This type of climb has never been done before on the wall, and will be the toughest completed climb in the world, if they reach the top, photographer Tom Evans told The New York Times.
To make the climb even more challenging, the two are ascending the wall as a free-climb, without the aid of ropes, except to catch their falls. The nearly-smooth rock presents a 90-degree climb for more than a half mile. It's always changing," Jorgeson said.Tommy Caldwell and Kevin Jorgeson trained for years with one goal in mind - to climb El Capitan's Dawn Wall in Yosemite National Park, known as one of the most challenging climbs on earth. "Yosemite is just a really active, wild place. It was preceded by a rumble and followed by a white dust cloud. Officials had no immediate estimate for how much the big rock weighed but Gediman said all of the rockfalls combined on Wednesday weighed 1,300 tons (1,100 metric tons).Ĭlimber Kevin Jorgeson saw a massive rockfall in the same area while preparing for a 2015 climb of El Capitan.
Gediman, the park spokesman, said the rockfall was among seven that happened in the same general area during a four-hour period. The effort to save the two "was done at tremendous peril to the rescuers because there were three subsequent rockfalls that were all nearly as big and would have killed anybody at the base," he said. He later saw rescuers moving someone on a litter. Zabrok said he saw a rescuer lowered by helicopter and thinks he saved a survivor. Ken Yager, president and founder of the Yosemite Climbing Association, the rock that broke away "cratered and sent stuff mushrooming out in all directions." "I've seen smaller avalanches and smaller falls before where you would just see a tiny dust cloud, this was covering a good portion of the rock in front of us," said DeGrazio, of YExplore Yosemite Adventures, who has led climbers in Yosemite Park for 12 years. At least 30 climbers were on the wall of the 7,569-foot (2,307 meter) formation when the rock fell. The deadly rockfall happened during the peak fall season for climbing El Capitan, when climbers from around the world converge at Yosemite because of warm weather and long climbing days.Ĭlimber John DeGrazio had just guided a group to the top of the Half Dome rock formation a few miles (kilometers) away when he saw large clouds of dust rising into the air near El Capitan. "We have had larger rockfalls occur in the Valley this year." "The rockfall its self is nothing unusual," he said. While the cause of the rockfall will never be known, Stock said the break was probably caused by the expansion and contraction of the monolith's granite as it heats up during the summer and gets cold and more brittle in the winter. Yosemite geologist Greg Stock said the rockfall was not caused by climbers, who wedge climbing gear into rock cracks so they can loop ropes to support their weight and the cliff-side tents they use for El Capitan climbs that generally take several days. The slab itself was about 130 feet (40 meters) tall and 65 feet (19 meters) wide and fell from the popular "Waterfall Route" on the East Buttress of El Capitan, Gediman said.Ĭanadian climber Peter Zabrok described the falling rock as "white granite the size of an apartment building." Images posted on social media immediately after it fell showed billowing white rock dust soaring high into the air. The man who died was identified as Andrew Foster, 32. His wife, whose name was not released, remained hospitalized.
EL CAPTIN ROCK FALL BEFORE AMD AFTER FREE
The man from Wales and his wife were hiking at the bottom of El Capitan far from trails used by most Yosemite visitors in preparation for an ascent when the chunk of granite about 12 stories tall broke free and plunged, said park ranger and spokesman Scott Gediman. Park officials say rockfalls overall have killed 16 people since 1857 and injured more than 100. It was preceded by a 1999 rockfall that crushed a climber from Colorado. The last time a climber was killed by a rock falling at Yosemite was in 2013, when a Montana climber fell after a rock dislodged and sliced his climbing rope.
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