynn Hill set another landmark by becoming the first woman to redpoint a 5.14, Masse Critique in Cimai, France.

Lynn Hill has experienced only one major accident in her climbing career.

Lynn Hill 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.

Lynn Hill did not regard sport climbing to be real climbing 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.

Lynn Hill looked for different challenges and set herself the task of free climbing The Nose, a famous route on El Capitan in Yosemite Valley.

Lynn 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.

Lynn Hill's original climbing grade for the "Free Nose" was 5.13b.

The rock face is nearly blank and there are next to no holds; to ascend the section, Lynn 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.

Lynn Hill wanted to join her effort with that of making a film that "would convey the history and spirit of climbing".

Lynn 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.

Lynn Hill 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.

Lynn Hill herself had to coordinate many of the logistics because the producer had abandoned the project.

Lynn Hill ran out of chalk after 22 pitches, very nearly ran out of water and was taxed by the intense heat.

Lynn Hill staged what he describes as a "spectacle", filming the event "to capture the spontaneity of her one-day ascent", but she was only successful when not surrounded by a film crew.

In 1995, Lynn Hill joined The North Face climbing team and was paid to travel around the world to climb.

Lynn Hill first visited Kyrgyzstan's Karavshin Valley to climb with Alex Lowe, Kitty Calhoun, Jay Smith, Conrad Anker, Greg Child, Dan Osman, and Chris Noble.

Lynn Hill was not used to mountain climbing and the unpredictability of it unnerved her, with its increased risk of storms and rock slides.

Lynn Hill started offering climbing camps in five locations in the United States in 2005, with plans for more.

Lynn 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.

Long an advocate for gender equality in climbing, Lynn Hill has argued that men and women can climb the same routes: "I think they should have women compete on the same climbs as the men, and if the women can't do the climbs, then they shouldn't be competing".

Lynn Hill experienced discrimination throughout her climbing career and in an interview with John Stieger in Climbing, she pointed out that despite her success and prowess at climbing, this was a problem for her.

Lynn Hill has 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.

Lynn Hill lamented this trend and was happy that her family and friends had allowed her to be the "tomboy" she wanted to be.

Lynn Hill has explained that when competing she is not competing against men or women but with people's expectations of what women can do.

Lynn Hill has been credited with bringing many women into rock climbing.

Out at Josh, it was said Lynn Hill shone owing to quartz monzonite's superior friction, which catered to her bantam weight.

Lynn Hill has participated in various television productions, such as Survival of the Fittest, which she won four seasons in a row, from 1980 to 1984; she beat Olympic athletes at rope climbing and cross-country running.

Angered, Lynn Hill asked for parity, arguing that since the women were competing in four events and the men six, the women should at least be awarded $10,000.

Lynn Hill proposed a boycott to the other female competitors, negotiating a deal with the producer that the prize money would be raised the next year and she could compete again.

Lynn Hill "became increasingly aware of how few women were pushing the limits of climbing and endurance like I was, and of how my passion had led me very much into a man's world".

In 1999, Lynn Hill appeared in Extreme, an IMAX film on adventure sports.

Lynn Hill appeared in Vertical Frontier, a documentary about competitive climbing in California's Yosemite Valley.

Lynn Hill 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.

Lynn Hill wanted to "convey the history and culture of free climbing", specifically how it became as specialized as it is today.

Lynn 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 At the same time, Lynn Hill moved to Grambois, France, to pursue her climbing career; she settled there because of the world-class climbing areas in the Luberon region and the many friends she had there.

Lynn Hill met her partner as of 2004, chef Brad Lynch, on a climbing trip in Moab, Utah, and at the age of 42, she gave birth to a son.

Lynn Hill has spoken frequently about how having a child lessened the amount of time she had for climbing but not her love for it.