2 complete historic climb to top of Yosemite’s El Capitan

Two rock climbers won a race against diminishing daylight Wednesday to become the first to scale a slippery, barren slab of El Capitan considered so treacherous no one else has ever dared try it.

The relief of the arduous, three-week journey up the Dawn Wall was palpable thousands of feet below on the Yosemite Valley floor with hundreds letting out screams as Tommy Caldwell, 36, and Kevin Jorgeson, 30, pulled themselves over one final ledge just before 4 p.m. PST.

“It has been such a part of our lives, I miss it already,” Caldwell’s father Mike Caldwell said.

“I’m shaking,” added Jorgeson’s mother Gaelena, who left Santa Rosa at 5 a.m. to reach Yosemite National Park in time to witness the crowning moment of what is being described as the world’s most difficult free climb ever.

Gaelena Jorgeson almost didn’t make the four-hour trip because she was fearful of getting behind the wheel after a recent accident. The mother called the solo drive her own Dawn Wall ascent because “I had to overcome that fear.”

It was another subplot in a whirlwind week as the climbers gained international recognition for overcoming a seemingly insurmountable challenge.

Caldwell, of Estes Park, Colo., and Jorgeson, of Santa Rosa, were scheduled to descend in the darkness, and hold a Thursday morning press conference.

It took the climbers six years to tackle the trek up a 3,000-foot vertical face divided into 32 sections, known in climbing vernacular as “pitches.”

The duo had failed in 2010 because of bad weather and in 2011 when Jorgeson suffered a broken ankle. Jorgeson fell on the first pitch Wednesday, slowing down their finish. He had to start the section over after the fall for it to count. (Although the climbers use only hands and feet to ascend, they are attached to safety ropes in case of a fall.)

Their families and loved ones have shared in the odyssey, watching the men study, plot and train for the agonizing endeavor.

“I had a low-grade anxiety in my gut,” Gaelena Jorgeson said. “Will he need to come back next year?”

Jorgeson and Caldwell, of course, will keep returning to Yosemite because the granite outposts remain some of the world’s prime climbing territory.

But they can return knowing the Dawn Wall is no longer out of their reach – even if it remains elusive to everyone else in the world.

Caldwell has been scaling these rocks much of his life. Mike Caldwell began climbing here at 13. He recalled Wednesday taking his son up one of El Capitan’s 100 routes as a kid. The father called the latest accomplishment “the next level in a video game.”

This level brought rock climbing into the national consciousness with thousands following the exploits online. It even led the White House to tweet out a picture of President Barack Obama posing for a picture in front of a painting of Yosemite saying, in part, “You remind us that anything is possible.”

Caldwell and Jorgeson began the journey Dec. 27 and have been spending their nights at a base camp of tents suspended 1,200 feet above the Valley floor. They have overcome battered and bloodied fingers, falls and abject mental exhaustion.

No one ever considered trying to scale that particular wall – which has precious little to grasp – before Caldwell seven years ago. It is described by some as the world’s most difficult free climb because of its difficult sections, many among the highest rated in the sport.

The Dawn Wall, named for catching the first morning sun rising over the Sierra, was first climbed in 1970 by Warren Harding and Dean Caldwell (unrelated to Tommy). But that first ascent took bolts and ropes in what is known as an aided climb.

Wednesday’s conclusion is just the latest memorable experience for Tommy Caldwell.

In 2000, Caldwell and friends were kidnapped while climbing in Kyrgyzstan. The plucky climber pushed an armed guard off a cliff to help his party escape after six days of captivity.

The four-person expedition had been taken by Uzbekistan militants, according to an account in Outside magazine. At the time, the ordeal became an international story, quite different than the one Caldwell is experiencing this week in Yosemite.

“It took Tommy to a new limit,” his sister Sandy Van Nieuwenhuyzen said of the kidnapping. “On the other side is a deep sense of peace.”

Later, Caldwell lost a climber’s invaluable tool – a finger – in an accident with a table saw. He kept on climbing.

Caldwell, who grew up in the shadow of Rocky Mountain National Park, began climbing at 3 when his dad roped him up. He turned professional at 17 after winning a competition in Utah.

Jorgeson also showed climbing instincts as a child and was groomed at an indoor climbing gym in Santa Rosa. He is known as one of the world’s top bouldering climbers, tackling 400-foot pieces of rock with gusto and no ropes.

Like Jorgeson, Caldwell and his wife Rebecca Rodden have the sport coursing through their veins. Their 20-month-old son Fitz is named after the famed Patagonian peak Mount Fitz Roy in Argentina.

Last year, Caldwell and Sacramento, Calif., climber Alex Honnold completed an inspiring summit of craggy Fitz Roy in four days.

Caldwell’s climbing prowess already is rubbing off on the family’s next generation. His 9-year-old nephew Grant Van Nieuwenhuyzen was asked about his budding career while standing in El Capitan Meadows minutes before the finish.

Grant peered up at the rocky perches, and exclaimed, “I'll try that.”

Meanwhile, up above, Jorgeson was trying to put the moment into just that type of perspective.

“I hope it inspires people to find their own Dawn Wall, if you will,” Jorgeson told The New York Times. “We’ve been working on this thing a long time, slowly and surely. I think everyone has their own secret Dawn Wall to complete one day, and maybe they can put this project in their own context.”

This story was originally published January 14, 2015 at 3:52 PM with the headline "2 complete historic climb to top of Yosemite’s El Capitan."