First person to free climb “The Nose” route on El Capitan

The first person to free climb "The Nose" route on El Capitan was Lynn Hill (USA), who climbed the route with Brooke Sandahl over four days between 13 and 16 September 1993. El Capitan is a 900-m (3,000 ft) granite monolith in Yosemite National Park, California, USA, famous as one of the most challenging rock climbing locations in the world.

The term "free climbing", refers to a climbing discipline in which climbers make upward progress only using their hands and feet on the rock. Ropes and bolts are used only to protect against falls. It is now the most common climbing discipline – what many people think of simply as "rock climbing" – but in the early days of the sport it existed alongside the popular disciple of "aid climbing", which is now less common. In aid climbing the climbers use picks, pitons and mechanical aids to methodically work their way up a wall, hauling equipment, and sometimes themselves on ropes. The first ascents of many major climbing routes, including "The Nose", were first made as aid climbs, as free climbing the routes was thought to be impossible.

In this climb Lynn Hill was the lead climber, meaning that she went up first, placing rope anchors as she progressed. Brooke Sandahl was her belayer, meaning that he stayed below, climbing up to join her at established anchor points (with Hill holding the safety ropes from above) before she moved on to the next pitch.

"The Nose" is generally rated as a tough, 5.13c-grade climb, and its crux (the hardest point) is a a section called "changing corners". This requires the climber to ascend a right-angled crack where two featureless rock faces meet, then turn fully around to face the other way using nothing but flat pressure on the two faces (this bit is referred to as the "twister move", and that section as the "Houdini Pitch" due to the contortions required to get through without aid). Lynn Hill was the first person to figure out how to tackle this section, as well as "The Great Roof" another potential crux, which comes shortly before it.