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The Salathé Wall is one of the original big wall climbing routes up El Capitan, a 3,000-foot (900 m) high granite monolith in Yosemite National Park.The Salathé Wall was named by Yvon Chouinard in honor of John Salathé, a pioneer of rock climbing in Yosemite.
Ammon McNeely (June 3, 1970 – February 18, 2023) was an American rock climber who specialized in big wall climbing and aid climbing, and who set many speed climbing records and made the first "one-day ascent" for many climbing routes on El Capitan in Yosemite. His other interests included BASE jumping and wingsuiting.
By 2009, Smith-Gobat was climbing in Yosemite and interested in taking on big-wall challenges. The Salathé Wall is a classic route up El Capitan in Yosemite Valley. At approximately 3500 ft and 35-pitches, it is also one of the longest routes, known for its difficult, off-width crack sections.
El Capitan has two main faces, the Southwest (on the left when looking directly at the wall) and the Southeast. Between the two faces juts a massive prow . While today there are numerous established routes on both faces, the most popular and historically famous route is The Nose , which follows the massive prow.
El Capitan is composed almost entirely of a pale, coarse-grained granite approximately 100 MYA (million years old). In addition to El Capitan, this granite forms most of the rock features of the western portions of Yosemite Valley. A separate intrusion of igneous rock, the Taft Granite, forms the uppermost portions of the cliff face.
At the time of their ascent, Magic Mushroom was El Capitan's hardest route after The Dawn Wall, and their ascent was the first repeat of the route after Tommy Caldwell had made the FFA in 2008. [3] [22] In 2018, Zangerl and Larcher moved into big wall alpine climbing routes making the first repeat of the Eiger's hardest route, Odyssee at 5.13c ...
Climber Alex Honnold has been dreaming of free-soloing the 3,000 feet (900 m) rock wall of El Capitan in Yosemite National Park, a feat no one has performed.His choice of big wall climbing route on El Capitan is called Freerider, a route that was created by Alexander Huber in 1998, and which Honnold has completed several times with protection equipment.
In January 2015, Caldwell and Kevin Jorgeson over 19-days made the first free ascent of The Dawn Wall on El Capitan, which was the first-ever big wall free climb at 9a (5.14d) in history. [ 2 ] In 2015, National Geographic called Caldwell "arguably the best all-around rock climber on the planet", [ 3 ] and he is an important figure in the ...