Climbers make history on Dawn Wall free climb
Tommy Caldwell, Kevin Jorgeson become first to negotiate difficult climbing route on Yosemite’s El Capitan using only hands and feet; safety rope used for falls
Tommy Caldwell and Kevin Jorgeson, the climbers in Yosemite National Park who have been in the news for a couple of weeks now, finally accomplished the feat everyone has been talking about:
They became the first to free climb the difficult Dawn Wall of El Capitan, using only safety ropes to prevent them from falling but otherwise negotiating the near 3,000-foot granite monolith with only their hands and feet.
Caldwell, 36, and Jorgeson, 30, who had reportedly spent the past five years training together on El Capitan and creating a strategy, reached the top of the Dawn Wall just after 3 p.m. local time on Wednesday, ending a 19-day stretch on the famous rock formation.
Caldwell reached a spot beneath the summit and appeared to wait as several cameramen climbed into position, then started his final ascent. When he pulled himself up onto the final ledge at 3:05 p.m., he raised his arms in success then waited for Jorgeson. About 16 minutes later, Jorgeson joined Caldwell on the same ledge and they hugged. Jorgeson raised his arms and then took his helmet off, mission accomplished.
When word arrived that the climbers had made it, a cheer went up from an estimated crowd of 100 in El Capitan Meadows, according to the San Jose Mercury News. More than 25 friends and family members had climbed the backside of El Cap to greet the climbers at the top.
“It’s a tremendous relief,” Mike Caldwell, Tommy’s father, told the San Jose Mercury News. “It has been such a part of our lives. I miss it already.”
The climbers were not planning to speak to media on Wednesday. A press conference in El Capitan Meadow will be held for the climbers Thursday at 11 a.m.
Tom Evans, who first climbed El Capitan 48 years ago, told the New York Times earlier this month that “If they get it completed, it will be the hardest completed rock climb in the world. This will be the climb of the first half of the 21st century.”
The Dawn Wall, a near vertical wall that catches the first light of the morning, is considered the most difficult route of the 100 or so climbing routes on El Capitan. Evans said there are only about 13 routes on El Cap that have been free climbed.
“What makes the Dawn Wall so special is that it’s almost not possible,” legendary free solo climber Alex Honnold told the Times. “The hardest pitches on the Dawn Wall are harder than I’ve ever climbed.”
Pitch 15, for instance, gave Jorgeson quite a bit of trouble. He wrote on Facebook that for seven days it halted his momentum, and “it took everything in my power to stay positive and resolve that I would succeed.” He fell nearly a dozen times, caught by the rope.
Caldwell wrote on Facebook that the crux holds of pitch 15 (there are 32 pitches, or sections) are “some of the smallest and sharpest holds I have ever attempted to hold on to. Is crazy to think that the skin on our fingertips could be the limiting fact towards success or failure. I have resorted to setting my alarm to wake myself up every four hours to reapply @climbonproducts.”
Dawn Wall route on El Capitan in Yosemite. Image from NationalGeographic.com used by permission
The route is so smooth it doesn’t offer much in the way of handholds, or fingertip holds as it were.
“Not only is the route the most difficult of its kind, but even the individual sections are the hardest that have ever been done in Yosemite Valley,” Dougald MacDonald, editor of American Alpine Journal, told the San Jose Mercury News. “Nobody has done anything this hard even 100 feet off the ground.”
Until now.
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