Women Are Reaching New Heights in Climbing but Still Face Old Obstacles

Women’s climbing is having an incredible moment. Built on the shoulders of 30-plus years of accomplishments, women are making ever more first ascents and pushing against the limits of technical difficulty as they climb incredibly challenging routes around the world.

Climbing sheer rock faces relies on balance and on nimble strength relative to body size, not on who is bigger or faster. This has enabled women to approach parity with men and sometimes exceed it. It also has led to pushback from what has been a male dominated world. But that is not stopping women from making history in the sport.

The center of the climbing world in the United States is in Yosemite National Park, where the enormous granite wall known as El Capitan rises 3,000 feet from the valley floor. The best known exploits on that wall no doubt are Alex Honnold’s “free solo” (meaning, without a rope to catch him should he fall) of El Cap’s “Freerider” route, and the roped ascent of the sheer Dawn Wall, perhaps the world’s most difficult big wall climb, by Tommy Caldwell and Kevin Jorgeson. When people think of the magnificent, daunting walls of Yosemite, they most likely envision El Cap.

However, the very first ascent of one of the hardest routes on El Cap, “The Nose,” was done by a woman, Lynn Hill, way back in 1993. Everyone said it was impossible. Then Lynn did it. Afterward, in what could be construed as either an announcement or a challenge, she declared: “It goes, boys.” Her feat was such that the great German climber Alex Huber, who spent a lot of time in Yosemite back then, said her climb had “passed men’s dominance in climbing and left them behind.” It was all the more impressive because the number of women climbing big walls at the time — like 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, went a full decade before it was climbed again — this time, by a man. This was widely viewed at the time as the hardest single pitch traditional climb in the world. That means the climb was one rope length and that she depended on gear she placed herself, rather than on bolts permanently installed in the rock, to attach her rope.

Many impressive climbing accomplishments by women have followed. Angela “Angy” Eiter made history leading “La Planta de Shiva” in Andalusia, Spain, in 2017, becoming the first woman to complete an extremely challenging route rated as 5.15b on the Yosemite Decimal System. (The grading scale tops out at 5.15d.) The outdoor sports news and gear website GearJunkie said the climb was “at the cutting edge of what is humanly possible.” Other recent standout triumphs include Laura Rogora’s 2021 ascent of “Erebor” in Italy, graded 5.15b/c, and Barbara Zangerl’s big wall climbs of multiple pitches or rope lengths, among them, “Eternal Flame” in Pakistan in 2022. For perspective, only a handful of men have successfully climbed graded routes of 5.15c and 5.15d. Women climbers are close to bridging that gap.