Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/405547
ByHeatherSomerville Ask most any woman why she rock climbs, and you'll get some version of the same answer — it's raw, empowering freedom. When she climbs, she's acutely aware of her body and its strength; she's out- side in the silent back coun- try, with only the rock and a harness full of gear; she's reaching into crevices and swinging her heel over ledges as she works her way to the top to take a gratify- ing look below her, breath- ing a sigh of relief. "The way that our so- ciety and economy is set up. We have to work really hard and don't have enough time to be free. And that's what climbing is — it's free- dom," Lynn Hill, a legend- ary rock climber from Or- ange County who now lives in Colorado, said in an in- terview. "That's why I need to do this." Today, from rock climb- ing gyms to state parks such as Castle Rock and the steep crags of Peru, more women and young girls are climbing than ever be- fore, those who follow the sport say. Despite reports of lingering sexism in the sport, climbers say women are taking a leading role — guiding expeditions, teach- ing climbing camps and schools, performing rescues and completing first ascents up untouched rock. In a nod to their growing role in the sport, a weekend- long festival that began Fri- day in Oakdale, a small Cen- tral Valley town near the edge of the Sierra foothills, will celebrate women's con- tributions to climbing and several generations of pi- oneers responsible for the surge of women climbers today. They include Joshua Tree and Yosemite climbing masterMariGingeryandleg- endary Bay Area mountain- eers Arlene Blum and Irene Beardsley, who will share their stories, which will be recorded and archived in the North American Climb- ing History Archives. "There's always been women climbers, from the dawn of climbing," said Ni- cole Belle Isle, 42, a climb- ing instructor from Sunny- vale and leader of a local women's group SheClimbs Bay Area. "The women who climbed early on were the more adventurous ones for their times. I definitely ad- mire what they've done." And what they've done is open up rock faces, ice walls and caves for more women to join and excel in climb- ing, building a community that embraces women and has bred some of the world's strongest extreme-sports athletes. "The sport has just ex- ploded exponentially," said Alycia Cavadi, 42, a two- decade climber from North Conway, N.H., one of the country's oldest climbing grounds. "Women have a natural aptitude toward the sport. We just realized that we didn't need men to guide us." Their predecessors in- clude Hill, who in 1993 was the first person to free climb up The Nose, a diffi- cult sheer rock face on El Capitan in Yosemite Valley, and Beverly Johnson, the first woman to solo climb the Dihedral Wall of El Cap- itan in 1978. They climbed when social norms told them not to and when the sport was "all about guys being guys," but often out- climbed the men around them, said Joseph Taylor III, a longtime rock climber and history professor at Si- mon Fraser University in British Columbia. Climbing "was very much bound up with gender and with young men who were very insecure for a variety of reasons and constantly measuring themselves against other men," Taylor said. "These women began to undermine the conceit that men are better than women. Once a woman starts climbing 5.13s and 5.14s, no one has any room for attitude anymore," he said, referring to extraor- dinarily difficult grades for climbing routes. Women, in fact, have been climbing — or more pre- cisely trekking and moun- taineering, which laid the groundwork for modern- day rock climbing — since the 1920s, but they're not household names like Sir Edmund Hillary, the first person to summit Mount Everest, and their feats are missing from history books. "History tends to be writ- ten by men, and women are left out of it," said Steve Grossman, a longtime rock climber in Seattle who di- rects the festival and is curating the climbing ar- chives. "This is my attempt to correct that. Climbing is very different now. Climb- ing is pretty much half men and half women, so it's worth backing up and taking a look at how things have changed." And how things have changed: In 1960, Beards- ley was kicked off a nine- month expedition led by Hillary to study the effect of long stays in high alti- tude. Beardsley, now 79 and living in Palo Alto, joined her then-husband, Leigh Ortenburger, on the trip but "Hillary made all the wives leave," she said. "I had prob- ably as much high-altitude climbing experience as the physiologists on the expedi- tion," but that didn't matter to them. Hillary later invited Beardsley to return, and she stayed 18 days at 19,000 feet in the Himalayas. A half-century later, Ma- jka Burhardt, a professional climber, writer and speaker living in North Conway, in May did a successful first ascent up the second-high- est peak in Mozambique. She guided scientists to study the ecosystem and launch a conservation plan for the mountain. "I didn't have to apply to Sir Edmund Hillary," said Burhardt, 38, who is pro- ducing a video of the climb. "People understood I was the big boss." But despite easier access to climbing, several women climbers expressed concern that the sport is still highly sexist. "Climbing is definitely still a man's sport," said Georgie Abel, of Mor- aga, who has been climb- ing for nine years. "Some- times people also automat- ically assume that I am not a strong climber because I am a woman, saying things like, 'Don't worry, there are easier routes down the hill,' before ever having seen me climb or knowing of my ability level." Women who are climbing guides report having clients who question their capabili- ties because of their gender. Other women say their suc- cesses on the rock are un- dermined — she only fin- ished that route because her fingers are smaller, her hands are thinner or she's shorter, critics say. But women are combat- ing that small but persis- tent group of naysayers by forming girls' climb- ing camps and all-women climbing groups, teaching each other the skills to climb safely and smartly. Among the fastest-grow- ing groups is SheClimbs Bay Area, a group with more than 360 members that first formed in 2000 and was resurrected in 2013 on Meetup.com by Belle Isle and 26-year-old Emily Aygun, of Mountain View. "It's easy for women to disagree with each other, but there have been mounds and mounds of friendships that have been born out of this group," said Aygun. "Just climbing with other women alone, it's something special. Women climb so much dif- ferently than men — not just mentally, but how we move. Our tactics, our bal- ance, the way we approach problems." FITNESS Womenascendintheworldofclimbing PATRICKTEHAN/BAYAREANEWSGROUP Climbing student Erica Buchinski, of San Jose, makes her way up a rock wall during an intro to climbing course at Pinnacles National Park near Paicines. Proposition 45 would al- low California's elected in- surance commissioner to regulate health plan rates for 6 million Californians with individual policies or who get their insurance as employees of small busi- nesses. The No on 45 campaign recently released a 30-sec- ond television ad, now run- ning in major media mar- kets. Whatdoesthead say? A man and a woman, who say they are owners of a neighborhood hardware store, talk about the impor- tance of controlling health care costs. That, they say, is why the business signed up for a health care plan through "the new indepen- dent commission." "But along comes Prop. 45," says the man, "giv- ing one Sacramento poli- tician the power to over- ride the commission." The measure, he says, "lets the politician take campaign money from special inter- ests, then do their bidding instead of consumers." The woman pipes in: "That's why small business and health care organiza- tions across California op- pose 45." The man ends the ad by saying, "It's just too much power for one politi- cian." Is the ad true? The ad is highly mislead- ing. For starters, there is no disclosure that the man in the ad is actor Efrain Figueroa, who has ap- peared in television roles such as Father Marquez in "Modern Family" and Jorge Machado in "The Shield." The woman is apparently an actress as well. Using actors in campaign commercials is a common ploy. But California law says a TV ad must clearly disclose on the screen that an actor is being paid if the payment tops $5,000. Any payment of more than $500 must be disclosed in required campaign expen- ditures reports. It's unclear from those reports how much the actors in this ad were paid, but so far no dis- claimer has appeared on the ad. The ad also confuses viewers by referring to a "new independent commis- sion." What the woman in the ad is referring to is the five-member board of Cov- ered California, the state's health insurance exchange created by President Barack Obama's health care law. The exchange's board is anything but independent: Its members are appointed by state legislators and the governor. Using a small business as an example of Proposition 45 is on point because the measure would apply only to people who buy their health insurance in the in- dividual and small-business markets. In real life, however, the couple probably would have had a tough time buy- ing health insurance for their business through Covered California. Its on- line small-business portal called SHOP, a health in- surance marketplace de- veloped for employers with two to 50 eligible workers, was such a disaster for in- surance agents and small businesses during the first enrollment period that the exchange took it off-line by mid-February, accepting only paper applications af- ter that. Fewer than 2,000 small businesses have en- rolled in coverage through SHOP since late last year. It's true that Proposi- tion 45 would give one Sacramento politician the power to override the Cov- ered California board. The measure would allow the state's elected insurance commissioner to regulate excessive health insurance rates, as is now done in 35 other states. California's commissioner already has the power to control rates for car and homeowners in- surance. To say that the commis- sioner would cater to "spe- cial interests" who give him or her campaign funds — as opposed to " consumers," most of whom also vote — is a highly unlikely scenario. It's true that many small businesses and health care groups oppose Proposi- tion 45. But almost all of the $43 million raised to kill the measure is coming from health insurance com- panies. TracySeipel,SanJose Mercury News staff. ELECTION New anti-Proposition 45 TV ad misleads viewers The Associated Press WASHINGTON An Army two-star general and 11 of his staff are being isolated at the base in Italy upon returning from serving in West Africa to help with the Ebola fight. The general and his staff were met by Italian secu- rity officials wearing full hazardous materials suits when they arrived in Vi- cenza, Italy, over the week- end, a senior military offi- cial said Monday. Maj. Gen. Darryl A. Wil- liams, the commander who led the U.S. response in Li- beria, and the members of his headquarters staff were some of the first troops to go to Liberia and were there to provide the initial assess- ments of the military needs and to begin coordinate the U.S. response. They did not have contact with Eb- ola patients. But the Army told Williams and his staff before leaving Liberia that they would be isolated near their base in Vicenza, Italy, for 21 days. 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