Carolynn Marie Hill is an American rock climber. Widely regarded as one of the leading competitive climbers, traditional climbers, sport climbers, and boulderers in the world during the late 1980s and early 1990s, she is famous for making the first free ascent of the difficult sheer rock face of The Nose on El Capitan in Yosemite Valley, and for repeating it the next year in less than 24 hours. She has been described as both one of the best female climbers in the world and one of the best climbers in the history of the sport. One of the first successful women in the sport, Hill shaped rock climbing for women and became a public spokesperson, helping it gain wider popularity and arguing for sex equality. Hill has publicized climbing by appearing on television shows and documentaries and writing an autobiography, Climbing Free: My Life in the Vertical World.
El Capitan is a vertical rock formation in Yosemite National Park, on the north side of Yosemite Valley, near its western end. The granite monolith is about 3,000 feet (914 m) from base to summit along its tallest face and is a world-famous location for big wall climbing, including the disciplines of aid climbing, free climbing, and more recently for free solo climbing.
Aid climbing is a form of rock climbing that uses mechanical devices and equipment, such as aiders, for upward momentum. Aid climbing is different than free climbing, which only uses mechanical equipment for protection, but not to assist in upward momentum. Aid climbing sometimes involves hammering in permanent pitons and bolts, into which the aiders are clipped, but there is also 'clean aid climbing' which avoids any hammering, and only uses removable placements.
Multi-pitch climbing is a type of climbing that typically takes place on routes that are more than a single rope length in height, and thus where the lead climber cannot complete the climb as a single pitch. Where the number of pitches exceeds 6–10, it can become big wall climbing, or where the pitches are in a mixed rock and ice mountain environment, it can become alpine climbing. Multi-pitch rock climbs can come in traditional, sport, and aid formats. Some have free soloed multi-pitch routes.
Tommy Caldwell is an American rock climber who has set records in sport climbing, traditional climbing, and in big-wall climbing. Caldwell made the first free ascents of several major routes on El Capitan in Yosemite National Park.
Royal Robbins was one of the pioneers of American rock climbing. After learning to climb at Tahquitz Rock, he went on to make first ascents of many big wall routes in Yosemite. As an early proponent of boltless, pitonless clean climbing, he, along with Yvon Chouinard, was instrumental in changing the climbing culture of the late 1960s and early 1970s by encouraging the use and preservation of the natural features of the rock. He went on to become a well-known kayaker.
In the history of rock climbing, the three main sub-disciplines—bouldering, single-pitch climbing, and big wall climbing—can trace their origins to late 19th-century Europe. Bouldering started in Fontainebleau, and was advanced by Pierre Allain in the 1930s, and John Gill in the 1950s. Big wall climbing started in the Dolomites, and was spread across the Alps in the 1930s by climbers such as Emilio Comici and Riccardo Cassin, and in the 1950s by Walter Bonatti, before reaching Yosemite where it was led in the 1950s to 1970s by climbers such as Royal Robbins. Single-pitch climbing started pre-1900 in both the Lake District and in Saxony, and by the late-1970s had spread widely with climbers such as Ron Fawcett (Britain), Bernd Arnold (Germany), Patrick Berhault (France), Ron Kauk and John Bachar (USA).
Maria Carrillo High School is a public high school in Santa Rosa, California, United States. It is managed by the Santa Rosa City Schools district. It opened in 1996 and is in Santa Rosa's Rincon Valley neighborhood.
Beth Rodden is an American rock climber known for her ascents of hard single-pitch traditional climbing routes. She was the youngest woman to climb 5.14a (8b+) and is one of the only women in the world to have redpointed a 5.14c (8c+) traditional climbing graded climb. Rodden and fellow climber Tommy Caldwell were partners from 2000 to 2010, during which time they completed the second free ascent of The Nose. In 2008, Rodden made the first ascent of Meltdown, one of the hardest traditional climbs in the world and the first time in history that a female climber matched the peak of the highest climbing grades.
Dean Spaulding Potter was an American free climber, alpinist, BASE jumper, and highliner. He completed many hard first ascents, free solo ascents, speed ascents, and enchainments in Yosemite National Park and Patagonia. He won the Laureus World Action Sportsperson of the Year in 2003. In 2015, he died in a wingsuit flying accident in Yosemite National Park.
Big wall climbing is a form of rock climbing that takes place on long multi-pitch routes that normally require a full day, if not several days, to ascend. In addition, big wall routes are typically sustained and exposed, where the climbers remain suspended from the rock face, even sleeping hanging from the face, with limited options to sit down or escape unless they abseil back down the whole route, which is a complex and risky action. It is therefore a physically and mentally demanding form of climbing.
The Nose is a big wall climbing route up El Capitan. Once considered impossible to climb, El Capitan is now the standard for big wall climbing. It is recognized in the historic climbing text Fifty Classic Climbs of North America and considered a classic around the world.
Lost Arrow Spire is a detached pillar in Yosemite National Park, in Yosemite Valley, California, located immediately adjacent to Upper Yosemite Falls. The structure includes the Lost Arrow Spire Chimney route which is recognized in the historic climbing text Fifty Classic Climbs of North America. The spire is the location for a dramatic Tyrolean traverse, which has since become an iconic slackline.
Alex Honnold is an American rock climber best known for his free solo ascents of big walls. Honnold rose to worldwide fame in June 2017 when he became the first person to free solo a route on El Capitan in Yosemite National Park, a climb described in The New York Times as "one of the great athletic feats of any kind, ever". Honnold also holds the record for the fastest ascent of the "Yosemite Triple Crown", an 18-hour, 50-minute link-up of Mount Watkins, The Nose, and the Regular Northwest Face of Half Dome. In 2015, he won a Piolet d'Or in alpine climbing with Tommy Caldwell for their completion of the enchainment of the Cerro Chaltén Group in Patagonia over 5 days.
Sender Films is an American film production company based in Boulder, Colorado. Productions include outdoor adventure films, television shows, and commercials.
Hazel Findlay is a British traditional climber, sport climber and big wall climber. She was the first female British climber to climb a route graded E9, and a route graded 8c (5.14b). She did the third ascent of the Yosemite traditional route Magic Line 5.14c (8c+). She has free climbed El Capitán four times on four different routes and made many first female ascents on other routes. Climbing magazine gave her their Golden Piton Award (Alpine) for traditional climbing in 2013.
Free Solo is a 2018 American documentary film directed by Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin that profiles rock climber Alex Honnold on his quest to perform the first-ever free solo climb of a route on El Capitan, in Yosemite National Park, in June 2017.
The Dawn Wall is a 2017 American-Austrian documentary film directed by Josh Lowell and Peter Mortimer about Tommy Caldwell and Kevin Jorgeson's successful attempt to create the first-ever big wall free climbing route—which they christened The Dawn Wall—on the historic southeast face of El Capitan in the Yosemite National Park, which had hitherto only been ascended by aid climbing techniques first pioneered by Warren Harding who make the first aided ascent of the face in 1970.
Brad Gobright was an American rock climber known for free solo climbing.
Barbara Zangerl is an Austrian rock climber who is widely considered as one of the best all-round female climbers in the world. At various stages in her career, she has climbed at, or just below, the highest climbing grades achieved by a female in every major rock climbing discipline, including bouldering, traditional climbing, sport climbing, multi-pitch climbing and big wall climbing.
