NatGeo yosemite

8/6/2019 NatGeo yosemite

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A new generation of supercl imbers is pushing the l imits inYosemite.


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a t S a t u r d a y morninginSeptember a yo is clinging to the face ofHalfDome, a sheer 2,130-foot wall of granite intheheart of Yosemite Valley.He's alone, so high off theground that perhaps only the eagles take notice.Hanging on byh is f inger ti ps t o an edge o f rock Er ickson c limbed Hal f Dome a lmost complet el ya s t hi n as a d ime , shoes smeared on mere r ippl es f ree -r ely ing on ly on hands and feetwedged in toin the rock, Eminem blas ting on his iPod, Alex the cracks, us ing ropes only to catch a fall-inHonnold is attempting something no one has 34 hours. For Honnold to free s olo Half Domeever tried before: to climb the Regular North- would be to raise the bar almost beyond belief.west Face route all Half Dome without a rope. Now, clinging to the granite, Honnold vac-He's less than a hundred feet from the summit illates, delicately chalking one hand, then thewhen something potent ial ly d isas trous occu rs - o ther , v ig ilantl y ad just ing hi s f ee t on invi si blyhe loses the smallest measure of confidence. small footholds . Then abruptly he's in motionFor two hours and 45 minutes Honnold has again, stepping up, smearing his shoe on thebeen in the zone, flawlessly performing hun- slick knob. It sticks. He moves his hand to an-

dreds ofprec ise a thle tic moves one after another , other hold, crimping his f ingers on the t iny edge.and not once has he hesitated. In the sport of Within minutes he's at the top.free soloing, which means climbing with only a "I rallied because there was nothing else Ipowdery chalk bag and rock shoes -no rope, no could do;' Honnold tells me later, releas ing agea r, nothing tokeep you s tuck to the s tone but boyi sh laugh . "I s tepped up and t rusted that te r-your own be li ef and abil it y-doub t is dangerous. ri ble foo thold and was f re ed o f t he li tt le p risonIfHonnold's fingertips can't hold, or if he merely where Id stood silently for five minute :'believes his fingertips can't hold, he will fall to Word of his two-hour-and-SO-minute freehis death. Now, the spell suddenly broken by solo of Half Dome flashes around the world.mental fatigue and the glas s-slick s lab in front Climbers are stunned, and bloggers buzz. Onof him, he's paralyzed. this warm fall day in 2008 the nerdy, plays-"My foot will never stay on that:' Honnold Scrabble-with-his-mom 23-year-old from the

says to himself , s ta ring a t a greasy bump on the suburbs o fSacramen to has j us t set a new reco rdrock face. "Oh God, I'm screwed." in climbing's biggest of big leagues.He hadn' t fel t that way two days before, when

he'd raced up the same route with a rope. Thatclimb had gone so smoothly he was certain hecould free solo i t, despi te the route 's legendarydifficulty. When Half Dome was first c limbed,in 1957, i thad taken Cal ifornian Royal Robbinsand h is t eamma te s f ive days. To get t o t he t op ,4,840 feet above the val ley floor , theyd pound-ed a hundred o r so p it ons, th in wedges of s te el ,i nt o the rock, f rom which they' d hung ropes t oclimb-a style cal led aid climbing. A generat ionla te r, i n 1976 , Colo radans Art Higbee and J im102 NATJONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAY 2011

THIS IS THE MAGIC of Yosemite: Itforges heroes.No ma tt er where they come f rom, f rom the Alpsto the Andes, a ll sel f-respecting rock climbersyearn to make a pilgrimage to "the valley" tomeasure themselves against i ts giants: E1Capi-t an , a shimmer ing p row ofs tone so immense itmakes t he hundred -foo t ponderosa p ines a t i tsbase l ook min ia tu re ; Cathed ral Rocks , a darkfortress forever in the s hade; and Half Dome, agrani te apple c leaved in half, i ts soaring north-wes t f ac e an inv ita ti on to t he bolde st cl imbe rs

in the wor ld . To cl imb here i sa ri te o fpassage.I made my first journey to the valley in the

1970s, a hungry teenager hitchhiking from Wyo-ming with a $20 bil land a climbing rope. Havinggrown up on the High Plai ns and t es ted mysel finthe Rockies, Iwanted tobelieve I was ready. Avacationing family from Iowa in a station wagon,with three kids and a golden ret riever , droppedme off in a meadow beneath the shadow of E1Capitan, and I must have s tood there with myhead t il ted back, stunned, for 15minutes.I stayed in Camp 4, Yosemite' s notoriously

rowdy campground fo r cl imbe rs . Back then ,Camp 4 was all bell-bottoms and beads, torntents and worn sleeping bags . Climbers werel ong -hai red , hard-par tyi ng rebe ls , add ict edto independence and the thrill of s caling big

Sweltering sun prompts TommyCaldwell (at left) and Kevin Jorgesonto take a break from the ir quest tofree climb a new route on EICapitan.

rocks and thus the bane of park rangers , whowere known as "the tools:'The fee ling was mutual. One midnight, after

barely getting up a big wall, my friends and Is tumbled back into camp only to di scover thatthe rangers had confiscated our tent because wedover st ayed our perm it . We s lept in the d ir t thatnight and from then on "stea lth bivvied" rol lingout ou r s leeping bags in the fores t o r among theboulders, sleeping under the stars, and return-ing to the walls before daybreak (still a com-mon pract ice) . We col lected aluminum cans forc ash and li ved on peanut but te r and cheap bee r,Ma rk J en ki ns i s a c on tr ib ut in g w ri te r. J im m y C h in ,a 2 00 4 N a ti on al G e og ra ph ic em er gi ng e xp lo re r, h asp ho to gr ap he d c li mb er s a ll o ve r t he w o rl d.

CLIMBING YOSEMITE 103


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CLIMBING STYLESCmbng r ou tesAseec t on o f t hemar",than ro o estabshedroutes is shown here.- F ea tu re d i n a r t cl e- Other

A id ( sp ec ia z ed ) F re e (mo st p opu a r)N yI O s t rr up l ad de rs H ar ne ss ed t o a r o pea tt ac hed t o p ac ed t o ha t f a s , cl mb ershardware SU pport US6 hands andfeett he c lm be rs w e gh t. 1 0mo ve u p t h e r oc k.Most Re ance on gear

Free soo (rare)Cmbng w t hout r opes ;f as a reusuay f at a .Nomaor E IC a p rouehasbeenf reesooed. east


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VlSit. ingYosetnltetoday, you'rejust as likelyto meet adivorce at-torney fromDelaware asawild-haireddirtbag.

and we couldn' t have been happier.But I was a Camp 4 tourist, soon to

return to Wyoming. The lore of Camp4 came from those who lived therea ll summer , every summer , l ike hobokings, constantly pushing the l imits oftheir abili ties and the park's tolerance.To this day, Camp 4 fables a re st aplesof campfires round the world. Once, adrug smugglers' plane stuffed with balesof weed and wads of cash crashed inthe high country . The ragged, sandaledlads ofCamp 4 marched back and for ththrough the snow, absconding with the loot. Fora t ime, Tvbone steaks replaced tinned sardines.One climber rol led out ofYosemite in a broken-down DeSoto and returned ten dayslater in a redconvert ible Lincoln Continental . A few othersli t out for the Alps wi th dreams ofgrandeur butdidn' t make itany farther than a bordello inBor-deaux, returning fat and flatbroke the next year.That was then. Things have changed. Visit ing

a Yosemi te cl imbing camp today; you' re just asl ikely to meet a divorce attorney from Delawareasa wild-haired dirtbag. Walking through Camp4 one morning, I hear a dozen languages-Czech,Chinese, Thai, Italian-and meet climbers fromall walks of l i fe , A young German engineer, grin-ning ear to ear, has just completed a five-dayascent of ICap. A barefoot young woman fromDenmark, with nose ring, dreads, a tat too, walksa sl ackline-a t ightrope s trung three fee t off theground between trees. A mom and dad fromWashington State teach their two kids how toclimb. Rock climbing isno longer a fringe sport .It'smainstream, And unlike the early years, therea re nearly asmany women asmen on the rock-a welcome change reflected in the accomplish-ments of one person: Lynn Hill."I started hanging out in Camp 4 when I was

IS;' says Hill, now 50. "Iwas pract ical ly the onlygir l there: ' A former high school gymnast , shewas a fearless climber, bringing a fluid graceful-ness to the spor t By the t ime she was 17, Hil l hadscaled Half Dome."Lynnie was a genetic freak;' saysclimber John

Long. "She was the strongest , most s tubbornly110 NATIONAL GEOGJ{AI'HIC MAY 2011

dogged, most gi ft ed c limber I 'd evermet. Her weight-to-s trength rat io wasridiculous:'After perfect ing her craft in Yosem-

ite, Hill moved on to other venues,winning dozens ofcompeti tions in Eu-rope. Then in 1994, at 33, she returnedto Yosemi te wi th an audac ious plan:to f ree cl imb the Nose on EICapit anin a day. "All the naysayers said i twasimpossible;' Hill says. "Except ]ohn:'The Nose, a 2,916-foot l ine on ElCap,may be the most famous rock-climbing

route in the world. Toscale i t,you must painfullytwis t your hands and fee t, f ingers and toes in tovertical cracks. In 1975 Long, with Jim Bridwelland Bil ly Westbay, completed the first one-dayascent of the Nose, a lthough his t eam rel ied onaid climbing to get past the Great Roof, a harrow-ing overhang two- th irds of the way up.Determined to free the Great Roof, Hil l clungto the smallest fingerholds, hanging upsidedown, feet sk itt er ing off the s li ck wall , Us ingwhat she calls "delicate tai chi dance steps ," shemanaged to surmount the roof with what wereessentially fingertip side pulls . She reached thesummit ofE1 Cap in 23hours-a feat consideredby many today to be the ultimate climbing ac-complishment ofthe late 20th century .REGARDLESS OF ABILITY, every climber comes toYosemite wi th a dream: a route he or she i s ach-ing to do. When If i rst a rr ived , Ihad myheart se ton the S teck-Salathe on Sentine l Rock-a routethat requires plugging your whole body into awide crack. Alas, in the event, the wal l was toobig and my partner and I too green. We igno-miniously bailed only halfway up.Now, 30 years later, Dean Potter offers to

c limb it wi th me. One of the last long-hai redrebels s ti ll l iving in the valley, Potter, 38, is in-tense, built l ikeTarzan, and known for his rope-l es s ascents and bold BASE jumps, l eaping offc li ff s wi th a parachute. But Pott er has rules forme . I 'm not a llowed to bring any food or wate r,no backpack or raincoat, not even a helmet. "It 'sthe only way to move fast ;' he says.

Jorgeson (at left) and Caldwell l ive in a "portaledge" 1,500 feet above the val ley for up totwo weeks when working on a route. The best ameni ties intheir studio inthe sky?A Frenchpress for coffee and iPhones (charged with a solar panel). Onthe ground, climbers communein legendary Camp 4, including the section where search-and-rescue workers live (below).


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Potterha s rulesforme. I'mnot allowedto hringany food orwater, 110backpackor raincoat,not even ahelmet,

Speed has become the creed of thenew uberclimbers . "We'l l make a lei-surel y day of it ;' Potter p romi ses. Tosave weight, he goes barefoot duringthe nasty, bushwhacking approach. Atthe base, after stretching on our pain-ful ly t igh t rock shoes , we rope up andbegin ascending the 1,500-foot routelikemonkeys, hand jamming up cracks,squeezing through chimneys, climbingface holds as if they were a ladder . Vol etop out in less than four hours. I feellikewe've flown up the route, until Pot-tel ' te ll s me that he often free solos i t in an hour.This isthe trend. Most routes are now familiar,

and equipment and ski ll s are vastly improved.Sospeed rat her than exp lorat ion has become akey measure ofa c limber 's craft . In 1950, whenAllen Steck and John Salathe first c limbed theroute that bears the ir name, they took fivedays.The fi rs t ascen t of the Nose was a 47-day s iegeover a year and a half , f rom 1957 to '58 , by fun -loving iconoclast Warren Harding. Today slowparties take three to fivedays, spending nights on"portaledges, ' t iny tents hanging from the wal l;fast climbers do it in a day. The record for theNose is an unimaginable two hours, 36 minutes,and 45seconds, set last November byPotter andSean "Stanley" Leary.Climbing in t he ' 70s was about adven tu re as

much as athle tics. Today i t' s evolved into ver-tical gymnastics. Elite climbers are disciplinedathle tes who tra in constantly, repeating move-ments t o per fect ion. As dr iven as Lance Ann-strong or Michael Phelps, they're obsessed withtheir weight, because completing, or "sending:' aroute is all about defying gravity. Consider the 30orso climbers who show up ata party a tPotter 'scab in. In the old days such a ga ther ing wouldbe a rager, roaring till dawn. No longer. Nobodysmokes, hardly anybody drinks. Pot ter serves asensible vegetable-and-rice dish, four climbersbring homemade apple pies, and one and all areinbed before midnight, because everybody hasa "projec t" they' re working on the next day.Alex Honnold and Ueli Steck are among

those who attend. Steck, a leading Swiss climber,

epi tomizes the new breed, fol lowing astr ic t exerc ise and die t regime. Whentraining, the 34-year-old nms an aston-ishing 10,000vertical feet a day. Havingset speed records on all three of thegreat north faces intheAlps-the Eiger(2:48), the Mat terhorn (1:56), and theGrandes Jorasses (2 :21) -S teck hascome to Yosemite to sharpen his climb-ing in grani te cracks. Last year he andHonnold dashed up El Cap in threehours and 50 minu tes . His d ream is totake speed climbing to the Himalaya.

"No technical route on an 8,000-meter peak hasbeen done inAlpine style ;' he says, meaning fastand light. "That ismy mission:'Unlike European pros such as Steck, who

enjoy generOl ls corpora te sponsorship, mostAmerican climbers barely get by financial ly.Many earn just enough cash to crash in theirvans and eat beans and r ice. Indeed , because ofthe seven -day restr ic tion at Camp 4, many l ivefull-time in vehicles at Yosemite. Kate Ruther-ford, 30, and Madeleine Sorkin, 29, who togethermade the first female free ascent ofHalf Dome,both l ive in their vans. Honnold l ives in his van.Colorado climber Tommy Caldwel l, 32, one ofthe best grani te free c limbers in America , l ivesin his van when he'sin Yosemite-despite havingbeen a professional c limber since the age of 16.Yet they still come back Since 2007 Caldwell

has been working on free climbing anew routenear Mescalito on E1Cap that may be the world'shardest big-wall free climb. "I've been climbingmy whol e lif e, " he says. "F ir st roped up whenI was three year s old." Caldwe ll' s fat her was amountain guide; Tommy remembers lying in anElCap meadow asa kid watching his dad climb,just asother kids watched their dads play catch."There's something magnetic about Yosemite;'

he says. "All the history I freak out the momentI get here and look up a t t he wal ls :'ABOUT FOUR MILLION people visit Yosemite everyyear , only a few thousand of whom are cl imb-ers. But the climbers sti ll represent the beatingheart ofthe val ley. "Icame here asa sophomore

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in high school and never went back home;' saysROll Kauk,53."This place,Yosemite,wasmy edu-cation. Ifyou let it, itcan imprint a value systemon you:' Tothat end, Kauk started the SacredRokprogram to bring troubled kids to Yosemiteto teach them how to think and feelfor them-selves."Passing a bottle ofwater toyour partnera thousand feet off the ground:' he says, "youmake sure he'sgot a good grip on if'Kauk established some ofthe hardest routesin the val ley, a lmost always climbing with arope-which may bewhyhe didn't become oneofthe 83climbers who've died here since 1955.Bycontrast, free soloing leaves no room forerror. AsDean Potter bluntly puts it,"Youmessup, you die." Climbing unroped eventuallycaught up with two of Yosemite'sbest soloists:Derek Hersey, a Brit who fell from the Steck-Salathe in 1993,and Californian John Bachar, aformer climbing partner ofKauks who died in2009while free soloing near Mammoth Lakes.Nevertheless, Honnold insists that Yosemiteclimbers still haven't reached the limits for freesoloing. "Theoretically, you should be able toclimb harder without a rope because you havelessweight, fewermovements;' he says.Lookingpast Half Dome, many routes here have neverbeen free soloed. It'sjust a matter oftime untilsomeone-maybe Honnold-gives them a try.Mylast night in the valleyI wander throughCamp4 atdusk. Thescent ofpine sapand camp-fires floats in the air,and a couple of stars havejust come out. There's laughter, and someone isplaying a guitar. Atone campsite twoyoung menaremethodically layingout gear-ropes andcar-abiners and milk jugs ofwater-talking gravelyabout what they hope willhappen on their wallthe next morning. Atanother picnic table threewomen with bloody knuckles, allin pigtails andwearing headlamps, are crying, hugging eachother, having just come off a three-day ascent.Like those who made the pilgrimage beforethem and those who will follow, they've cometo Yosemiteto test themselves against the rock.They know that thesewallsaremore than moun-tains: They're giant mirrors that unsparinglyreflect what lies inside each climber. 0~~6 NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAY 2011

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