Our View: Daring ascent of Yosemite’s El Capitan made us recall past glories
We have been fascinated by the exploits of climbers Tommy Caldwell and Kevin Jorgeson as they scaled El Capitan’s Dawn Wall in Yosemite National Park. And we couldn’t help but ponder their connection to Modesto.
We have no idea if they’ve ever walked beneath our slightly famous arch or set foot on McHenry Avenue. But every mountain climber has a connection, and owes a debt, to the man who is said to have given birth to big-wall climbing. That’s Royal Robbins, a legend of the so-called golden age that sprang from Yosemite in the 1950s and ’60s. He lived in Modesto for many years and is still connected through his son and a business that bears his name.
If anyone is celebrating as much as Caldwell and Jorgeson, it’s probably Robbins. He knows what they accomplished, free-climbing the incredibly smooth face of the Dawn Wall. El Capitan is the second-largest unbroken cliff in the world (the largest is on Baffin Island in the Canadian Arctic). That it took 19 days and 32 pitches is testament to the difficulty. There are dozens of easier ways to climb the face, some requiring as few as 16 pitches and doable in a single day. But there is none harder.
That their climb was a first ascent brings into focus some of what Robbins and his peers – Tom Frost of Oakdale, Yvon Chouinard and Warren Harding – accomplished three generations before. They pioneered “clean climbing,” which did not deface or damage the rock. Instead, they developed equipment and techniques that allowed the protective climbing gear to be inserted into fissures in the rock then removed as they climbed higher. Previous climbers had hammered pitons and bolts into the walls then attached lines and even ladders to help them reach the summit.
Called “outlaw climbers,” Robbins and the others lived hand-to-mouth hoping to avoid park rangers determined to roust them from Camp 4 on the Yosemite Valley floor. All of this has been commemorated in books and movies, the most recent – “Valley Uprising” – released in 2014.
Caldwell and Jorgeson have written a new chapter, free-climbing a wall many thought impossible.
That we were able to watch was largely due to the efforts of National Geographic photographer Corey Rich, who lived in Modesto when he interned as a photographer for The Bee.
What Caldwell and Jorgeson did took skill, guts and determination. It was dangerous, utterly. But both men are experienced climbers, considered to be among the best in the world.
The concern with any high-profile accomplishment is that others, less prepared, will get hurt or die trying to replicate it. There are more than 100 climbing accidents in Yosemite each year. But just as Robbins, Caldwell, Frost or any of the other greats would never allow anyone to tell them “you can’t do that,” we shouldn’t try to dissuade others inspired to try their own amazing feats. Instead, we should try to make certain they are as prepared as possible.
As Robbins once told The Bee: “Danger’s important. You need it, it’s good for you. It makes you more alive.”
The only connection Caldwell and Jorgeson have to Modesto is purely spiritual, or psychic, if you prefer. But it’s a connection many of us felt as we thrilled to their exploits. But no one, we’re certain, was more thrilled than Robbins or Frost. After all, they know what it’s like to do something that’s never been done before.
This story was originally published January 15, 2015 at 7:01 PM with the headline "Our View: Daring ascent of Yosemite’s El Capitan made us recall past glories."