Sports
Lynn Hill
born 1961 · rock climber
Detroit-born rock climber, raised in California, widely regarded as one of the greatest climbers in the sport's history for her 1993 first free ascent of The Nose on El Capitan.
- Born
Detroit, Michigan
age 65- Birth name
- Carolynn Marie Hill
- Field
- Sports
01 / The Detroit story
The Detroit story
Hill was born in Detroit but grew up in Fullerton, California, where she discovered climbing and joined the tight-knit community that gathered at Yosemite's Camp 4. From 1986 to 1992 she was one of the world's dominant competition climbers, winning more than thirty international titles. Her defining achievement came in 1993, when she became the first person, male or female, to free-climb The Nose on Yosemite's El Capitan, one of the sport's most storied routes, and the following year she repeated it in under twenty-four hours. She later wrote the autobiography Climbing Free and became one of the sport's leading advocates for women's climbing.
Highlights
- First free ascent, by anyone, of The Nose on El Capitan (1993)
- Repeated the climb in under 24 hours the following year
- Won more than thirty international competition titles, 1986–1992
- Author of the autobiography Climbing Free: My Life in the Vertical World