We’ve made it!
US climbers in 19-day epic conquest of the world’s toughest rock ascent – using only their bare hands
TWO friends were on top of the world yesterday after completing what has long been considered the most difficult rock climb in the world.
Kevin Jorgeson and Tommy Caldwell defied the odds to become the first people to reach the top of El Capitan’s Dawn Wall in Yosemite National Park using only their hands and feet.
The American free climbers used ropes and harnesses in case of a fall, but relied entirely on their own strength and dexterity to ascend by grasping cracks as thin as razor blades and as small as pennies. Over an unimaginably gruelling 19-day climb in California, the pair had the skin ripped off their hands so many times that they had to wake up every four hours in the night to apply balm.
The two men divided the 2,500ft climb into 31 sections called pitches. Some involved going up 100ft of rock as smooth as a bedroom wall, while others involved perilous sideways shuffling. In one they had to carry out a dyno – a jump from one hold to the next.
Falls were frequent and the men had to endure their bodies being battered against the rock as the safety rope saved them. Both men slept in 4ft by 6ft tents, or ‘portaledges’, which were fixed at 90 degrees into the rock face. Inside they cooked stew, sipped whiskey and handed toilet ‘wag bags’ to helpers, who pulled themselves up alongside them using ropes.
At one point it appeared Caldwell, 36, would have to go on alone after Jorgeson, 30, failed on ten attempts to complete the 15th stage of the climb. But he refused to leave his friend, and on the 11th attempt they were able to move on together to the next stage. When they reached the top, the two men pumped their fists and cheered before being met by members of their support team who had used ropes for a much easier ascent – and then opened a well-earned bottle of champagne.
‘I’ve been picturing what it would be like to climb that last 10ft for a very long time,’ said Jorgeson, of Santa Rosa, California, adding: ‘I hope it inspires people to find their own Dawn Wall.’
Caldwell of Estes Park, Colorado, described the climb as ‘ mind- blowing’ and ‘ an i ncredible experience’.
The pair were then reunited with their wives at the top, and abseiled down in only a few hours.
Caldwell, a father- of- one, is an experienced climber who was a national champion by the time he was 16. In 2001 he lost a finger and was told he may never climb again.
And on an ascent in Kyrgyzstan he survived being kidnapped by Islamist militants who held him hostage for six days. He eventually escaped by shoving his guard off a ledge and climbing 18 miles to freedom. He started planning his pioneering ascent in 2007, but only got a third of the way up in 2010. A year later Jorgeson fell and broke an ankle in another attempt.
This week Caldwell was the first to pull himself to the top, followed minutes later by his friend as hundreds of people broke into cheers on the valley floor below. Caldwell’s mother, Terry, said: ‘This was his biggest project, his biggest dream.’
And Barack Obama was quick to add his congratulations via the White House Twitter account. The President praised the pair’s historic feat, saying it ‘reminds us that anything is possible’.