The 2016 Vancouver International Mountain Film Festival kicked off this weekend with some fantastic speakers and films. With much more to come, Squamish Climbing Magazine had the chance to interview North American climber Lynn Hill who will be speaking on Wednesday, Feb 17th, 2016 at The Centennial Theatre in North Vancouver.
Most famously known for the first free ascent of The Nose in Yosemite Valley California, Lynn Hill is pretty much royalty when it comes to North American climbing history. Following her ascent of The Nose, Lynn went on to climb a number of difficult big walls around the world, including climbs in Kyrgyzstan and Madagascar. Now living in Boulder, CO, Lynn dedicates her time to teaching climbing, sharing her climbing experiences with others, and being a mom. We had a chance to catch up with Lynn and talk about her ascent of The Nose, being a female climber, and her latest project. Here is what she had to say.
Lynn Hill. Photo courtesy of lynnhillclimbing.com ©
Hi Lynn, thanks a lot for taking the time to talk with us. We’re excited that you’re a part of this year’s speaker list at VIMFF. Can you tell us a bit about what you will be sharing that night?
I’m going to talk about the evolution of climbing and how that has contributed to my current vision of climbing. I’ve actually been working on an ongoing (video) project for about 10 years that tries to show what good technique looks like. Essentially, it shows that good technique is a function of efficiency and following forms and features of the rock with respect to our bodies, which breaks down into geometry and the laws of physics. It’s complicated but it’s something I’m really interested in.
Technique is a difficult thing to explain to people, other than just to say ‘go try it and see what works for you.’
Exactly! I’m not going to say that you shouldn’t just go and try it, but that if you watch this video you’ll have more information and you’ll know how to approach it. You’ll have a visual idea in mind even if your body doesn’t do it right away. Everyone’s body is different and there are different styles, and I’m going to try to show that as well.
Lynn hill on Mother (5.12d) in Boulder, Co. Photo courtesy of lynnhillclimbing.com ©
I think that most female climbers have encountered situations when their success on a particular climb is chalked up to a physical attribute that is characteristically female, such as having small fingers or being light. Do you feel that there are climbs women more naturally excel at, and does that take away from their achievement in any way?
It’s really a difficult thing to pinpoint, but there are cases where certain moves will be easier for either a small person or a tall person. In general, I don’t focus on that because we all have our ways of adapting and it’s not really worthwhile to make a claim that is so general. I will say this, for small people mantling can be easier than for tall people, and conversely, dynamic moves are harder for smaller people. You know when you’re talking about the same distance, it’s easier for a taller person. So, there is point where the mechanics of movement will favor one size or another. However even on the same climb, maybe one part of the move is easier, for example getting your fingers in a small crack, but what if the reach between the openings in the crack is longer than my arm-span? Well, it doesn’t help to have small fingers if you can’t make the reach. But generally speaking it doesn’t come down to those particular specifics. I think the whole idea is to adapt our individual bodies to the particular challenge at hand.
When you started, climbing was still very much a “guy’s world.” Did you have any female mentors or partners at the beginning of your career that played a large role in your development?
Yes, Mari Gingery and Beverly Johnson. Beverly Johnson did the first solo ascent of El Cap by a woman, which took her a total of 10 days. She was by herself, she was with a rope, and she would lead a pitch, come back down, pick up all the gear, haul her bag. Beverly was really an inspiration because she didn’t make a big deal about being a woman, even though it was kind of new territory, she was a little bit older than me. Back then I think it was nicer just to be a climber and not say hey I’m a woman. We saw eye to eye and I thought it was really cool that there was a woman like her that thought like me, was adventurous, and could play with the guys.
(Mari Gingery) has been a really influential friend and climbing partner. She was my partner on the Nose when I did it the first time in ‘79 as an aid route. Neither one of us had much aid climbing experience and we just passed off on El Cap with the gear and figured we’d learn how to use it, it took us 6 days. But mostly we hung out in Joshua Tree and Idylwyld in Southern California climbing areas on the weekends. We liked to push ourselves as free climbers and push ourselves as rock climbers. We would put our heads together when they guys were trying to figure out a boulder problem or route, we obviously had a different approach because of our different reach, and we were probably more static climbers, not so dynamic.
Did you find that the community of female climbers at the time was generally supportive of each other, or was there sometimes a competitive tone?
There were a few competitive women when I was competing on the international circuit, but that’s more to be expected because it was an international competition and people really want to win at all costs. I think that sport teaches women, and kids, anyone, how to be a good sport if you make sure that it’s a part of your value system. (Sports) teach you to push yourself and be aggressive in the sense that you’re going for it and you have to try really hard. You grow from these experiences and you learn to respect other women as your competitors because without them you wouldn’t push yourself as hard. In my particular experience I think that women have been supportive, and I think even more so now as a more mature sport. I’ve asked some younger women about this equality thing and they seem oblivious, they think that it is equal out there. It helps to be liberal-minded but you have to insist, and you have to call out injustice when necessary.
Do you think that women are equal to men in terms of their achievements and their performance in all aspects of climbing? Or do you think that there are aspects of climbing, in particular I’m thinking of route development or alpine climbing, that still seem to be largely dominated by men? If so, why do you think that is?
Some women are choosing (to do those things). I didn’t choose it because I don’t like being cold, and I don’t like being in an austere environment as much as a colourful rock environment. The mountains are not a very nice place to hang out, (and) for me climbing is more of a lifestyle. Also, as a mother, I wouldn’t think about getting into alpine climbing right now. I stay far away from it because I don’t want to have an accident, an unnecessary one, it’s already dangerous enough to be a rock climber. I consider it relatively safe activity but I don’t want to leave my son without a mother. The same could be said for X-rated routes. I’ve done plenty of dangerous things in my past but I think you kind of go through phases in life, and one of them was to explore that realm, but not really with the intention of flirting with death ever, just taking calculated risks. I consider myself a reasonable risk taker.
Lynn Hill on El Cap. Photo courtesy of Google Maps ©
So you think the reason some areas of climbing are dominated by men is not related to our expectations of women, it’s just that women tend not to choose to do those things for whatever reason?
It could be a little bit of both. I’m not as susceptible as most to living up to society’s expectations because I abandoned that a long time ago. As a kid, they called me a tomboy so I said ‘oh okay, well if that’s me I’m going to embrace it.’ I wasn’t trying to be what other people expected of me. Being a tomboy was not exactly a compliment, and for a lot of people it’s important to them to be a canon of women’s beauty. I don’t think that beauty has that limited an interpretation. I think an athletic body is way more aesthetic than a skinny body. I want muscles that have form because they’re used in the right way. If you use good technique you build really good strength. Smart muscles. I think it does look different versus weight lifting thuggy muscle. I think people should embrace our differences and appreciate them a little more, instead of all trying to be the same.
I wanted to ask about your mentality leading up to your ascents of The Nose in 1993 and 1994. What conditions does it take to achieve big leaps in climbing progress like that?
Well, what’s interesting about that is I knew my vision was ahead of where the culture was and I knew that I had this golden opportunity to demonstrate that it is about vision. It’s not so much what everyone thinks, small hand size and this and that. It’s really about your vision, whether you believe in yourself. I believed in myself because I was really motivated, (and) it was a great thing to try to do. It was going to be a demonstration that would echo out around the world in all the different languages. Because it was a statement (that) a woman did it first and it was literally in front of their noses.
Lynn on Pancake Flake, The Nose. Photo courtesy of lynnhillclimbing.com ©
Because I had an open mind, from what I said about my childhood, I wasn’t going to try and live up to what other people thought to be true. I’m going to look at something with my own vision of what’s true, and my own vision happened to be advantageous because I got out of my comfort zone and I traveled around the world before other people did. In terms of American climbing, we were still stuck on hang-dogging when I was over (in Europe) climbing on limestone faces, doing my first 5.13c and 5.14.
The advantage was I wasn’t rejecting what I was seeing over there, I was enjoying it, and looking at it for what it was and it taught me a lot. When I came back to my own home turf, to granite, which I’d grown up climbing, I had those old school skills that a lot of people in today’s generation don’t have because they only see limestone. I had both. I had a trad climbing background; being able to climb on really delicate slabs, and I had the ability to push myself in the 5.14 realm. That’s what you needed to do The Nose, and I had it.
I wasn’t discouraged when I didn’t succeed the first time. You have to be willing to fail, and not take it as a complete failure, it’s actually a small success because you learned something. You have to have a different attitude if you want to be successful at something like that. You can’t be sensitive to other people’s idea of what’s possible.
People bailed out on me at various points in the process, they were like “you really think you can do this?!” In the end, I was the one pushing forward and doing everything I could to make it happen. It started something that I think woke up a lot of people, especially if you look at what happened since then. Yosemite became center stage for world climbing achievements again and that set the stage for places like Patagonia to be another center for hard rock climbing. There are fads and Yosemite comes into and out of fashion, and Europe comes into and out of fashion. Although, there’s just one world stage now and that’s changed climbing a lot. The whole internet and the media around it has changed climbing considerably.
Lynn Hill and Alex Honnold scoping El Cap. Photo credit Unknown ©
Recently, there’s been a lot of discussion around first female ascents, and whether they recognize the progress of women in climbing or reinforce the attitude that women aren’t as capable of first ascents as men.
I see both sides. (For example), Midnight Lightning had never been done by a woman, which was interesting because it was a historic boulder problem that had been there for a long time and bouldering had become extremely popular. I did the first female ascent of that and I thought it was significant to note but since then a lot of women have done it. It was kind of the beginning of a boom. But to do that for every single thing? It gets a little tiring. I could see that some people would say that it does put focus (on the idea) that women are less capable, but some problems are just part of history and at some point, after several women have done a particular problem, it won’t even be new. I can see a bit of both arguments. People were counting when they were looking at the first female ascent of Mt Everest. Why? Because it’s a very significant formation and a significant route and that’s part of its history. You can’t deny that it’s an important historical fact.
So, it’s important to recognize the progression of women on these big historic climbs?
I think so. I think it would be artificial to pretend that it’s not.
You spoke of your dedication to the goal of freeing The Nose, and the commitment that it took. Do those big, dominating goals still play a large role in your life, or are you less focused on singular objectives now?
Well, I’m a mother, so the focus is no longer on me. I pretty much serve my son all the time and I serve the community that I’m from. I spend a lot of time talking to people and performing the role model role. It’s hard to do everything. If I wanted to achieve something really hard I would have to be totally egocentric, and I just can’t afford to be right now. Frankly, I find life to be more interesting and more full when you’re not that way. It was important to do it on The Nose because it was an important climb and it was worth it. I was just coming off my professional climbing competition career and I had a unique fitness, I had very little responsibilities, it was something that I could do. Now I’ve got about four jobs, as everyone does when they’re a professional climber I suppose. It hasn’t been an easy thing to even just keep my time free between all the responsibilities that I have. So it’s not even an option. Would I like to? Sure. But is it something I’m willing to give up everything else for? No I really can’t. I get one day per week when I’m not with my kid. I’m happy enough to just be able to climb.
Photo courtesy of Lynnhillclimbing.com ©
Thanks again for taking the time to chat with us. We really appreciate and are very much looking forward to your speaking event next week.
Lynn Hill will be speaking at Centennial Theatre on Wednesday, February 17th, 2016 along with a number of films including Golden Gate, Transition, and Women’s Speed Ascent. Doors open at 630pm with the event beginning at 730pm. To learn more about Lynn, please visit lynnhillclimbing.com
Tickets for this event are still available and can be purchased at the VIMFF website.
