
On El Capitan’s Dawn Wall, Climb Thought to Be Toughest Progresses Slowly - wallflower
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/05/sports/on-el-capitans-dawn-wall-two-climbers-make-slow-progress-toward-a-dream.html
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hammerdr
[http://www.supertopo.com/inc/photo_zoom.php?dpid=Ojg7PjwgICE...](http://www.supertopo.com/inc/photo_zoom.php?dpid=Ojg7PjwgICEjLQ)
[Warning: beta]

That's a pretty good breakdown of the route. One of them completed pitch 15
yesterday and today were mapping out pitch 16 / continuing pitch 15. There's
contention over whether 15 or 16 is more difficult :)

Pitch 16 is the dyno pitch (video of him dyno-ing:
[http://vimeo.com/80908548](http://vimeo.com/80908548)) though it sounds like
they might be doing a workaround to not have to do the dyno (they think its
hard to do consistently.. for obvious reasons).

[http://instagram.com/p/xb6x5Oj5dz](http://instagram.com/p/xb6x5Oj5dz) \- a
picture of how high and exposed they are on El Cap.

And, more information just if you're still wanting to listen to a climbing
nerd.

Free climbing means that they climb without "aid" \- e.g. nothing is pulling
them up the wall but themselves. They still use ropes and other devices for
protection.

Pitch is a "section" like the article says, but you have to climb between
these sections before you get any rest. Otherwise, you have to stayed glued to
the wall on your own power. Once you get there, you set up camp and wait for
the other person to climb up to you. Up you go the next pitch, etc. etc.

Dyno is a move that requires a person to leave solid contact with the wall and
move to another place. This is usually seen as a leap from one hand hold to
the next hand hold.

Traverse is a lateral, not upward movement.

Yosemite is one of the world's premiere Big Wall locations. To do this in this
place is iconic.

Climbing can be very much like (a very physical) puzzle game. Especially for
long climbs. You need the right gear, the right moves, the right body
position, etc. in order to keep going. It's both mentally and physically
taxing.

~~~
Intermernet
That dyno is one of the best ever :-)

I think Malcolm Matheson on Mirage comes close though:
[http://www.chockstone.org/Interviews/SCarter/hb3.jpg](http://www.chockstone.org/Interviews/SCarter/hb3.jpg)

------
sgrytoyr
Fantastic achievement if they pull it off.

Incidentally, Alex Honnold, one of the climbers interviewed in the article, is
the star of one of the most frightening videos I have ever seen - him free-
soloing El Sendero Luminoso:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Phl82D57P58](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Phl82D57P58)

Even though I know perfectly well that nobody fell to their death on that
climb, and have done a fair bit of climbing myself, I can’t watch this video
without having a powerful physical reaction.

It’s mind-boggling what some people are capable of.

~~~
InclinedPlane
That's an impressive achievement. El Sendero Luminoso is rated a 5.12d V
climb. For those who don't know, back in the mid 20th century when climbing
started becoming very popular they invented the "Yosemite Decimal System" for
rating climbs, 5.9 was considered the most difficult class possible. However,
climbing improved and starting in the '70s or so people were able to climb
routes that were much more difficult than 5.9s, so they just extended the
scale. But whereas 5.9 is just one level, 5.10 is actually 4 separate classes
(5.10a-d), as is 5.11. That gives you a sense of how difficult (technically
beyond impossible from the perspective of a 1960s era climber) a 5.12d class
climb is. Additionally, the V grade indicates that it is normally considered a
2 day climb. Honnold's climb is simply astounding.

~~~
scarecrowbob
I can grant you that the technical skill and all around.... I dunno what a
good word is... lack of the paralyzing fear that I'd feel in a similar
situation: that's _amazing_.

However, the fact that it was done quickly makes a lot of sense if you think
about how much goes into doing stuff like that safely. A lot of things that
might take a long time take less time if you have the technical ability to
pull them off with a lot of safeguards removed.

Moving is much, much faster when you can get rid of a partner, not drag a rope
or set pro, and especially not have to carry equipment for spending a night on
the rock.

I don't know if these safeguards would be good for most people to remove, but
it is a neat case where there is a massive gain by changing the system.

------
Intermernet
For anyone after numbers supporting the claim that this may be the worlds
hardest free climb, consider this. The hardest climbs in the world (using US
grading system) are graded 5.15c . These currently exist as isolated pitches
of less than 150 feet.

The Dawn Wall has 19 pitches (15 have now been completed). at least 6 of these
pitches are graded 5.14 and above, and most of the remainder are 5.13 . These
are _all_ very hard pitches.

The overall difficulty of a multi-pitch climb (using the US grading system)
isn't really based on the grade of the hardest pitch. Completing this climb is
the equivalent of doing 19 _very_ hard climbs in a row, with 6 of them being
accessible to a handful of _very_ dedicated climbers in the world.

Here's some videos from 2013 (yes, they've been working on this for a very
long time) [http://www.rockandice.com/lates-news/exclusive-dawn-wall-
pro...](http://www.rockandice.com/lates-news/exclusive-dawn-wall-project-
videos-sharma-caldwell-jorgeson)

~~~
weaksauce
5.12 is a grade that someone needs to be fairly dedicated and skilled to
achieve.

5.13 is something that very few dedicated climbers will get to.

5.14 is elite territory and you are in the top few percent of climbers world
wide.

5.15 is like climbing glass, hung at a 45 degree overhang.

the dawn wall has 7 pitches of 5.13 climbing and 7 pitches of hard 5.14
climbing... plus "filler" 5.11 and 5.12 climbing for the other 20ish pitches.
I have been climbing for years and have only climbed a handful of 5.12
climbs... it's really, really hard. to say that this is hard is an
understatement.

edit: the grades came from the YDS which was the yosemite decimal
system(actually started at tahquitz before royal robbins went to yos). there
are classes of climbing grades where class 1 is walking to get the mail, class
3 is some scrambling but if you slipped you'd be ok usually, class 4 is where
you'd probably get really hurt or die if you fell at the wrong time but the
climbing is not super hard, class 5 was subdivided into a decimal rating from
5.0 to 5.9. There were climbs in Tahquitz that were the standard of difficulty
for these grades. The trough was 5.0(modern 5.4) all the way up to open book
which was 5.9 and considered to be the pinnacle of human achievement.

After a while humans got stronger, and the equipment got better, and technique
got refined so they opened up the YDS to be open ended as it is today with
grades greater than 5.9. they initially stuck with whole numbers but
eventually they decided that there needed to be a finer grained approach to
grading. thus every grade after 5.10 was given a letter grade from a to d.
each letter grade is roughly equivalent to a number grade below 5.10(going
from 5.8 to 5.9 is roughly equivalent to going from 5.10a to 5.10b in terms of
relative increased difficulty) and each letter grade can take months or years
to get strong/technical enough to ascend.

all this was said to drive home the fact that what they are doing is amazing
and defies belief. they are climbing multiple pitches of climbs that are 24
"grades" harder than what was once thought of as the hardest someone could
ever climb.

~~~
sveme
That's a pretty good summary - though I'm more used to the French and Middle-
European scales. As I have been searching for something like that for a while
already, do you by any chance have a link to something like a cumulative
distribution for fraction of climbers that can do grade x? Something like 90%
of all climbers can do 5.9, 65% can do 5.10, 30% 5.11 and so forth?
Percentages obviously picked out of thin air. Just out of curiosity as a
climber and data nerd.

~~~
Intermernet
Not a distribution, but probably a useful data set, is the first year a
particular grade was climbed.
[http://web.stanford.edu/~clint/yos/hard.htm](http://web.stanford.edu/~clint/yos/hard.htm)

For an approximation of what you're after, I'd recommend comparing number of
first ascents of climbs of a particular grade in the last 3 - 5 years. This
time frame should include enough data to get a reasonable answer, and won't be
too biased by advances in equipment and ability over the last few decades.

The Crag ([http://www.thecrag.com](http://www.thecrag.com)) have an API that
may be useful for an initial data set
([http://www.thecrag.com/article/api](http://www.thecrag.com/article/api)).
Other online resources are [http://www.8a.nu](http://www.8a.nu) and
[http://www.supertopo.com/](http://www.supertopo.com/) but I don't think they
have easily accessible APIs.

------
spuz
I've been following Tommy and Kevin's progress closely on www.elcapreport.com,
and one thing that fascinates me is how much travelling up and down the wall
the two climbers make beyond the scope of the actual ascent. For example,
before attempting a single pitch, Kevin has been moving up the pitch on a rope
in order to tic the holds (place small chalk marks beside them to make them
visible). Also, having successfully climbed a pitch, they might abseil back
down to the camp from the previous night to rest before moving up again the
next day. Or Tommy might go up to help a cameraman get set up in a position
before going back down and attempting a pitch.

In order words, their progress is not necessarily measured by their position
on the wall, but rather the sequential 'freeing' of each pitch in turn with
all kinds of logistics involved in between. It's very different from say
mountain climbing, but of course at this level, there is probably no other way
that it can be done.

------
mbostleman
[http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/05/0528_030528_...](http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/05/0528_030528_rockclimbers.html)

An interesting side note about Caldwell is that he was held hostage, along
with others, by rebels in Kyrgyzstan in 2000 while climbing there. He pushed a
captor off the side of the mountain which led to their escape. Bad ass.

------
beefman
It must be Caldwell's left hand shown in the inset

"Caldwell accidentally sawed off much of his left index finger with a table
saw in 2001. Doctors were able to reattach the severed portion, but Caldwell
subsequently had it removed so as not to hinder his climbing career."

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tommy_Caldwell](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tommy_Caldwell)

------
peterwwillis
Some of the most interesting aspects of climbing to me are the mental and
physical challenges that humans continue to plow through.

I mean, look at free solo climbing. You have to be so confident of your
physical endurance, mental endurance and climbing skill that you are
absolutely certain you will not fail, and then rely on sheer adrenaline to get
through any rough spots. This after completely ignoring routine problems such
as weather changes, holds breaking, animals/insects, physical injury, etc. How
is it even possible for us to accomplish this physically, much less to work
past the fear and uncertainty and keep the mind focused enough to work on
complicated problems and accomplish a challenging task?

Other animals have no difficulty climbing walls. But typically they have some
kind of natural advantage that helps them scale the nearly sheer surfaces...
scales to provide friction, nails to dig into tiny pits, a high strength to
weight ratio, hard friction-y pads and tough keratin hooves. Of course, we
couldn't get very far without our specially designed climbing shoes, but even
without shoes we still manage to lumber our weak, squishy bodies up
complicated pitches. And the real kicker is we don't do it to avoid predators
or reach food stores; we just feel like climbing.

------
songgao
Daily updates from Tommy's wife:
[http://tommyandbecca.blogspot.com/](http://tommyandbecca.blogspot.com/)

edit: pronoun

------
baddox
Does anyone have a source with more technical details about the climb, the
gear they use, the route they take, etc.? I have no experience rock climbing
other than belaying once for a friend, but I know several climbers so I have
caught onto the excitement.

~~~
narenst
This blog post explains the different pitches and their progress day-by-day.
It gives the difficulty of each pitch.

[http://eveningsends.com/climbing/like-dawn-tommy-caldwell-
ke...](http://eveningsends.com/climbing/like-dawn-tommy-caldwell-kevin-
jorgeson/)

Climbing big walls (that take multiple days) is a big logistical problem. This
page explains the basics of big wall climbing climbing including planning and
gear.

[http://www.climbing.com/skill/your-first-big-
wall/](http://www.climbing.com/skill/your-first-big-wall/)

------
ryannevius
For some good background on Tommy, and the project, here's a quick video
overview: [https://vimeo.com/58005535](https://vimeo.com/58005535)

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arethuza
Although not on the same scale, some climbs on Hoy in Orkney at the far north
of the UK were originally done as multi-day aid climbs in the 60s.

Here is a trailer of a film for Dave MacLeod free climbing one of these routes
a few years back:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Ds5LZel0WU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Ds5LZel0WU)

------
jonah
Rock & Ice has some daily videos which give a nice first-hand view of the
situation:
[http://vimeo.com/rockandice/videos](http://vimeo.com/rockandice/videos)

------
lotsofmangos
I watched people climbing El Capitan when I visited Yosemite. Anyone who
manages to get up that cliff face by climbing by any method is amazing. What
these guys are doing is right at the limit.

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cromulent
Inspiring stuff. Such a pity that it is illegal to jump those Yosemite walls.

