Women’s climbing is going through an incredible moment. Building on more than 30 years of achievements, women are making more and more first ascents and pushing the limits of technical difficulty by climbing challenging routes around the world.
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Climbing steep rock faces depends on balance and agile strength relative to body size, not who is bigger or faster. This has allowed women to approach parity with men and sometimes surpass it. It has also provoked resistance in what has been a male-dominated world. But that isn’t stopping women from making history in the sport.
The center of the American climbing world is Yosemite National Park in California, where the massive granite wall known as El Capitan rises 3,000 feet from the valley floor. The best-known feats on that wall are undoubtedly Alex Honnold’s free soloing (that is, without a rope to catch him in case he falls) on El Cap’s “Freerider” route, and Tommy Caldwell and Kevin Jorgeson’s roped ascent of the sheer Dawn Wall, perhaps the most difficult big wall climb in the world.
Yet the first free ascent of one of the most difficult routes on El Cap, “The Nose,” was made by a woman, Lynn Hill, in 1993. Everyone said it was impossible. Then, in what could be interpreted as an announcement or a challenge, she declared: “That’s it, guys.” Her feat was such that the great German climber Alex Huber said she had “overcome the dominance of men in climbing and left them behind.” It was all the more impressive because the number of women climbing big walls at that time – such as Luisa Iovane, Catherine Destivelle and Isabelle Patissier – could be counted on two hands.
Beth Rodden’s first ascent of Yosemite’s 60-foot “Meltdown” route, in 2008, wasn’t accomplished again until 10 years later — this time by a man. It was widely considered the hardest single-pitch traditional climb in the world. That means the climb was a single rope length and she relied on gear she rigged herself, rather than belays permanently installed in the rock, to hold the rope.
In 2017, Angela “Angy” Eiter made history by lead-climbing “La Planta de Shiva” in Andalusia, Spain, becoming the first woman to complete an extremely challenging 5.15b-graded route in the Yosemite Decimal System. (The grade scale tops out at 5.15d.) Outdoor sports news and articles website GearJunkie said the climb was “at the forefront of what is humanly possible.” Other recent high-profile triumphs include Laura Rogora’s 2021 ascent of “Erebor” in Italy, graded 5.15b/c. For perspective, only a handful of men have successfully climbed routes graded 5.15c and 5.15d. Women are close to closing that gap.
Indoor sport climbing, as we’ll see at the Olympics this summer, has just reached a new parity, with nearly equal numbers of men and women now participating in the sport, says the Outdoor Industry Association’s 2023 Participation Trends Report.
Women’s achievements on big walls are even more impressive because for every two men climbing outdoors, there is still only one woman, the OIA reports.
I have completed over 30 female first ascents and over a dozen world first ascents. When I shifted early in my career to doing more multi-pitch and big wall climbing, I often teamed up with men. Many of those successful ascents were credited to my male partner, even though we worked equally to achieve them. This was part of my motivation for forming all-female teams for the climbs documented in my new film, “Here to Climb.”
Together we are proving how high we can go. On Spain’s Rayu, a 610-metre vertical wall with a grade of 5.14b, Matilda Söderlund, Brette Harrington and I achieved a first all-female ascent and only the second ascent ever. Mountain sports website Planet Mountain called the climb “confirmation, once again, of how far women’s rock climbing has evolved.”
With every success, though, comes a new round of resistance. What often hurts the most are the online efforts, often anonymous, to diminish women’s achievements in the mountains. Then there are also the disparaging comments about a woman’s body or appearance. After years of harassment, I finally stood up for myself on Instagram to a professional climber who had bullied me and other female athletes. He made disparaging comments about my appearance when I was a teenager and when I gained weight in my early 20s. When this person was fired by his climbing sponsors, pointing out a pattern of behavior, a new round of bullying was unleashed. But I found my voice and have learned to use it more effectively.
Last month, a professional climber with a history of sexually assaulting women was sentenced to life in prison in California for sexually assaulting a woman in Yosemite. The prosecutor said he had “used his status as a prominent climber to assault women in the rock climbing community.”
Sadly, it is not surprising that women may face additional dangers in extreme environments where we are often a small minority.
When I’m climbing, I’m thinking about the next move; the last thing I’m thinking about is my gender. Female climbers have the same performance and earning potential as men, and in this, as in many activities where women push so-called traditional boundaries, we face resistance and questions about whether our success is really deserved.
It is.
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