January 15, 2015

El Capitan, a rock formation in Yosemite National Park in California, where two free-climbers ascended on January 14. Credit: © KPG_Payless/Shutterstock

Yesterday afternoon, Americans Kevin Jorgeson and Tommy Caldwell became the first free-climbers to summit the forbidding Dawn Wall of El Capitan, a granite formation in California’s Yosemite National Park. The Dawn Wall is a vertical face with very few hand holds. Jorgeson and Caldwell chose a route that is about 3,000 feet  (914 meters) to the summit. (The area in shadow in the above photo is the Dawn Wall.) The men began the free-climb on December 27.

Free-climbers use rope only for safety—that is, should a climber fall, a rope and harness breaks the fall and prevents him or her from plummeting down the side of the cliff. But such climbers do not use rope or other hardware to aid their ascent. They use only their hands and feet to find small cracks and seams in the cliff face to climb. Climbers ascend in sections called pitches; because the ropes used by Jorgeson and Caldwell were 200 feet (61 meters) long, no pitch for their climb was more than 200 feet in length.  The Dawn Wall was climbed in 32 pitches.

Water and supplies were hauled up to the climbers with rope. The men rested in portaledges—fabric-covered platforms suspended from rope that dangle against the side of a rock face. Some sections of the climb were very technically difficult. On Pitch 15, Jorgeson fell 11 times over 7 days, each time having to starting the pitch at the beginning again. Both men trained for more than 5 years for the climb.

Tommy Caldwell lowers down to his portaledge, the suspended platform in which climbers rest during a lengthy rock climb. Credit: Tommy Caldwell

Additional World Book article:

• Climbing