Article content continued

The rock

The giant 3,000-foot granite monolith known as El Capitan in California’s Yosemite National Park is one of the holy grails of rock climbing. There are many routes up the daunting face — the first of which was scaled in 1958 — but the Dawn Wall is considered the most difficult, and free climbing the route was once thought impossible. In the climbing community, the challenge of the Dawn Wall is seen as stemming from the number of extremely difficult segments stacked one on top of each other. “I’m fairly confident this feat won’t be repeated for a long time,” said Cort McElroy, general manager of the indoor climbing facility Rock Oasis in Toronto.

The grade

Difficulty of a climb is measured by length — the number of pitches — and the grade on the Yosemite Decimal System (YDS). A pitch is a section of a cliff that is climbed between two belay points. Belay points are where climbers attach themselves to the rock to protect themselves in the event of a fall. The YDS is a grading system used to gauge the difficulty of a climb. Class 5 represents technical free climbing involving rope. Of the Dawn Wall’s 32 pitches six are classified as 5.14 — including two 5.14ds that are now considered Yosemite’s most difficult pitches. Mr. McElroy estimates there are only about 200 people in the world that can climb 5.14d and 5.15a pitches.

The technique

Free climbing involves using ropes and harnesses only to protect climbers against injury from falls, which are sometimes expected. Mr. Jorgeson and Mr. Caldwell used a procedure called “redpointing” meaning they would have to start each of their route’s 32 segments, or pitches, over from the beginning after a fall, no matter where it occurred on that particular pitch. The pair took multiple attempts to complete a number of pitches during their ascent: For example, Mr. Jorgeson attempted the difficult 15th pitch 11 times over the course of seven days. By contrast, in free soloing, it is just the climber and the mountain.