Articles - INTERVIEW: Lynn Hill
Lynn Hill. Photo: Tim Davis / 2011 Patagonia
Andy McCue - Posted on 31 Jan 2012
From her first steps climbing with her brother and sister and sister's boyfriend back in 1975, Lynn Hill was hooked on rock and went on to become not only the most accomplished female climber of her generation but one of the most accomplished climbers full stop, culminating in the groundbreaking first free ascent of The Nose on El Capitan in Yosemite in 1993 over four days, unlocking the crux Changing Corners and Great Roof pitches that had barred previous attempts. She then came back a year later and freed in a single day. Despite many attempts by some of the world's best climbers it was 10 years before the route was freed by anyone else. During the late 70s and early 80s Lynn climbed widely across the US with John Long and others in that Camp 4 Yosemite scene and then travelled to Europe before entering the then embryonic world of indoor competition climbing in 1986, winning more than 30 international titles, including five victories at the Arco Rock Master. Lynn also ventured into TV, taking part in and winning the hit US show Survival of the Fittest. Now, aged 50, and based from her home in Boulder, Colorado Lynn is a single mother of eight-year-old Owen, an environmental activist, writer, speaker, guide and coach, ambassador for outdoor gear company Patagonia - and still loves to climb. We caught up with Lynn during her recent headline appearance at the Kendal Mountain Festival in the UK in November 2011.
Looking back today, what is your most striking memory of freeing The Nose in 1993?
For me the turning point on the route was the Camp 6 Changing Corners pitch, probably just because I'd failed three times. I slipped on the last attempt at the beginning and that's where you see your mind start to go because you can either keep persevering or you can kind of mentally give up. And it's easier to do when you're 2,500 feet off the ground and it's really touch and go style of climbing. But I have to say that my belief that this was kind of meant to be, in a fate sense, was such an important thing for me to achieve to make a bigger statement, which is that I thought that climbing was relatively immature in what we were capable of doing and I had the vision to see that a lot more was capable and there's no reason that a woman couldn't do something out there and that to me was an important statement to make because in the history of Yosemite there weren't really that many role models. There was one for me, Beverley Johnson, and a few that had hung with the boys so to speak but I think that it's really important for women, girls to have role models to know that it's possible because it's the mind and belief that drives us. If you don't have any role models then you have even less reason to believe you're going to stand out. I saw that it was possible with the given set of skills and motivation that I had so I just tried really, really hard.
Are you still amazed by the way each generation of climbers, especially on somewhere like El Cap, is pushing things, eg Tommy Caldwell?
(Lynn Hill at home in Boulder, Colorado. Photo: Andy Mann)
What do you expect to see in the next decade in terms of standards, professionalism and money in climbing?
Did becoming a mother change your approach to climbing?
What would your job description be now if you had to put it on a CV today?
Do you think it's gotten any easier or actually harder for women to make it to the top in what is essentially still a very male dominated activity and industry?
Are we losing the traditional climbing adventure/challenge to the pure fitness and physicality of bolted limestone and bouldering?
(Lynn Hill in an iconic shot used on the cover of a Patagonia Catalogue. Photo: Rick Ridgeway / 2011 Patagonia)
Would you like to see competition climbing in the Olympics? Would it be good for the wider 'sport'?
In the beginning of competitions they weren't really well organised and the format was the most challenging thing - how do we decide who is the best? What are we judging? And still I think it's difficult because they don't really have a consistent format for difficulty even. It all comes down to who is setting routes and what's their style. I talked to the route setters at the World Cup here in Boulder [Colorado] and they said the American route setting is very powerful and shouldery, not so complicated. But the Italian Arco Rock Master competition favours someone like Ramon [Julian Puigblanquehe] who has won it like six or seven times and it's because they use more crimps and they don't make it completely discriminatory as far as height. He's pretty small but does have a +6.5 ape index or something ridiculous but if you throw a jump in, like here in Boulder, it was really far and the two people that were the shortest in the competition did not stick that route. I don't consider that great route setting if you're going to make a move that makes it so much harder for the smaller people. I think we need to have a level of professionalism in our sport with the route designers and a consensus about what is the best route design - clever route designs where you have to think, imagine how your body's going to be in a certain configuration and how many moves. There should be really specific parameters in my opinion. We need to have more standards and we need to make it clear what we're judging. Speed's easy, people understand that and it's kind of interesting to watch but it's something I would never do. It's a whole different animal. How would the Olympics affect the sport? I think that the mainstream would understand it more and there might be some more money in the sport but I don't think it'll be quite as big as something like tennis for example, because climbers are a little different. We aren't quite the same as other athletes and I'm proud of that because we actually respect nature. Nature is a big part of it and we are adapting ourselves to the natural environment, natural shapes and we tend to be not so conformist, we're more out of the box thinkers and those are really great qualities, society needs all those types.
What goals, dreams and ambitions - climbing or otherwise - do you still have in life?
Lynn Hill is a rock climbing ambassador for Patagonia
YOU ASK LYNN HILL
I'm not sure if it actually exists but my dream holiday would include surfing and a beautiful beach with waves that aren't too difficult because I don't really get out surfing much. But it would be great to go in warm water, beautiful surf and then within not too far either hike or ride your mountain bike into the inland where the temperatures are not quite so warm and its dryer rather than humid and you can do some great bouldering or climbing on limestone or sandstone, whatever has a lot of feature and colour. That would be the ideal - climbing and surfing in one spot.
After so many years of climbing my hands are pretty good, they don't look deformed and nor do my feet because I don't really squash them into shoes that are way too tight and I don't change shoe models too much. I have had a couple of little tweaks in my fingers. The middle finger of my left hand, the joint's a little bigger than it should be but it's not terrible. It probably has calcium build up in there. I wouldn't say it's painful but I can feel it a little bit but it doesn't get in my way. I've had other little minor things with my fingers but they've all healed up. Occasionally I feel a bit of tendonitis on my medial epicondyle - that's on the inside of your arm - but resting is always the thing that gets rid of it. So with my shoulder right now I've rested, I've backed off. I think it's good to climb a little bit at a low level. Easy movement is actually theraputic and keeps the nerve muscular connection going but it doesn't stress things. So I think paying attention to your body is really, really important. Resting when you feel pain or overuse injury. I weigh right around 100lbs, it's not a lot of weight and because I'm not an overtrainer I'm an undertrainer I'm on the good side of the risk spectrum. I lot of people don't listen to their body, they weigh a lot and if they just make the wrong move in the wrong mechanical position like say for your shoulder that's really easy to do. If you're reaching out to the side and you're pressing down if you're rotating just slightly off you can tear things in there.
At the end of my competition career I felt like things were evolving more towards the indoor format and it really wasn't how I started to climb and it didn't represent the values of climbing in a complete way and so I decided I would do something like this as a retirement gesture. John Long said 'hey Lynnie you should go up and try to free climb The Nose'. So it just happened to be the perfect goal for me and I liked the fact this climb was in Yosemite because I remember going there and just seeing the valley and it was just mind blowing how beautiful it was. I couldn't imagine a more beautiful place anywhere in the world. For me The Nose was much bigger than me, it wasn't about me, it wasn't about my ego, my gratification it was actually something that I wanted to do. I felt like I had a chance and that if I could do that it would be a really big statement to people to think about. You don't have to be a man to do something that's 'out there' as a first ascent. Obviously people tried to do that route and they failed on it and so if a lot of good climbers have come and tried to do it and failed and a women comes and does it first it's really meaningful. That was my underlying motivation.
This article was first published in the February 2012 issue of Climber magazine
