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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.
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.
[7] [16] During this era, new milestones were also set in big-wall free solo climbing by Alexander Huber, with Brandler-Hasse Direttissima on the Cima Grande in 2012 at 7a+ (5.12a), by Hansjörg Auer, with Fish Route on the Marmolada in 2007 at 7b+ (5.12c), and by Alex Honnold with Freerider on El Capitan in 2017 at 7c+ (5.13a). [16]
[9] [10] Traversing routes, by their horizontal nature, can extend to great distances, [11] and the world's longest rock climb is the 4,500-metre (14,800 ft) El Capitan Girdle Traverse on El Capitan. [12] Famous routes have been created on almost every climbable rock type, and particularly so on granite, which is noted for its grip and large ...
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.
Competition speed climbing, which takes place on an artificial and standardized climbing wall, is the main form of speed climbing. However, there are types of speed climbing that take place outdoors, such as climbing famous big wall climbing routes in the shortest times, notable examples being on El Capitan in Yosemite National Park.
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.