California – Two men are roughly halfway through what has been called the hardest rock climb in the world: a free climb of a half-mile section of exposed granite in California’s Yosemite National Park.
Kevin Jorgeson, 30, California, and Tommy Caldwell, 36, of Colorado, are scaling their way using only their hands and feet.
El Capitan, the largest monolith of granite in the world, rises more than 914 metres above the Yosemite Valley floor.
The men eat, stretch and sleep in hanging tents suspended to El Capitan’s Dawn Wall.
They don’t have the creature comforts of home, but they have kept in touch with the outside world thanks to social media: tweeting, posting on Facebook, feeding information for blogs and keeping in touch with a bevy of supporters on the ground.
“The guys are doing great,” said Josh Lowell of Big Up Productions, which has been chronicling their climbs for the last six years. “They are resting and trying to grow skin back on their fingertips so they can continue to do battle with the hardest climbing sections, which involve grabbing tiny, razor-sharp edges of rock.”
If all goes as planned, the duo could be at the top as soon as Friday or Saturday, Lowell said.
“But that’s best-case scenario. It could take several more days just to get through the difficult section where they currently are. If any weather moves in, that could also delay things, but the forecast is looking good for now,” he said.
Many have climbed Dawn Wall but the pair would be the first to “free climb” the section using ropes only as a safeguard against falls. The first climber reached El Capitan’s summit in 1958, and there are roughly 100 routes up to the top.
Evans said the two have a cellphone on their ascent, but they weren’t taking calls because they were resting and “want no distractions while on the cliff.”
The two also weren’t answering emails from roughly 450 metres above the ground.
These practices may not seem unusual, but the climbers have relied heavily on social media to document their adventure. Both update their Facebook pages regularly and tweet from the Dawn Wall, which has been called “as smooth as alabaster, as steep as the bedroom wall.”
Last Friday, Jorgeson hosted a live question-and-answer session from the wall.
Caldwell’s wife, Becca, has also been blogging about their trip daily.
Jorgeson tweeted late Saturday about his difficulty scaling one section: “Battling. #dawnwall.”
There are 32 sections of the climb. On Sunday night, Lowell said Caldwell, climbing in the dark, completed the last of the three hardest sections of climbing, which was a major breakthrough.
In 1970, Warren Harding and Dean Caldwell (no relation to Tommy Caldwell) climbed Dawn Wall using ropes and countless rivets over 27 days.
Sapa-AP