Addressing The Rumors About Me Free Soloing El Capitan

Clearing the air.

I really hate to do this and I know that you’re not gonna believe me, but I free-soloed El Capitan, the 7500 foot wall in Yosemite National Park before Alex Honnold. I did it alone in 2003 during my summer break from school.

No ropes, no harness, no fancy documentary crew, just me and the wall.

The only recorded photograph of me free soloing El Cap. Of course camera quality was a bit worse back then so you can’t really see me. Funny story, actually. The guy who took this photo ran into me afterwards and said “Hey great job, man. Nice job free soloing that wall.”

Here’s the kicker, though. I free-soloed down the wall, too, just for fun.  

The whole loop took me three hours— no— four hours. Sorry, I forgot about one of the hours. It was a good experience, overall, but I wouldn’t want to do it again because I did it once already so it would be boring the second time.