# Lynn Hill on Reddit (u/Lynn_Hill)

Part of Athletes on Reddit, researched with Autumn (https://www.autumn.ai) from public sources. Updated 2026-11-07. Interactive version: https://www.autumn.ai/resources/athletes-on-reddit/lynn-hill

Lynn Hill: First person to free climb El Capitan's Nose.

- Reddit account: [u/Lynn_Hill](https://www.reddit.com/user/Lynn_Hill/) (AMA only)
- How we know it's theirs: [Her 2015 r/IAmA AMA, posted from this account](https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/33n893/i_am_lynn_hill_the_first_female_climber_to_free/)
- Where they post, in the records we retrieved: r/IAmA (37)
- Known activity in the posts we found: 2015 to 2015
- Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynn_Hill

## Moments

### u/Lynn_Hill in r/IAmA, Apr 23, 2015 · Personal story

Replying to a redditor:

> Do you hope that someday instead of a female being the "first female" to do something grand, a female will be the "first person" to do something grand?

> I *was* the first person to free climb the nose on El Capitan.
>
> And I am very happy to say that.
>
> Not just the first *woman,* but the first *person.*

Full thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/33n893/comment/cqmia3s/ · 86 points as of Nov 7, 2026

### u/Lynn_Hill in r/IAmA, Apr 23, 2015 · AMA answer

Replying to a redditor:

> Do they really call climber's poo "Mud Falcons"? Any other cool terminology you'd care to share?

> Well, I don't know about this "mud falcon," I've never heard that one.
>
> We have a lot of terminology that's pretty funny.
>
> I used to call what we'd bring up on a big wall like El Capitan a "poop tube." It's just a - kind of like a gigantic PVC pipe that you would fill with a bag that you pooped in, and then you closed it up so you wouldn't have to smell it while you're on the wall.
>
> Let me go back and explain one thing: on El Capitan, a 3,000 foot wall, most people don't do it in one day. It takes several days. There are camps where there are ledges, or if there are no ledges, you bring a "porta-ledge." Or a hammock, back in the day. Anyway, obviously you're going to have to use the facilities at some point on a several day climb.
>
> SO instead of just leaning out on a wall and pooping into the air, where you might actually be dropping onto somebody below you (which might explain "mud falcons") - actually when i was trying to free-climb the nose for the first time, I was sleeping on Camp 4, and somebody was on Camp 5, which is directly overhead, and I woke up with some kind of messy stool on my sleeping bag...
>
> Maybe you shouldn't tell this story.
>
> Anyways, we are responsible for our excrement and trash, so we carry everything with us. And so for that purpose, you can bring a plastic bucket so you don't have to smell it like I said before. But you need to contain that stuff so it doesn't smell, and you're not leaving it on the wall or dropping it down onto other people.
>
> Well, there's a lot of technique terms.
>
> One of the terms that we use to describe a hand position was named after Gaston Rébuffat. And so in a book that he published many years ago, he showed this position of his hand with the thumbs *down,* so it's kind of like an inverted grip. Normally when you grab something your hand is facing thumb-up, but sometimes on the rock there are times when you want your thumbs down, like on a vertical-shaped hold for example.
>
> And then there's techniques called "the flag" - that's when you drop your foot down underneath you, you're not really using your foot on the rock, you're using your leg as a counterbalance. So it's for balance. You just swing your leg under, and it's called a flag. And I'm actually working on a video and it's going to explain all the different techniques and the process of how you plan a sequence of moves on the rocks.
>
> So hopefully that will be out in the next year. So a lot of these terms will be documented in a way so that people have access to a source. Because right now our climbing lingo is - it's very difficult to show all the different techniques without showing in video, so I'm working on that. It's taking quite a few years.
>
> So there's a lot of little terms that people say like "Grab that tweaker" or "Dime-edge" - an edge so thin, it's the width of a dime - you can use all kinds of words to describe the features.
>
> A "nubbin" would be a little tiny feature, a tiny crystal maybe, that just sticks out from a rock face.

Full thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/33n893/comment/cqmisxk/ · 61 points as of Nov 7, 2026