
10-year-old Colorado girl is the youngest to scale Yosemite’s famed El Capitan - HillaryBriss
https://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-ln-el-capitan-yosemite-10-year-old-girl-20190619-story.html
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jfengel
It's an impressive feat, but this article fails to mention that she wasn't
"climbing" in the sense that most people use the term. She was jumaring, where
you use devices to climb up a fixed rope. It's exhausting and not without
skill, but it's not at all like free climbing by holding onto the rock. (See,
for example, [https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/10-year-old-girl-
climbs-y...](https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/10-year-old-girl-climbs-
yosemite-el-capitan/index.html))

(Free climbers use ropes, but only to arrest falls, not to climb up. Free
soloers like Alex Honnold don't even use that protection, though that's very
rare and incredibly dangerous. This is "aid climbing" with ascenders. It does
have dangers of its own: protection points can fail, and she's wearing a
helmet because rocks do fall.)

~~~
krisrm
Indeed... imo, an aided climb* of 600ft/day is not "climbing El Capitan",
that's just quite a lot of rope climbing.

*edit - should have written jumaring

~~~
warp_factor
Aid climbing is not jumaring though. It means you use tools to get up. Most of
the time the face is blank and you still need to get up painfully and add all
the protections to go up little by little (aid climbing leading). Sometimes
for higher grades of aid climbing (C3,A4,A5) this is very scary as there is
almost nothing to hold on and you are literally pulling on very small hooks
that barely rest on the side of the rock.

In this specific case I'm pretty sure that the two adults took the leads and
the girl followed jumaring behind.

~~~
krisrm
You're quite right - I mistyped.

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jwagenet
For those interested, the Alpinist article from a week ago has much more
detail (and some history).[0]

It looks like she led the first pitch of 5.7 free climbing and an A0 (easy aid
climbing) bolt ladder. She otherwise followed and cleaned/removed gear for her
father and a family friend in the party, who appear to be experienced. They
planned for 4 days, but completed in 5. My understanding is this is a standard
pace for amateurs and they were even outpacing other parties. The primary
difficulties for a kid, besides the technical climbing, are maintaining focus
for 5 days on the wall 1000s of feet up and sleeping on a small ledge, and
carrying a large amount of heavy gear, relative to bodyweight.

[0] [http://www.alpinist.com/doc/web19s/newswire-10-year-old-
sela...](http://www.alpinist.com/doc/web19s/newswire-10-year-old-selah-
schneiter-summits-nose)

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robbrown451
I'm pretty far from a helicopter parent, but I draw the line at El Capitan.

~~~
gameswithgo
I'm not sure how dangerous this is. Its an aid assisted climb, so ropes are
on, and taut the whole time. Climber uses the gear to get up. Assuming an
adult is checking the gear all the way up it shouldn't be that crazy. It just
takes a long time and is strenuous.

~~~
jonny_eh
I had a friend die at Yosemite due to a falling rock. She was wearing a helmet
too.

~~~
gameswithgo
yeah, and bad weather is a risk too. But riding a bike and other kid things
face similar risks.

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gilbetron
My son has gotten 2 solo Victory Royales in Fortnite, he's 10, too.

Some people seem a different (superior) species.

~~~
danaur
No doubt some people do crazy things but I feel like the primary thing that
enabled this is money and time

~~~
warp_factor
This. And committed parents.

This is a lot of training and committed parents. I'm doing a lot of aid
climbing myself and anyone could be good at aid climbing if enough training
and commitment is put inside it.

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corndoge
Good climb. BBC reported it as a free climb which is inaccurate though. She
used ascenders

~~~
module0000
A free climb by a 10-year old seems (sadly) a way to have DHS come and take
your kid away afterwards :(

I'm still impressed, even with ascending devices. For being 10 years old, that
shows a lot of patience and deliberation.

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barking
Are these people all putting those bolts to hold ropes into the face of the
rock? It's getting pretty stupid when fathers are taking their ten year old
daughters up the climb. If it's dangerous it should be unlawful, if it's not
then what's the point?

~~~
TYPE_FASTER
Placing bolts is allowed at Yosemite (see the bolting policy at the bottom of
this page):
[https://www.nps.gov/yose/planyourvisit/climbing_regulations....](https://www.nps.gov/yose/planyourvisit/climbing_regulations.htm)

The majority of the routes are not bolted (see the breakdown of climb by type
on this page): [https://www.mountainproject.com/area/105833388/yosemite-
vall...](https://www.mountainproject.com/area/105833388/yosemite-valley)

They climbed The Nose, which seems to be a mix of trad (traditional, no fixed
holds) and aid (placing temporary protection, then using gear to climb up to
the protection, then placing protection, etc.) climbing - more on the
different types of climbing here:
[http://www.alpineinstitute.com/articles/expert-tips/rock-
cli...](http://www.alpineinstitute.com/articles/expert-tips/rock-climbing-
terms-styles-and-techniques).

More on The Nose route: [https://www.mountainproject.com/route/105924807/the-
nose](https://www.mountainproject.com/route/105924807/the-nose)

More detailed look:
[http://www.supertopo.com/topos/yosemite/thenose.pdf](http://www.supertopo.com/topos/yosemite/thenose.pdf)

You can see in the map of the route that some belay stations are bolted, and
in fact the original ascent did use bolts -
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nose_(El_Capitan)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nose_\(El_Capitan\)).

> If it's dangerous it should be unlawful

The mountains, the oceans, and the deserts seem to be the last refuges of
freedom. I hope that doesn't change.

~~~
barking
Thanks for the information and i agree with your last point about freedom. But
an adult shouldn't have the freedom to endanger a ten year old's life. On the
other hand, if El Capitan has been tamed to the extent that the climbing of it
has become safe and routine then I think there's an argument for putting the
climbing of it to bed and instead preserving it in as pristine a state as
possible.

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adam12
What is the age of consent for something like this?

~~~
Someone1234
That's not a thing.

The closest thing might be Child Endangerment (or similar depending on
jurisdiction) but I'd argue with the safety gear she had on it wouldn't pass
the "reasonable person" test. Which is to say a reasonable person wouldn't
find it unsafe to climb El Capitan with full safety gear, an experienced adult
climber, and experience climbing smaller peaks herself.

