At first he was devastated, but then his determination kicked in, and he had the finger removed so as not to hinder him. Yet in a bizarre twist, a week later word emerged from Kyrgyzstan that the rebel Caldwell had shoved had actually survived, having only tumbled down a steep hill. Tommy Caldwell and Kevin Jorgeson climbed into the history books on Wednesday after reaching the top of the 3,000ft, granite face of El Capitan without tools - but the epic feat was not without sacrifice, especially for their hard-working hands. Climbing Style and Specialty Photo by @austin_siadak on Instagram When a climber falls, his partner catches the fall using a belay device, which acts like a brake and stops the rope. By Monday, both Caldwell and Jorgeson had reached a ledge dubbed Wino Tower. As Caldwell watched the sunrise that morning from the Rostrum, the first rays illuminated one section of El Capitan. Their base camp consisted of three portaledgeseach one a six-foot by four-foot (2-meter by 1-meter) platform with tent fly, suspended by nylon straps and hanging from bolts in the sheer granite wall. What are you going to do with that? It would be such a bummer to finish this thing without Kevin. He started out having never free climbed even one route on El Cap. Tommy wouldve been the guy who climbed the Dawn Wall, and I wouldve been the guy who almost climbed the Dawn Wall. Distributing body weight among hands and feet, and maintaining a perfect balance among these constantly moving appendages, is yet another crucial element. It took Caldwell a full year of exploration to find a continuous line of holds through the smooth face. I can't imagine anything worse, really.". Still only a teenager, the unknown Tommy had gone up against elite climbers and won. He explained: 'One of the greatest threats to a climber's success is a callus splitting open a cracked fingertip is akin to a blown tire in the final stage of the Tour de France.'. Tommy Caldwell uses a network of ropes to move between sections of the Dawn Wall, a granite expanse of Yosemite National Park's El Capitan. An intricate web of rigged ropes allowed the climbers to move from pitch to pitch, as they worked on free climbing each one in succession. The pair ate canned peaches, bagels with thick slices of chorizo and occasionally sipped whiskey. The pair are the first free climbers to scale the 3,000 foot granite wall . "It's about realizing a dream." After free climbing the most routes on El Capitan, including many first ever ascents, Tommy ultimately came to the seemingly impossible Dawn Wall, never yet dared to be free climbed. Caldwell had made the move five nights earlier. The final segment featured Caldwell swinging around a featureless section of the Dawn Wall, calling out the next generation to come and help him finish the next-level route. They place "tick marks," white chalk marks, to indicate the location of hard-to-see hand- and footholds. The Dawn Wall is divided into 32 climbing pitches of varying lengths of rock that the climbers mastered using only their hands and feet. It just sounded terrible.. But Tommys writing, and Im doing a lot of speaking. Just before the screening, Outside caught up with Joregson to learn about his life, post-Dawn Wall. John Long, author and Yosemite climbing legend, narrates sections of the film to explain technical climbing jargon, big-wall tactics, free climbing, and climbing culture. Their 19-day push to complete the first free ascent of the wall captured attention far beyond the climbing community. Free climbing does not mean climbing with no ropesthat's free soloing, a highly risky style of climbing practiced only on occasion by relatively few in the climbing world. On January 9, Jorgeson finally broke through and completed pitch 15 without falling. TC: I heard somewhere that leafy greens helped your skin. Jorgeson struggled for several days last week on difficult pitch 15, at one point being forced to rest for two days while the skin on his fingers healed after being ripped off by razor-sharp ledges. The Dawn Wall is the steepest, tallest, blankest section of El Capand one of the monolith's most storied sectors. Below them was 2,000 feet (610 meters) of the hardest free climbing ever completed on El Capitan. That feels good to me, because I bailed on college. Over the next six days, they were held at gunpoint and marched at night through the mountains while their captors traded fire with the Kyrgyz army. Even President Barack Obama was moved by their 19-day climb, stating, You remind us that anything is possible.. I loved the dream of it.. The biggest news in climbing right now, by a country mile, is the Dawn Wall. He said that he hoped everyone 'can find their equivalent of the Dawn Wall'. Almost 1000m high and with two pitches graded 5.14d (9a), this is probably the hardest big wall in the world. Navy SEAL Commander &New York Times Bestselling Author, World Champion Athlete, World-Renowned Inspirational Speaker, and Author, "We got close enough to their achievement to share it, and thats enough to make anyone want to shoot the moon." Men with erectile dysfunction who take Viagra are 25% less likely to Why Yosemite Climbers Super Glue Their Fingers, El Capitan: How did the climbers do it? Tommy Caldwell, however, might be the one exception. The narration, coupled with visual overlays of features on the El Cap route, makes such a monstrous climb easier to digestat least from the couchyet for seasoned climbers does not feel hyperbolic or monotonous. Soon, Jorgeson would don his headlamp and cast off into a vertical sea of nearly featureless granite. Whatever public profile Tommy Caldwell and Kevin Jorgeson had before they free climbed the Dawn Wall of El Capitan, it certainly got a lift once they reached the top. Earlier in the same article, Caldwell wrote, A free ascent of the Dawn Wall would mean catapulting forward what I thought was possible in the world of big-wall free climbing. With his mind set on the project, Caldwell would spend years hanging off the side of El Cap attempting to connect the dots of cracks and crimps to find a continuous free route to the summit. The film follows free climbers Tommy Caldwell and Kevin Jorgeson as they made what seemed to be an impossible attempt to climb the rock face known as the Dawn Wall, a 3,000-foot-high cliff . Throughout the climb, both men needed to take rest days to allow their skin to heal. Minutes after reaching the top of El Capitan, after the hugs and the sprays of sparkling wine, the rock climbers Tommy Caldwell and Kevin Jorgeson spoke exclusively with John Branch of The New . Tommy Caldwell envisioned the climb seven years ago and Jorgenson joined the team two years later. Fucker! he screams as he drops off the wall and swings back and forth in the dark abyss. There are about 13 other free climbs on El Cap, and none of them are even close to being as challenging. Near-impossible feat: The two climbers clung on to ledges mere centimeters thick as they made the ascent, Jorgeson and Caldwell fist bump as they approach the summit of the 3000ft, granite face of El Capitan on Wednesday afternoon, The world was watching as the pair's grueling half-mile journey up the peak's Dawn Wall route ended with an emotional reunion with their families at the summit in Yosemite National Park. You can pretty much open whatever door you want, have any conversation you want, push whatever agenda you want. Two climbers captured the worlds attention as they completed the visionary first free climb of Yosemites Dawn Wall, considered the worlds longest, hardest, blankest rock climb. Historically, routes on walls the size of El Capitan follow a natural weaknessa crack. One of their first encounters . Heres how to save yours from ending up in a landfill. The two started climbing El Capitan (there are more than 100 routes to the top) when Kevin Jorgeson turned 15, and it has been a birthday tradition ever since. Caldwell climbs the Loop Pitchhis variation of pitch 16which ranks among the most challenging sections of the Dawn Wall route. On January 14, 2015, Tommy Caldwell and Kevin Jorgeson topped out El Capitan's Dawn Wall in Yosemite Valley to a circus of friends, family, and media. Lucas brought up 40 pounds of groceries in one load, including salami, pesto, cans of chili, red bell peppers, penne, rice, cucumbers, eggs, brown sugar, and a bottle of bourbon. And that was purely because the holds are so sharp, and the environment, in the middle of winter, is so dry and so chapping. On January 14, 2015, Tommy Caldwell and Kevin Jorgeson topped out El Capitans Dawn Wall in Yosemite Valley to a circus of friends, family, and media. (Read why Caldwell and Jorgeson are sanding and Super Gluing their fingers for the climb.). During one clip, Jorgeson attempts pitch 15 at night, with cameras hovering overhead. You have to be in the right mind-set as an athlete to do the hardest thing you've ever done in your life.. For Caldwell, this achievement has come to represent the culmination of all his years of climbing, and all that climbing has taught him about achieving big goals in life. Living on a sheer, rock face for two-and-a-half weeks brought challenges, the foremost being having enough water and food. The Dawn Wall has more difficult pitches than every other free route on El Cap combined. Within a year after they met, the two were married. Ten weeks after completing a historic ascent in Yosemite, the 30-year-old climber is raising awareness about the sport and contemplating whats next. Though Jorgeson, 30, and Caldwell, 36, will forever be linked to the wall, their partnership was an unlikely one. Caldwell says he received an e-mail from Jorgeson "almost immediately" after Progression was released. On January 14, after 19 days on the wall, Jorgeson and Caldwell scrambled into the swarm of friends, family, and cameras that awaited them at the top of El Capitan. A French press for coffee and their iPhones (charged with a solar panel). Tommy Caldwell, 36, and Kevin Jorgeson, 30, HANDS ON: HOW TO SCALE A MOUNTAIN, ONE GRIP AT A TIME. Did you get any incentives from sponsors for climbing the Dawn Wall?No. He faced another grave moment the following year during an expedition to Kyrgyzstan with fellow climbers John Dickey, Jason Smith, and Beth Rodden, who was then Caldwell's girlfriend and later became his wife. What are some peoples personal Dawn Walls that youve seen since you posed the Whats your Dawn Wall? question on social media?If you search the hashtag, you get all these stories. To reach Caldwell and Jorgesons portaledge base camp (where they slept every night except the final night), friends, cameramen, and porters had to either hike to the summit of El Cap and rappel or jug 1,200 feet of fixed lines from the ground. 'I feel like the most proud person in the world right now,' said Caldwell's 39-year-old sister Sandy Van Nieuwenhuyzen, hours before the climb was completed. Tommy and Kevin did so much for Samsung during their time at the conference. Full names: Tommy Caldwell Date of birth: August 11, 1978 Age: 43 years as of 2020 Place of birth: Estes Park, Colorado, United States Nationality: American Height: 5 feet 10 inches Weight: 75 kg Marital status: Married Spouse: Rebecca Pietsch Children: Ingrid Wilde and Fitz Caldwell Profession: Rock climber, author Read also Unlike climbing porn flicks of the past, The Dawn Wall has substance beyond action shots. Over the years, some of the strongest free climbers in the world have joined Caldwell and Jorgeson to work on unlocking the free-climbing "puzzle" of the hardest pitches. Kevin Jorgeson (born October 7, 1984) is an American rock climber. Standing on the side of the stage in front of a capacity crowd, Jorgeson explained that the prospect of failure became very real toward the end of his weeklong battle with pitch 15. Is that how you wouldve answered it? It was our day, and for him not to be able to share his first-person thoughts was really hard for him. "I thought that the film would at least show the climbing world what this line was all about," said Caldwell. To get this shot of Caldwell on pitch 15, photographer Brett Lowell had to dangle from a 2,700-foot-long (823 meters) rope held by a crew on the ground. It would be really easy to write off the Dawn Wall as impossible over the last six years. 'He climbed everything he could think of. So, we started eating bags of kale, because I figured that was like the most hearty leafy green that could withstand being in a haul bag. Even for Kevin, it was a pretty big burden to bear.. For a time, Honnold held the jugging speed record at one hour, until Lucas, on a second trip to bring Caldwell tea and a keypad so he could type updates to the world, jumarred in 54 minutes. Following the climb's completion, President Obama tweeted a picture of himself giving a thumbs-up in front of a pic of El Capitan at the White House and message which read: 'So proud of @TommyCaldwell1 and @KJorgeson for conquering El Capitan. I needed a whole new discipline, not just a new project.. I doubted whether I'd be able to do it all the way until the very last push, Caldwell admits. Tommy also grew up with the great outdoors as his playground, establishing the hardest roped climbs in the United States as a teenager and quickly rising to the top of the competition circuit. Thats totally an option. Caldwell and Jorgeson pulled large bags up the mountain with them containing enough water - around three liters a day - to see them through the challenge. Some behind-the-scenes details, however, are left out. For training purposes, Caldwell once free climbed two routes on El Capitan in a 24-hour period. Thats my Dawn Wall. We all had tears in our eyes. Eric Jorgeson, Kevin Jorgeson's father, told KGO-TV that his son has always been a climber and watching him fulfill a long-time dream made him proud. It's all mental. Both climbers admitted that their hands were 'pretty beat' following the feat, Jorgeson shows his hands after he and Tommy Caldwell completed their historic free-climb ascent of El Capitans Dawn Wall, in Yosemite National Park on Wednesday, Jorgenson grips to the walls with his bare hands as the climbers scale the rock face in Yosemite park, Kevin Jorgenson, 30, (pictured left) and Tommy Caldwell, 36, (right) spoke on Thursday about the toll the historic climb had taken on their bodies, Jorgeson attempts to repair damage to his callused and aching hands - while suspended thousands of feet up El Capitan, Caldwell applies balm to his poor hands, where his injured index finger is visible, after the effects of a tool-free climb up 3,000ft of rock began to take its toll. An abundance of rain in California has set the stage for an epic sea of flowers this spring. The harder the movements gettwisting, stretching, lunging, swinging, danglingthe more painstaking the process of solving the puzzle becomes.