I left you hanging after Sunday morning on El Capitan. We lost…

Camp IV

Great Roof

I left you hanging after Sunday morning on El Capitan. We lost any cell service after that so I’ll bring you up to the summit in a few post climb posts. This is Camp IV, our third bivi on the wall. We climbed until 4:30 AM to get there because our haul bag got stuck a couple of pitches below the ledge. The climb did a huge 150’ horizontal traverse and it became dark as I began to lead it (involving three pendulums). When finished, Andy lowered the haul bag out as I hauled it in horizontally, when to our horror, it became hopelessly stuck behind a flake somewhere blow us in the darkness. It took about 5 hours to free the bag. We finally arrived and called it a night on a very tiny ledge that you see pictured here.

Our next morning (Sunday) began at 7:30AM with a climb up to the Great Roof. As we climbed we were passed by Jess and Quinn, both from Colorado, on their way to break the women’s world speed ascent record, completing the entire climb in 10.5 hours. you can see them under the Great Roof in the photo. Quickly following them was Hans Florine, who holds the men’s speed record. He was pacing them, yelling out their estimated finish time as they progressed. He ended up going up the next week to re-set the speed record in an unbelievable 2.5 hours.

Tagged: climbing, climbing trips, El Capitan, rock climbing