The Salathe Wall

The final headwall on The Salathe Wall is one of rock climbing’s greatest pitches. This 240-foot stretch of brilliance caps one of the most famed routes on Yosemite’s El Capitan. The headwall is a perfect panel of overhanging granite, almost 3,000 feet above El Cap Meadow. While the tourists choke the road below, a laser cut finger crack starts at a huge roof and arches for a full 70 meters to the narrow, hanging confines of Long Ledge. This fissure is almost perfectly uniform, a half-inch crack with only the tiniest of edges peppering the face of America’s proudest rock monolith. The gray, white, orange and black granite was surely poured by Zeus himself.

It’s possible to free climb (just fingers and toes, no hanging on your rope from gear placed in the rock) all the way up from the roof to the ledge in one monster pitch that checks in at a very difficult 5.13c. For everyone other than the absolute elite, world-class climber, this is impossible. Instead, most people have to use aid (hanging from cams and nuts and stepping up on nylon ladders) to climb it, myself included. Early this summer, just for kicks, I added one more degree of difficulty. I led the headwall at 2 AM, illuminating the crack purely by headlamp, as my partner fought to stay awake while he hung above the abyss.

Had we been able to see the entire Southwest face of El Capitan falling away below our feet, Josh or I might have passed out. The terror of hanging that far into space has surely reduced better men to tears. Instead, we crawled slowly and half blind to the promise of an uncomfortable bivouac on Long Ledge, managing the fatigue of our back-to-back 16-hour climbing days by taking small bites of dried mango.

* * * *

Night climbing on the headwall wasn’t what Josh and I had set out to do. Our Yosemite plan began to take shape in the heart of Colorado’s winter, six months or so before we’d find ourselves up on The Salathe. Around Valentine’s Day, I heard back from graduate school. Though I hoped to enroll in a master’s program in renewable energy and resource conservation at Berkeley, they politely told me I should stay home. No love. The denial from a program I’d truly wanted to attend hit me pretty hard.

As soon as I let my friends know that I’d been denied, I was blown away by their support. Left and right, my best buddies picked me up, dusted me off, and began to bombard me with plans for replacing Berkeley with something more adventurous. One friend suggested Burning Man, a wild music/art/um…psychedelic festival in the Nevada desert that takes place every August. Another asked if I’d like to travel across Spain and France on bicycle, touring sport-climbing areas and drinking as much wine as possible. The most immediate suggestion came from Josh Finkelstein. When I told him I didn’t get accepted into the program, he patted me on the back and congratulated me. “Congratulations?” I wondered. Didn’t this asshole know how bummed out I was?

“You’ve been accepted into the prestigious Finkelstein School of Granite. Classes begin this spring. You and I are going to Yosemite.”

* * * *

Fairly quickly, we set our eyes on one objective above all others. The Salathe was, without a doubt, THE route we wanted to do. It had the reputation of being one of the 50 best climbs in North America, and everyone we talked to who had done those 35 pitches glowed about their experience. Josh and I felt fairly comfortable that we could manage the difficulties, but there’s nothing like the unknown. Though each of us had been climbing obsessively for over a decade, each fully fit and capable of climbing 5.13, and each feeling reasonably dialed above gear, neither of us had done a route of that scope. At least Josh had previously climbed in Yosemite. I wasn’t entirely sure what I was in for.

The Salathe begins with a ten pitch route independently called The Freeblast. The Freeblast represent about 1/3^rd of the height, but only about 1/6^th of the effort. From there, the climbing meanders just left of the obvious “Heart,” and then past some of El Cap’s most defining and visible features; The Alcove, El Cap Spire, The Sewer, The Roof, and then, finally, The Headwall.

“There’s a lot of wide up there,” said our friend Chris Brown.

My naivety took over. “Like Number 3 Camalots?”

“You fucking wish.”

Those nice, slightly wide handcracks that Number 3 Camalots indicate are few and far between. The “wide” that Chris mentioned comes in many forms. The most notorious is The Hollow Flake, just after the finish of The Freeblast. This pitch has a reputation as being nearly impossible to protect, and scary as hell. If you fall out of The Hollow Flake, you’ll take a swinging, 80-foot fall and smash into an adjacent corner. Simply put, don’t fall there.

After that is The Ear. A huge, looming bombay chimney that, fortunately, protects safely with a #6 Camalot, the largest available at over seven inches wide. In The Ear, the climber can scoot it along at an arm’s reach. When The Salathe Wall was first climbed in 1961, protection largely comprised of pitons and small metal nuts that could slot into finger sized cracks. Cams, the protection we now rely on so heavily, were years away. The fact that today, a climber can settle into a secure position and move this big piece of pro alongside him or her renders obsolete a comment made by Royal Robbins, part of the quartet who made the first ascent. Robbins deemed The Ear the most terrifying 5.7 in the world. His aid hammer and pins have been replaced by modern gear. Thank god.

Those two pitches are just the most infamous of “the wide.” The Half Dollar, The “5.7” Chimney, and The Monster Offwidth all guard against ascent. And when The Salathe doesn’t throw gaping cracks at the climber, there are still plenty of demanding pitches that, in spite of their more modest grade (in light of modern sport-climbing standards), take their toll. And, lest we forget, there’s that looming headwall.

Even given the route’s formidable pitches, Josh and I decided to throw another wrench into the mix. Most parties take around four days to do the climb, but our friend, Chris Klinga, had pulled off a speedy, two-day ascent of The Salathe Wall in 2007. At the time, he was a neophyte wall climber, but Chris assured us that he and his partner had simply taken along a very Spartan backpack instead of being bogged down by the widely accepted method of hauling a large, heavy bag. The second would jug the rope behind the leader and bring up the bag on his back. Josh and I shrugged off other people’s suggestions that jugging with a pack was tantamount to Guantanamo-inspired torture. Light and fast sounded pretty badass, and we figured that this style honored The Salathe’s place amongst the greats. “If we were going to do it,” we thought, “we might as well go big.”

Before we left Boulder, I saw my friend Timmy walking down the road. He was just back from some adventure, and I felt lucky to run into him. I explained our plan, and as is his typical style, Timmy got excited and was full of energetic support. “Just go for it!” he exclaimed in that devil-may-care voice.

When we drove into The Valley, Josh pulled the van over, and our necks craned to each vertebra’s full range until we could see the top of America’s most iconic piece of stone. The silence in the van and enormity of the rock was suffocating. “Jesus!” and an audible hard swallow, the only sounds as I contemplated what we’d signed up for. But then, sensing that the most difficult part of the whole climb might just be slinging the rack onto our harnesses and tying into the rope, Josh and I gave our best Timmy-O impression. “Just go for it!” A few days later, we’d do just that.

* * * *

Hanging out in El Cap Meadow, or next to Tom Evans, his camera, and high-powered spotting scope on The Bridge, it’s impossible not to daydream about what it’s going to be like on the wall. That sense of wonder is especially strong if you’ve never been up there. El Cap is The Valley’s magnet, and even though there are dozens of other famous rock faces to climb in Yosemite, that gray giant has an unmistakable pull. That very gravity started to weigh on my mind, especially as the time for climbing drew near. The doubts were creeping in. Throughout the trip, I’d been worked by most of the offwidth we’d climbed, and the prospect of climbing such a towering route with a modicum of gear left me feeling exposed.

Hopefully the weather would hold, because Josh and I had decided to leave the rain gear, bivy sacks, and extra clothes in the van. In the backpack, there was room for a few gallons of water, heavier than we wanted. We also brought four sandwiches, one dinner of burritos, nine bars each, dried fruit, and some Pop Tarts. We had one belay jacket, one lightweight sleeping bag, and two ultralight air mattresses. After that, we tossed in a very basic first-aid kit with the ironic branding of “Optimist,” an iPod, and a spliff. We would have brought two, but it was a tight packing job. So those, along with the rope, a tag line, and the rack, were the supplies that were taking us to the top.

The weather report showed an extended forecast of sunshine, with temps in the mid 70’s and a minimal chance of precipitation. Time to go. We set the alarm for 4:30, and tried to get some sleep. We awoke in the dark, and quietly ate the remains of our Curry Village pizza from the previous night. Our thermos had coffee, brewed the day before, and we drank it down to avoid the stove and save some time. Camp quickly broken, we drove to the parking area below the rock, and walked towards the wall just as daylight showed us our marvelous confines. Yosemite, during an anxious and expecting sunrise, is heaven.

I led the first block – The Freeblast. Given that Josh and I were not hauling, doing the route in blocks made the most sense. That would allow one climber to focus on the leading while the second stayed in his approach shoes and jugged each pitch. Even though ten pitches seemed like a long block, The Freeblast goes pretty quickly. Josh and I were able to cut in front of a German team at the base, and their acquiescence allowed us to get a jump on the morning. We gave them our best “danke” and stomped on the gas, climbing as fast as possible.

I was able to get through the first pitches of climbing, a long 5.10 section, some 5.8 fist sized crack, and then a 5.11 roof, reasonably quickly. We were finding a good rhythm and moving quickly – exactly what we needed. Josh and I would shout motivation to each other as much as possible. This often came in the form of simian grunts. I know it sounds weird, but when I’m sport climbing, there’s a lot of birdcalls. “Ca-Caw!” gets converted to the chimp's “Oomph, Oooph” when confronted by Yosemite’s granite. The myth of The Valley’s Stone Monkeys inspired us to call out those grunts from our bellies.

On pitch 5, a thin and difficult to protect 5.10d, I ran into some trouble. The crack peters out and the only pro comes as Aliens (a specific type of cam prone to fitting into placements where no other cam can go. Alternatively, they’ve acquired a reputation for poor quality control, and every now and then an Alien will fall apart under no weight whatsoever) stuffed into pin scars. They’re as good as it gets for this sort of spot, but the flaring holes beaten into the crack by the aid hammers and pitons of yesteryear aren’t the uniform slots where cams work best. I carefully tucked a red Alien into a pin scar, and then committed to the delicate, run-out moves above. A bolt was just out of reach at the top of the unprotectable seam, and as I smeared my feet and tried to gain those extra millimeters, I felt my balance shift.

As I peeled off the face, I had time to grab the rope and make sure it wouldn’t run behind my leg, flipping me ass over teakettle. Then, Josh and I locked wide eyes, and I went for a 30-foot ride. The cam held, and Josh’s belay brought me to a stop as softly as possible. “Holy shit!” I hollered. There we were, going fast, taking the whip on The Capitan. I felt a wave of inspiration come over me, and quickly pulled back up to the Alien and beyond. I didn’t fall there again, and the adrenaline brought me past the next few pitches.

By early afternoon, the end of my block was coming close. I squirmed up the Half Dollar, an interesting chimney feature that forces the climber to turn out and peer towards the valley floor. I could see the trees below, beginning to look less like pines, and more like scrappy bushes. We were really gaining some altitude. Josh did the last bit of jugging, and met me above this pitch on a comfortable ledge. Here, he changed into his free climbing shoes, and started to make the transition. Though he still followed this last bit, we decided it was faster if he just climbed the long, traversing ramps. We topped out The Freeblast with 200 feet of simul-climbing. Then, Josh and I sat back on a large series of ledges called Mammoth Terraces. We drank plenty of water, ate a well-earned sandwich each, and reflected on the climbing to come.

Every bite we took lessened the weight of the backpack, we hoped optimistically. Slinging it onto my back for the first time, though, I realized that it was still painfully heavy. Hadn’t we aimed for light and fast? The straps dug into my shoulders, and I knew that I had a long afternoon ahead of me. When I saw the climbing ahead, though, I gladly accepted the trade. Straight above was plenty of that infamous “wide.” “Good luck, partner,” I thought, as Josh took the lead.

The next pitches would be the most strenuous, and potentially dangerous, of the route. Josh started with a short pitch of reasonable climbing, and then we arrived at the famed Hollow Flake. The crack width occasionally accepts a hip, but never feels secure. If the climber can squirm completely into the crack, falling becomes almost impossible. Upward progress is slow, but the head-to-toe friction lessens gravity’s downward pull. The Hollow Flake won’t let a climber inside, and as the rope slowly moved out from my belay device, I became more and more thankful that Josh had volunteered for this section.

As Josh neared the top of the Hollow Flake, I figured that he was probably having the most trouble keeping his mind steady and on the task at hand. It’s one thing knowing that you can take a big fall into space and onto solid gear. Keeping focus knowing there’s zero room for error takes amazing mental steel. Though he was around a corner and out of sight, I knew things finally came to a good conclusion when I heard another climber, high above us on the face, call out “Hollow Flake cleared!” and a dozen climbers shout out in encouragement and congratulations. Josh had gotten the rope up the most terrifying pitch of all 35.

We still had several infamous pitches above, notably the “5.7 Chimney” and “The Ear,” a huge Bombay slot that Royal Robbins dubbed “the most terrifying pitch of 5.7 in the world.” Again, I was thankful that it was part of Josh’s block, and I simply did the monotonous work of sliding up the fixed rope that Josh fixed at each belay. This monotonous work became nearly impossible in the “5.7 Chimney.” With the pack on my body, I couldn’t fit into the space where Josh had just climbed. I struggled and thrashed against my ascenders, but made painfully little progress. We hadn’t planned on this.

I clipped my GriGri onto the rope, released my ascenders, and slid back to the start of the pitch. Then, I took off the pack and left it on the ledge. There was no way I’d be able to jug this pitch with the pack, and instead, cleaned the remaining gear without the hindrance of our bag. I popped out from the chimney at Josh’s feet, and he began to congratulate me on my progress.

“Way to go man! You’re…wait. Where’s the bag?!?!”

I could feel the desperation in Josh’s voice. Exasperated, I explained how the chimney had crushed me. I felt a little air go out of our team. We were beginning to tire, and the sun was racing to the horizon. I still had to go back to the ledge and get the bag, and this would take time. The additional work would mean we’d finish in the dark. Wordlessly, I returned to the ledge for the bag, and then jugged up the rope that was now free to run outside the chimney. Josh started to climb towards The Ear, and knew that we’d need to avoid another time-sink like the one we’d just endured.

The Ear didn’t give Josh too much trouble, save for the two puncture wounds he suffered when he was cleaning a big #5 Camalot from behind him. It stuck for a moment, but then popped free to smack him across the face. He had to keep cleaning the gear from behind him so we wouldn't repeat the earlier jugging debacle. Back cleaning an entire pitch can get stressful, though, because you get farther and farther from the belay with only one or two pieces protecting against a fall. When he got to the anchor above The Ear, I heard in his voice a sincere fatigue. “No gear in there, Patty. Should go well.”

The light was fading, but I realized that the fear I’d felt on the ground was slowly being eaten away. We were making good progress, and though we would finish in the dark, we’d reach, more or less, our goal for the day. We had originally hoped to sleep on El Cap Spire, an amazing pinnacle of rock that is detached on all sides from the wall. Instead, we came up one pitch short. Josh and I made our camp at The Alcove, and as we pulled into this room sized cave, met up with a surprise duo. Our friends Casey and Lukas, both from Boulder, had been in front of us all day. The four of us exclaimed how nice it was to have the familiar company. They were doing the wall as a team of three, and Scott, their third, was up on The Spire. After a few quick stories, Casey and Lukas nodded off to sleep in the portaledge they’d dragged along. A flat, hanging cot is one of the creature comforts a climber has available when they haul gear. So is a stove. Josh and I, however, ate our cold burritos, and then snuggled in for the night on a sloping, lumpy stretch of granite directly under their cot. Sharing a sleeping bag isn’t so bad when you’re too exhausted to notice.

* * * *

We awoke in The Alcove the following morning to a word that would be uttered a number of times that day: Clusterfuck. After a breakfast of Pop-tarts and a quick romp up to El Cap Spire, we saw cracks streaming with water and seven fixed ropes clogging any ability at upward progress. It’s a good thing we didn’t push all the way to The Spire, as there was no vacancy anyway. We found ourselves behind our friends from Boulder, but also two groups trying to do The Freerider, a variation of The Salathe that runs concurrently until the last several pitches. This traffic jam was going to slow our upward motion severely, and Josh and I had little to do but wait our turn at each belay. Passing some of the parties would have probably been beneficial, but, in all honesty, the other groups were going about as fast as we were. Jumping them in line only to have them wait for us seemed senseless, and with that, we settled into a slow day and the knowledge that our plan for only one night on the wall might not work out.

Again, we split the climbing into blocks. Josh led the first six pitches of the day, the most memorable being a section nicknamed The Sewer. This portion of the wall is always soaked, but as we climbed it, the water seemed to be coming down with unusual cruelty. A steady stream dripped on both of us, and as I jugged, watched as water was wrung from the sheath of our rope as my ascender bit down.

As I watched the water leave the rope like drying laundry put through a wringer, a weird but unmistakable sound came from above me. The rope had wedged behind one of our pieces of protection, and at a certain point, the angle and force combined to push the cam so deeply into the crack that I’d never hope to free it. The rope ran from my ascenders, then inside of a crack in a huge roof, through a stuck cam, and then out from the rock up to Josh. I had absolutely no way to proceed, as the rock literally blocked my way.

I was faced with an ugly dilemma. I built an anchor with some of the gear I’d already cleaned out of The Sewer, and hung on these pieces. Then, I shouted up to Josh that I needed to unclip my ascenders from the rope and have him pull it up. This would free the rope, I hoped, but then he’d need to drop it back down to me. Unfortunately, I was under a roof, and also off to the side of his belay stance. That meant there wasn’t necessarily a guarantee that he could get the rope back to me. I weighed this nasty calculus in my head, but realized that I didn’t have any other options. The rope snaked away, and I dangled, now disconnected from my partner, 1,700 feet above the Merced River. Josh tried to toss the rope back to me, but could only succeed in getting it about 15 feet to my left. He flipped it back and forth, but the distance was hopeless.

You can’t plan for everything. When we were on the ground, debating about what to bring and how we’d split the climbing, I never imagined that I’d need to hang out while Josh tried to toss me the rope. Before things got hopeless, though, I realized that I still had the tag line, our thin, 8-millimeter static rope, running between us. This second cord was our margin of safety, and would allow us to rappel the route if we absolutely had to. Now it was about to save my ass in an entirely unintended way. Though it was too thin to ascend, Josh could clip our free hanging lead line to the tag line, and this would guide the newly freed rope back to me. The makeshift plan worked perfectly. The visions of my skeleton, rotting in its harness under that roof, disappeared as I clipped back into the rope and motored up to Josh.

After this near miss, I was eager to swap duties. Josh put on his approach shoes while I switched to my climbing boots and discarded the pack. I felt so much lighter, so unburdened. Most importantly, I finally felt like I was contributing to the second day of the ascent. Josh and I had spent the majority of the day waiting at belay stations, watching the sun cruise towards the horizon. This provided plenty of time to chat and look at the topo. We realized that there was almost no chance we’d make the summit that day, but instead, decided to aim for Long Ledge.

Starting to lead as fast as I could manage, I tried to link two pitches into nearly a full rope length. I climbed the first bit of beautiful 5.10 hand crack, thinking, “Finally! Those number 3’s!” As the pitch steepened and my muscles lagged, I began to aid through the pitch. Done as a free climb, the remaining 140 feet would go at 5.12d, but I realized that it would be much faster to simply aid to the belay. I finished just below the famous roof, a nearly horizontal stretch that leaves the climber feeling like the last autumn leaf on a tree.

Josh met me at the belay under the roof, and the light began to fade substantially. For the second day in a row, we affixed our headlamps to our helmets. We knew that we still had at least three pitches until we’d get to a ledge where we could sleep. The artificial light would just add to the adventure. With the new illumination, I led out the steep roof, and onto the headwall above. Slowly, I made my way out from under the roof, and by the time I’d climbed those 100 feet to the hanging belay just below the headwall pitch, every hint of sunlight had vanished.

* * * *

With the daylight gone, so was much of the day’s warmth. The dark slowed us down substantially, but this only added to our uncomfortable cold. My headlamp lit the rock just in front of my face, but it also showed the faint wisps of breath that came from my mouth. I looked at Josh, wrapped in our only jacket, and thought about how we might have wanted another layer. Well, tough shit. Time to get climbing.

Just off the anchor, with only that thin beam of light to show the way, I found myself dealing with some difficult gear placements. That headwall crack was just ahead, but before I could get to the security of its crack and the promise of solid gear, I had to fiddle with some tiny brass nuts, smaller than pencil erasers. At nearly midnight, close to 3,000 feet off the ground, hanging in my aiders from tiny protection, I felt more alive than ever. My mind hardly noticed the distractions. I was in that place of focus, that “flowstate,” where climbing so often takes me. But then, I rushed a placement.

I tried to place a piece that didn’t seat particularly well. As I stood up to slot my next piece of gear, I heard, and then felt, a pop. Without time to realize the physics, I had plummeted at least 20 feet, and was just above Josh, right back at the belay. I wasn’t proving to be a particularly adept aid climber, but I was getting really good at whipping on The Capitan. I thanked Josh for the catch, and then, again, pulled back up to the piece that had caught my fall, an ancient aluminum head that had long ago been pounded into the rock. Who knows how many more falls it will take? I picked a better-sized nut, weighted it, and found myself into the headwall crack. I could breathe a little easier.

Above, I found much easier aid climbing and made progress. It was slow, certainly, but it was steady. I got into a bit of a rhythm, and began to see an end to our second marathon day. After an hour or so, I could make out the ledge we were aiming for. Finally, after a few more hairy aid moves, and with visions of my last fall fresh in my mind, I pulled onto Long Ledge. I tied the rope off for Josh, and collapsed in a heap. It was 2AM.

Long Ledge turned out to basically be a rock ditch. This perch, a scant 3 feet wide, would have to suffice. Scott, Casey and Lukas had decided to sleep on Long Ledge, as well. Thankfully, they had their ledge, and knew to expect our arrival. They didn’t leave a light on for us, but did leave us just enough room to flop down in utter exhaustion. Since Josh and I would share a sleeping bag, we’d have to cuddle with our feet in the other’s armpits.

Josh and I pushed and folded our sleeping pads in a vain attempt at comfort. We licked a few scraps of food from the Tupperware that held the remains of our previous night’s dinner. Then, finally, we passed out on a ledge that was tighter than a sidewalk. When we awoke the next morning, we looked over our shoulders and saw the drop down to the valley below. Doing that final stretch in the dark may have been a godsend, because if we’d have been able to realize the position we were in, we might have screamed in pure, unadulterated terror.

The morning thankfully arrived as another day of sunshine, and as I rubbed sleep from my eyes, I was again amazed at how well I could sleep, even in such a wild position. Josh and I had only four more pitches to the summit, so we lazily awaited the direct sunlight to hit our camp. After a couple of slightly chilly hours, we started moving. Josh took the leading responsibility, and uneventfully raced up the four remaining pitches. For the first time in three days, we ended our climbing in daylight. We pulled up and onto the top of El Capitan, the entire Yosemite Valley stretching out below us. Josh and I could hardly speak. We just gave each other a hug, and realized that, for both of us, there would never be another experience like our maiden voyage to the top of The Capitan.

* * * *

It’s been nearly two weeks since we returned to the ground, drove home to Colorado, and got back to “normal” life. Work is, as you might guess, pretty mellow in comparison to what we’d just done. That’s not to say our regular lives are bad. I don’t think I could handle doing walls full-time. Hell, the World Cup is on, and I love watching the games from the comfort of a couch. I love talking on the phone, eating good food, drinking warm tea, and seeing my friends and family. And maybe that’s the point. I feel like I have been able to enjoy life’s subtler, more predictable moments. But I don’t want to get too predictable. Now that I know how the moon feels under my feet, I look up towards the stars every night through new eyes. That feeling, my friends, is Abaluba. Go live big.