CLIMBING FREE

In an unvarnished debut, Hill shares climbing experiences, offers technical tips, and portrays her emotional ties to other elite climbers.

As a 14-year-old California girl, Hill discovered rock climbing in 1975, when she tagged along with her sister's crew to Joshua Tree National Park. Small, but strong and flexible from gymnastics, she quickly fell in with J-Tree's top climbers; nicknamed “Little Herc,” she honed her skills on huge boulders named EBGB's and Trespassers Will Be Violated, while members of the wild bunch climbed naked at night or with a noose around the neck. Hill developed world-class abilities at the climbing citadel of Yosemite National Park, where she made repeated ascents of the famous walls El Capitan and Half Dome. Her portrait of Yosemite's talented climbers skillfully juxtaposes their artistry in the air with their freeloading creepiness on the ground; shoplifting and consumption of tourist leftovers were regular practices, and when a marijuana-laden plane crashed in the Sierras, the fit climbers became competitive entrepreneurs. Hill confined her energies to legal games, beginning with Survival of the Fittest, a televised four-event competition that she won four years in a row. By the mid-1980s, she was winning most of the European sport-climbing competitions despite French attempts to rewrite the rules to benefit national favorite Catherine Destivelle. On the flip side of Hill's career success is an abundance of personal heartache. Chuck Bludworth, who introduced her to climbing, died on a dramatic ascent of Argentina’s 23,000-foot Mt. Aconcaqua. High falls and avalanches kill other good friends. A romantic relationship with John Long goes nowhere slowly, and Hill's marriage to climber/businessman Russ Raffa, made without adequate thought, fails quickly, though a wedding picture of the couple hanging in harnesses from a cliff did make Bride’s magazine.

A few too many rock faces, but still an appealing blend of climbing drama and personal candor. (b&w photos throughout)