The North America Wall of El capitan
El Capitan with the Nose Route in the centre Salathe wall to the left (SW face) and North America Wall to the right (SE face). The dark diorite intrusions depict the map of North America.
Climbing The North America Wall of El Capitan 1972
Early in 1972 my climbing and sometimes life mentor, now life long friend, Ben Campbell-Kelly phoned me at my new home in Bradford, Yorkshire, where I was at the time a graduate student. An early geek at one of the few British universities that had a computer science departments. A call from Ben was also a call to adventure. In this case to attempt the route that had been called; “The Hardest Aid Route in the World” (not by the first ascentionists). The North America Wall on the SE face of El Capitan was first climbed by Royal Robbins, Yvon Chouinard, Thomas Frost, and Charles Pratt in 1964 during the last ten days of October. A wonderfull achievement following the team’s tradition of doing the route in one continuous push without fixed ropes to the ground - no siege tactics for Royal Robbins!
Brian Wyvill on the pitches leading to the the Black Dihedral Photo: Ben Campbell-Kelly.
Previous Ascents
In 1971, while Ben and I were busy climbing the French Route on the Trolltind Wall, fellow Brits, Bugs McKeith and Ian Wade had snagged the first British ascent of NA Wall. We contented ourselves with the second Brit ascent but overall the 8th (?) ascent of the route, which had averaged one a year since 1964. It was given a grade of A5, the ‘A’ standing for artificial or ‘aid’ climbing as it is better known. A1 means super safe and A5 highly dangerous. This is in contrast to ‘free’ climbing without the aid of metal helpers hammered or placed into the rock. The general public often confuses the term ‘free’ to mean without rope, guided I suppose from the term ‘free diving’ without air tanks. Without rope is called ‘solo’. Hence the movie title, ‘Free Solo’ showing Alex Honnald’s amazing solo ascent of the route Freerider a set of variations on the Salathé Wall on the SW face of El Capitan.
The Camp four scene
Jim Bridwell on the left - who else can you recognize?
Ben on the left facing the camera. George Meyers centre, seated opposite Brian. Who else can you spot?
Our 1972 rack for El Cap! Looks like it weighs about the same as a small car - ok not quite that bad! Actually I think our rack wasn’t nearly as good as the one shown, so we photographed this one instead!
How hard is hard?
The general rating of the NA Wall has fallen from A5 in the 60s and 70s to A2 today. This is mainly due to the advances in climbing gear as well as the rock changing with more ascents. The advice in 1972 said to bring pitons, copperheads, hooks, RURPS and any other weird inventions of the day. The Realized Ultimate Reality Piton or RURP, was a tiny knife blade suitable for placing in imaginary (or very faint) cracks. We managed to acquire what we could, but were far short of the 80 piton recommendation. Probably the most useful piece of gear we lacked, because it had not yet been invented, were the camming devices, but there are a host of other things such as beaks, offset nuts etc. that were yet to come into being. These advances enable the NA wall to be done hammerless in modern times. Nor did we have comfy G7 pods or any kind of artifical ledge. The following story, in the words of both Ben and I, was first published in Mountain Life Magazine in February 1973, and to our delight in the famous anthology “Games Climbers Play” in 1978 edited by Ken Wilson. We were certainly proud to be listed alongside some great climbing writer’s of the day.
Click here for the article “The Walrus and the Carpenter”
