No I will not free climb the Dawn Wall of El Capitan

On Wednesday afternoon, Tommy Caldwell and Kevin Jorgeson reached the top of El Capitan, the massive naked granite centerpiece of Yosemite National Park. The pair spent 19 days climbing a sheer rock face twice the height of the Freedom Tower without the use of ropes (save to prevent a deadly fall). It is perhaps the most audacious free climb in history, a feat thought impossible by many expert climbers.

Climbers are typically optimistic people -- they often come off as bright-eyed inspirational posters come to life -- and Jorgeson is among the more positive. “I hope it inspires people to find their own Dawn Wall,” he said. “I think everyone has their own secret Dawn Wall to complete one day, and maybe they can put this project in their own context.”

I would like to take this opportunity to state, in no uncertain terms, that I will never climb the Dawn Wall, my own personal Dawn Wall, or anyone else’s metaphorical Dawn Wall. I will not free climb any Dawn Wall, and I won’t do it with the assistance of ropes, either. I do not want to climb the Dawn Wall, and you can’t make me.

This is the “base camp” where Caldwell and Jorgeson slept every night. (I put “base camp” in quotes above because the term base camp derived from being at the base of a mountain. As in, there’s actual ground to put your tent on.) Every day they would use ropes to return to the point on the Dawn Wall where they left off -- a hard enough feat for many climbers -- free climb the next section of mountain, then use ropes to return to this lean-to suspended 1,200 feet in the air.

You know what else is 1,200 feet in the air? THE OBSERVATION DECK OF THE EMPIRE STATE BUILDING. Have you seen the harrowing pictures Chicago tourists take from the glass ledge of the Willis Tower? Caldwell and Jorgeson essentially LIVED that, minus the protective glass. FOR THREE WEEKS. No thank you.

Now, don’t confuse me with someone who doesn’t like camping. I like camping a lot! I spent much of my Marine Corps career sleeping outside, often on the steel surface of a tank. In December, temperatures in the Mojave would drop into the 40s, sometimes below freezing, and the wind would come screaming through the valleys, funneled between the black rock saddles above. I would put up a makeshift windscreen of MRE cases and hunker down in a heavy sleeping bag, and the sound of the wind screaming by as I lay protected from it gave me the soundest sleep of my life.

The difference here is that my tank was not suspended to the side of a mountain nearly a quarter-mile above the ground.

The New York Times -- which covered Caldwell and Jorgeson’s ascent masterfully -- created a fascinating, interactive 3.4 gigapixel image of El Capitan that illuminates the Dawn Wall’s size and smoothness. You can zoom in and see details like the absence of handholds and any number of imagined deaths. Here’s a screencap of the basecamp:

Kinda scary, right? Now let’s zoom out:

I have a firm handshake. I obsessively trim my fingernails short. Perhaps that would suggest I have some predisposition for rock climbing, but then I look at pictures of climbers’ hands and instinctively reach for a tube of expensive hand cream. The dry knuckles! The cracked cuticles! It is incredibly hard to type this while protectively rubbing my hands close to my chest.

From a National Geographic article on the relentless care that climbers put into their hands:

Good climbing skin means building calluses thick enough to support a climber’s full body weight as it hangs off the tiniest slivers of rock. The calluses have to be strong enough to prevent some of the pain without becoming too thick or too dry.

From the same article:

A common problem with tape is its tendency to slip off the finger. Instead of wrapping the finger more tightly and risking it going numb, climbers often use Super Glue, applying it directly to the skin before wrapping the digit in tape.

Tommy Caldwell lost most of his left index finger to a table saw in 2001 (here’s a picture of how it looks today).

After grabbing some ice from the freezer he rushed to hospital, where surgeons reattached the severed digit with pins. But they warned Caldwell the finger would never again be strong enough to grip a rock. To him, that meant it was useless, so he told them to remove it. [...]

After severing his finger, Tommy and his father devised a plyometric muscle training system to strengthen his other digits. “He’s now got the strongest little pinky you’ll ever see,” Mr Caldwell said.

The climber also compensated by simply training harder than anyone else. On an average day he does a 12-mile run at altitude, then weights, then practises climbing on a specially built smooth wall in his garage.

“There’s not a single hole on that wall that a human being can use except Tommy,” his father said. “He’s been using it for 15 years. But his greatest strength is his ability to suffer.” [The Telegraph]

The article excerpted above also recounts the time that Caldwell, while climbing in Kyrgyzstan in 2000, was taken hostage by a militant Islamic group and held at gunpoint for six days -- until Caldwell grabbed one of the terrorist’s guns AND THREW HIM OFF A DAMN CLIFF.

Since Caldwell and Jorgeson began their climb, I have watched three hours of RedZone during Week 17 of the NFL season, plus the Rams-Seahawks game, eight NFL playoff games, the three college football playoff games, the season premiere of “Archer,” two movies, and a bunch of stuff on the DVR that, if I’m being honest, I could probably live without if I, like, REALLY wanted to undertake an impossible free climb for three weeks. But there’s no getting back those live sports events, man. Caldwell and Jorgeson will have to live with that regret.

There is literally nothing in the world that I want to accomplish that badly. I used to want to write a book, but then I realized that it required drive and focus and time and organization that I don’t have. Now I just want to go back to Hawaii at some point. It’s really nice there.

In many ways, Tommy Caldwell and I are very similar. We are both 36 years old. We are both fathers of young children. We have both faced deadly situations in faraway lands. So you might think, “Well heck, Matt can probably free climb the Dawn Wall of El Capitan, too.”

I’m not so sure. I won’t rule out the possibility that I could free climb the Dawn Wall, given the appropriate equipment and some practice. But I also admit that my present fitness regime (going to the gym about twice a week) and general body condition (bad knee, sore hip, aching back) would make me physically incapable of copying this feat. I guess we’ll never know for sure.

Jorgeson -- the one who said he hopes we all climb our own Dawn Wall -- spent 10 of the climb’s 19 days stuck on a single pitch (the 3000-foot climb was broken into 32 segments called pitches). He tried and tried Pitch 15, and every time he was undone by a pair of tiny, razor-sharp holds that would split the skin of his fingertips and leave him stuck in the base camp -- which, again, is a portaledge 1,200 feet up a sheer mountain wall -- for two days while his skin healed.

I would have said, “To hell with this,” gone home, poured a drink, and eaten a pint of ice cream. That sounds way better than trying. Here’s how Jorgeson felt about it:

My battle with Pitch 15 continues. After 6 years of work, my #DawnWall quest comes down to sending this pitch. Last night, I experienced a lightness and calm like never before. Despite failing, it will always be one of my most memorable climbing experiences. On my 4th attempt, around 11pm, the razor sharp holds ripped both the tape and the skin right off my fingers. As disappointing as this is, I’m learning new levels of patience, perseverance and desire. I’m not giving up. I will rest. I will try again. I will succeed.

SPOILER: he succeeded.

I probably should have mentioned this earlier, huh?