On 14 January 2015 Tommy Caldwell and Kevin Jorgeson pulled over the top of El Capitan in Yosemite after 19 days on the Dawn Wall, about 3,000 feet of near-vertical granite. It was the first free ascent of what Patagonia called the hardest route on El Capitan, and the first multi-pitch route in the world graded 5.14d (9a).
They started on 27 December 2014. Caldwell was 36, Jorgeson 30. When they reached the summit, President Barack Obama congratulated them on Instagram: “You remind us that anything is possible.”
What free climbing means
Free climbing is often confused with free soloing. Caldwell and Jorgeson were roped in the whole time. “Free” means they made all upward progress using only the rock’s natural holds and their own strength, with the rope and gear there only to catch falls. Earlier ascents of the wall were aid climbs, in which climbers pull on or stand in equipment to move up.
A fall therefore did not end the climb, but it did mean starting that pitch again. To count as a free ascent, every pitch had to be climbed cleanly from bottom to top without weighting the rope.
From Warren Harding’s aid ascent to the free climb
The route began as the Wall of Early Morning Light, first climbed in 1970 by Warren Harding and Dean Caldwell using aid. It runs up El Capitan’s southeast face.
Tommy Caldwell conceived the idea of freeing it in 2007, and according to Patagonia he worked on it for seven years, later joined by Jorgeson.
Nineteen days on the wall
For almost three weeks the pair lived on the face. They slept in sleeping bags on portaledges, hanging tents bolted to the granite, while a support crew hauled up food and gear. Some of the climbing happened after dark, by headlamp, as the photographs show.
The crux came at pitch 15, a traverse on razor-thin holds. Caldwell got through, but Jorgeson needed seven days of attempts and rest before he finally climbed it. Caldwell waited for his partner, and they climbed the rest of the route together.
Watch Caldwell on pitch 15
Patagonia’s short film of Caldwell on pitch 15 shows the kind of moves involved on the route’s hardest ground.
After the Dawn Wall
The route waited almost two years for a repeat. In November 2016 Czech climber Adam Ondra made the second free ascent in just eight days, leading every pitch himself. Sébastien Berthe made the fourth ascent in January 2025.
Our Dawn Wall overview tells the story from another angle. For another Yosemite icon with its own climbing history, explore Half Dome.
Related reading
- Shawn Reeder’s Yosemite Range of Light
- Yosemite HD II: The Backpacking and Camera Work Behind the Time-Lapse
- Farmington’s February 2013 Blizzard in Backyard Time-Lapse
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