Between juggling four part-time jobs and single motherhood, Lynn Hill has still found time to send Living in Fear (5.13d) in Rifle, Colorado.

“I just turned 50 so I wanted to try something hard," says Hill. "Living in Fear addressed my weakness because you can’t recover easily on the route.”

Hill tried the route last spring and returned to Rifle this fall extremely motivated, climbing the route on September 14.

She says, “I’m really psyched to climb more.  My 8-and-a-half year old son Owen started school again so I have a little more time to focus on climbing.”

Hill had fallen from Living in Fear’s notorious "5.8 Dyno" four times the previous weekend.

“Having the power, precision, and timing for the dyno was challenging,” she said, “but the biggest thing for me was learning to relax on the route and recover" on the poor rests available.

Impressively, Hill managed to send the route on her third redpoint burn of the day, when many would be tired or giving up.

Always moving forward, Hill, who has climbed 5.14a in the past, now wants to redpoint a 5.14b.  

She says, “Well the Nose on El Cap is 5.14a but it’s 2,500 feet off the deck so that’s probably the hardest thing I’ll ever do but I’ve never done a 5.14b sport climb."

She adds, though, of her more overarching goals, "I want to make a living, climb for myself, and be a good mom.”

Hill, no stranger to high-end sport climbing, was the first woman to climb 5.14 with an ascent of the 75-foot Mass Critique at Cimai, France in 1990.  J. B. Tribout, the route’s first ascentionist, famously goaded Hill by claiming that no woman would ever be able to climb Mass Critique.  Hill not only rose to the challenge but also completed the route in fewer tries than Tribout.

[Lynn Hill. Photo by Andy Mann.]