Climbing Superstar World-Class Rock Climber Takes A Break At Her Mother’s Home In Hayden

After a month in the remote mountains of Kyrgyzstan, world-class climber Lynn Hill is taking a breather at her mom’s house in Hayden.

Just a little one, though.

Hill, 34, isn’t exactly lounging around. She’s fielding phone calls from sponsors and the editor of a soon-to-be published book, working on a video of her 20-year climbing career for the Banff Festival of Mountain Films, and taking family outings.

But anything would be less strenuous than spending 28 hours straight on a new route in the Ak-Su mountains of central Asia, dodging rockfalls and surviving other hazards of the 15,000-foot peaks.

“It felt like a bee was stinging me in the back,” recalled Hill of one high-altitude electrical storm.

Hill’s mother, Susan Tarbox, worried this past month more about kidnappers than about the natural hazards her daughter faced.

“I wasn’t sure how close she was to the crazy Muslims who stole the Spokane mountaineer,” Tarbox said, referring to Donald Hutchings. He is being held hostage by Kashmir rebels in India’s Himalayas.

Hill has rarely injured herself since she started rock climbing in Southern California as a teenager.

She did take a bad fall in 1989 - an 80-foot “grounder” that resulted in a dislocated elbow, bad bruises and shaken confidence. It was the only time she neglected to properly tie into the rope.

“She’s a pretty cautious person,” Tarbox said. “She’s deliberate, not a daredevil.”

Sure enough, when her brother-in-law installed a climber’s exercise station on the deck, Hill’s brow wrinkled as she effortlessly pulled herself eye-level to the holds made of simulated sandstone.

“This only has three screws. It should have another screw,” she said, her tanned and chiseled figure poised in the air.

Hill’s recent expedition was a new experience for the rock-climbing celebrity.

In the late ‘80s, she dominated sport climbing competitions, winning more than 20 world titles. Her success attracted sponsors, which meant she could make climbing her vocation and travel the world.

In 1993, she graced the covers of climbing magazines again when she became the first person to free-climb El Capitan’s “Nose” in Yosemite. The daunting face requires 34 rope-lengths to reach the summit.

Free-climbing means she did not rely on her gear to climb. Instead, she groped the rock for holds and only used the rope as protection against a deadly fall.

The Ak-Su expedition, bankrolled by The North Face outdoor gear company, was designed to conquer Kyrgyzstan’s peaks with free-climbing techniques.

But Hill prefers the soundness of climbing rocky cliffs to the many variables mountaineers face: weather, bad rock, snow and ice.

Several mountaineers recently died on K2 in Pakistan and, closer to home, Mount Rainier. Hill has lost two close friends to the Andes.

“When you go to places like that, there are no bolts,” she said, referring to the metal devices that are fixed permanently into rock-climbing routes for protection.

In the mountains, “it’s very capricious,” Hill said.

“When it’s your time, it’s your time.”

In a few days, Hill will return to her home in southern France, where she’ll tackle her book, video and some “hard free-climbing” routes.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo