LYNN HLL

(Credit photo: Bob Carmichael)

​Lynn Hill is a living legend. Few have accomplished an athletic feat more than a decade before anyone else- man or woman. Lynn changed the definition of what is possible in rock climbing with her first free ascent of the most famous big wall climb in the world called, The Nose on El Capitan in Yosemite Valley, California. Over eleven years later, Tommy Caldwell and Lynn are still the only two people in the world to have succeeded in making an all free one-day ascent of this historic route. 

A natural athlete, Hill competed as a gymnast and runner, as well as in climbing. She first roped up at the age of 14 and excelled immediately. By the late 1970s she was  climbing near the top standards of the day. In 1979, she was the first woman to climb a route rated 5.12d (7c+). Lynn continued to climb routes at the highest standards of difficulty over the years to follow, including being the first woman to do a route graded 5.14 (8b+) in 1991 – three years before another woman. In 1992, Lynn was the first woman to make an on-sight ascent of a climb rated 5.13b (8a).

Hill discovered competition climbing during a visit to France in 1986. She quickly moved into the top ranks and won more than 30 international competitions, including five times at the Arco Rock Master, the Wimbledon of competitive climbing. 

The following year after her first free ascent of the Nose in a day in 1994, Lynn took her big wall skills to the high peaks of Kyrgyzstan. There she made the first free ascents of two 5.12 big walls: the 4,000-foot west face of Peak 4810 with the late Alex Lowe and the Perestroika Crack of Peak 4240 with Greg Child. In 1999, Lynn led a small team of women to the island of Madagascar (located off the coast of Africa) to do a first ascent up a steep, two-thousand-foot wall of granite. This route turned out to be perhaps the most difficult first ascent of a big wall ever done by a team of women (5.13d/A0 5.12c mandatory). 

Among the world’s best-known climbers, Hill has been a guest at the White House and has been featured on numerous television shows such as, “Late Night with David Letterman”, Battle of the Superstars (first place in the 50 meter swim event against sports stars such as Martina Navratilova), Four-time winner of the, Survival of the Fittest competition televised on NBC Wide World of Sports, That’s Incredible, National Geographic Television, Canal Plus, M-TV Sports, ESPN “A History of Women in Sports”, Outdoor Life Network, ABC Sports: The North Face Expedition Series”, as well as been featured in many publications from Life, Time, Sports Illustrated, Self, Shape, New York Times Magazine, Vanity Fair, Vogue, in addition to gracing the covers of the best known climbing and outdoor magazines such as Outside, Climbing, Rock and Ice, Vertical, Mountain, Desnivel, and Montagne.

​As a part-time resident of both France and Italy, Lynn has become fluent in French and Italian. Her travels have taken her to various places throughout Europe and to remote climbing destinations in  Vietnam, Thailand, China, Japan, Morocco, Australia, and South America.
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Lynn has contributed essays in books such as, The Meaning of Life, Voices From the Summit, Fifty Favorite Climbs, as well as co-authored her own story titled, Climbing Free: My Life in the Vertical World (published by W.W. Norton). Lynn is currently working on a climbing technique video called, Climbing Free, which includes elements of culture, history, and psychological perspectives that have influenced her evolution as a free climber over the past thirty-five years. 

Currently living in Boulder, Colorado Lynn balances her time between climbing, running, skiing, travels to cool places around the world, and raising her son Owen.