(1) Please define “like”. I don’ t even know her in person, how could I “like” her. Does “like” means you like her as a person, you like how strong she was/is, you like her climbing style or you like the things she talks about?
(2) I know she is a very strong climber. But how strong a climber you can become is mostly genetic. So, in my opinion, she is just a extremely generically gifted climber, which gives her a change to make a living being a professional climber. But this doesn't automatically make me "like" her.
(3) Let’s talk about her most famous achievement: freeing the Nose route in Yosemite. First, you need to understand that you only have the free every single pitch of a route (don’t need to be at a single push) in order to say you have freed a route. If you study the nose route carefully, it has ~31 pitches. The majority of them are fairly easy for a strong climber like Lynn Hill. There are just a few 5.12+ and harder sections. Most climbers back then think the really challenge is pitch 22, The Great Roof. Later on Lynn Hill found out that pitch 27, Changing Corners is also extremely difficult.
So, freeing the nose actually just came down to freeing the two pitches (the great roof and changing corner). The rest is hard but manageable ( I believe Lynn Hill in her books talked about some complications of free the route up higher, but that’s another story).
Why did Lynn Hill became the first climber to free the nose? The answer is her small fingers (of course you need to be extremely strong to even have a chance). The great roof pitch is transverse rightward under a big roof. The section was typically added because it was considered too hard to free climb. It is only free-able because of the pin scars created by aid climbing. Anyway, most trad/crack climbers would agree that the difficulty of this pitch highly depends on your finger size. Lynn just happened to be strong and have smaller fingers, so she became the first climber to free climb this pitch. Now let us talk about the other hard pitch : the changing corner in the next section.
(4) Back then, most people believe that the great roof pitch is the final obstacle of freeing the nose. However, after Lynn Hill freed it, she ran into another hard pitch: the changing corner. It was even harder than the great roof. So what did she do? Most people wouldn’t have guessed it. She modified the route. She (or her team?) pulled off a piton to created a new hold, in order to make this pitch free-able for her. In today’s standard, this is somewhat unethical. This pitch might have been a 5.15a waiting for the next generation to concur. I am sure Lynn Hill felt this pitch was impossible and that’s why she “modified" it. But when I was climbing 5.8, 5.10a felt impossible. When I was climbing 5.10c, 5.11a felt impossible….enough said.
(5) Lynn Hill herself didn’t even think freeing the nose was that big of a deal right after she did it. But the media needs stories and Americans/Climbers/People need hero’s. Yet later on, the media was making a big deal out of this and she (seems to me) gladly accepted that it was is big deal. If you give a monkey a million dollar annual salary, she (it happens to be a female monkey) will eventually thinks that’s how much she is worth. Moreover, Lynn Hill didn’t come up with the idea of freeing the nose herself. It was John Long (or someone else? I forgot) who told her that with her small fingers, she might be able to free the great roof pitch.
(6) I have been climbing for 15 years, flashed V8 and 5.12C sport, red pointed 5.13a (all outside) onsighted 5.12a trad. But that’s just my personal goals. I can talk about how hard I train to achieve those personal goals and such, how I overcome injuries and so on, but Climbing is something I like to do. Getting strong and see improvement is fun and challenge. It’s fun and I wouldn’t call it hard work (depends on how you define ‘work’). Most importantly, me being strong/weak has nothing to do with the rest of the world. The world won’t be better or worse just because I become stronger or weaker in climbing. What makes me a better human being is me being nice to others at the crag, leave no trash and even pick up trash, and things like that.
(7) If Lynn Hill is not a visionary climber in my mind, who is? This is just personal opinion. I would say:
-> John Gill, who started bouldering and specific climbing training when no other climber was doing so.
-> Those American military engineers who invented dynamic ropes (during word war I or II?).
-> Those UK climbers who started to use nuts to replace pitons, which damages the rock and those American climbers who brought the idea of nuts into the US in the 70s.
-> the guy how invented spring-loaded camming device.
And the list goes on.
(8) Yes, you got it. I am writing this simply because Lyn Hill is a better climber than I am. And I envy her climbing accomplishments. I have to say that I don’t “dislike” her either. Again, I don’t know her in person and I’ve never seen her doing something to suggest she is a bad person (in online video).
Phillip
Why did Lynn Hill became the first climber to free the nose? The answer is her small fingers (of course you need to be extremely strong to even have a chance). The great roof pitch is transverse rightward under a big roof. The section was typically added because it was considered too hard to free climb. It is only free-able because of the pin scars created by aid climbing. Anyway, most trad/crack climbers would agree that the difficulty of this pitch highly depends on your finger size. Lynn just happened to be strong and have smaller fingers, so she became the first climber to free climb this pitch. Now let us talk about the other hard pitch : the changing corner in the next section.
(4) Back then, most people believe that the great roof pitch is the final obstacle of freeing the nose. However, after Lynn Hill freed it, she ran into another hard pitch: the changing corner. It was even harder than the great roof. So what did she do? Most people wouldn’t have guessed it. She modified the route. She (or her team?) pulled off a piton to created a new hold, in order to make this pitch free-able for her. In today’s standard, this is somewhat unethical. This pitch might have been a 5.15a waiting for the next generation to concur. I am sure Lynn Hill felt this pitch was impossible and that’s why she “modified" it. But when I was climbing 5.8, 5.10a felt impossible. When I was climbing 5.10c, 5.11a felt impossible….enough said.
(5) Lynn Hill herself didn’t even think freeing the nose was that big of a deal right after she did it. But the media needs stories and Americans/Climbers/People need hero’s. Yet later on, the media was making a big deal out of this and she (seems to me) gladly accepted that it was is big deal. If you give a monkey a million dollar annual salary, she (it happens to be a female monkey) will eventually thinks that’s how much she is worth. Moreover, Lynn Hill didn’t come up with the idea of freeing the nose herself. It was John Long (or someone else? I forgot) who told her that with her small fingers, she might be able to free the great roof pitch.
(6) I have been climbing for 15 years, flashed V8 and 5.12C sport, red pointed 5.13a (all outside) onsighted 5.12a trad. But that’s just my personal goals. I can talk about how hard I train to achieve those personal goals and such, how I overcome injuries and so on, but Climbing is something I like to do. Getting strong and see improvement is fun and challenge. It’s fun and I wouldn’t call it hard work (depends on how you define ‘work’). Most importantly, me being strong/weak has nothing to do with the rest of the world. The world won’t be better or worse just because I become stronger or weaker in climbing. What makes me a better human being is me being nice to others at the crag, leave no trash and even pick up trash, and things like that.
(7) If Lynn Hill is not a visionary climber in my mind, who is? This is just personal opinion. I would say:
-> John Gill, who started bouldering and specific climbing training when no other climber was doing so.
-> Those American military engineers who invented dynamic ropes (during word war I or II?).
-> Those UK climbers who started to use nuts to replace pitons, which damages the rock and those American climbers who brought the idea of nuts into the US in the 70s.
-> the guy how invented spring-loaded camming device.
And the list goes on.
(8) Yes, you got it. I am writing this simply because Lyn Hill is a better climber than I am. And I envy her climbing accomplishments. I have to say that I don’t “dislike” her either. Again, I don’t know her in person and I’ve never seen her doing something to suggest she is a bad person (in online video).
Phillip
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