Lynn Hill

Lynn Hill grew up in Southern California, one of seven children, and was taken climbing at 14 by an older sister's boyfriend. She was tiny and had been a gymnast, and on rock she found that the reach she lacked could be made up for by balance, flexibility and a willingness to try moves that other climbers did not see. By her early twenties she was one of the strongest climbers in Yosemite, where women were still expected to hold the ropes.

In 1989, on a cliff at Buoux in France, she fell more than 20 metres to the ground because she had been distracted while tying her knot. She landed in a tree and survived with a broken foot and dislocated elbow. Six weeks later she was climbing again, and the following year she won the sport climbing World Cup.

The Nose of El Capitan is a 900 metre route up a granite wall in Yosemite. It had been climbed with the aid of equipment since 1958, but no one had free-climbed it, using ropes only for safety, and several of the best male climbers had tried. In 1993 she did it over four days with her partner Brooke Sandahl. The next year she came back and did it in under 24 hours. Nobody repeated the climb for a decade.

She still climbs and now teaches others.