![[Illustration] Andreas Schmidt](https://alpinist.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/deringolade-alp56-full-vallue-1-930x620.jpg)
In this Full Value story from Alpinist 56 Sibylle Hechtel recounts a pivotal moment in her climbing career–her first first-ascent, in Canada’s Bugaboos, 1973. She went on to become famous for the first all-female ascent of El Capitan with Beverly Johnson later that year, but her experience in the Bugs taught her “how to get up and back down” in the mountains.
![Mitchell Peak (12,482'). [Photo] David Salisbury](https://alpinist.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/my-big-scary-first-ascent-sybell-hetchel-930x618.jpg)
Before she and Bev Johnson made the first female ascent of El Capitan, Sibylle Hechtel lead her first unclimbed big wall in the Wind Rivers: “Dick handed me our minimal gear, pointed,
and said, “Just head up that corner until you get to a good ledge, and set up a belay.’ I gulped.”
Sibylle Hechtel remembers Charlie Porter as the “burly, and utterly huggable” boyfriend of Bev Johnson, with whom Hechtel made the first all-female ascent of El Capitan. Her story continues our series on Porter’s life, as told by his friends and climbing partners.
