Commentary
The crowd in the open-air tourist bus gazed up at the massive granite wall towering over us in the Yosemite Valley. This was El Capitan, the setting for the movie Free Solo’s nail-biting documentary of Alex Honnold’s infamous climb.
The bubbly female ranger working as our tour guide had a clear agenda for outlining the history of climbing this imposing rock face. Her attention was focused on the climber who, in 1993, became the first person to free climb the tough “Nose” route of El Capitan.
With great fanfare, the ranger announced that the climber was a woman—the Californian sports climber Lynn Hill. The ranger’s excitement at this announcement prompted cheers from the females in our midst….