Fall is about to get into full swing out in Yosemite which is usually a good signal that Tommy Caldwell and Kevin Jorgeson will get back to work on their Dawn Wall project on El Cap. This season will be a bit different though as Jorgeson is going to be rafting down the Grand Canyon for the next few weeks leaving Caldwell to fend for himself leading them to add a third member to the team:
After talking with Tommy, we have decided to grow the Dawn Wall team and take more of an expedition approach. With more than two team members, we will have more energy, more back up, more talent, and all around good times on the wall. So, we are super happy to have Jonathan Siegrist joining the team! Jonathan is such an awesome guy, with such great talents, Tommy and I couldn’t be happier to have him up on the wall with us….For the month of October, Tommy and Jonathan will be battling away on the crux pitches. As soon as I get off the river at the end of October, I’ll be driving straight to Yosemite to join them!
Caldwell is fresh(?) off a victory in the recent 24 Hours of Horseshoe Hell competition that saw him and partner Sonnie Trotter put down a cool 302 pitches in 24 hours, and Siegrist seems to be in peak form after a summer spent climbing desperate face climbs in Idaho and Wyoming in addition to his repeat of Caldwell’s The Honeymoon Is Over on Long’s Peak. As for Jorgeson, Beth Rodden spent the winter before she climbed Meltdown shoveling snow, so perhaps 3 weeks paddling will be just the training Jorgeson needs?
Update: More words on the team from Caldwell and Siegrist in this update by Climbing.com
Caldwell, Jorgeson AND J-Star? Awesome! This is like The Avengers of climbing.
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Holy Talent.
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The neat thing about this matchup is how it draws the three climbers from three different disciplines. TC, at this point, is best known as a trad climber (although he is accomplished in all disciplines, KJ’s background is bouldering, and J-Star has been most active as a sport climber. Shows how on an objective of this magnitude, skills from each discipline are needed.
Also, J-Star’s recent successes in the realm of hard trad climbing is a really great example of what happens when a strong and motivated sport climber enters the tradosphere. It is a perfect rebuttal to the bitter an jealous who belittle sport climbing accomplishments with the attitude of “Oh yeah, but what could they do on a real cliff, like the Diamond” The answer, it turns out, is that they can do quite a lot. Truly dedicated and talented climbers, it seems, can excel in whatever aspect of climbing they set their mind to.
On a similar topic, regarding cossover between disciplines, it should be interesting to see what Daniel Woods accomplishes this Fall season, since it sounds like he is getting motivated for sport climbing. Expect big things, I say.
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Awesome
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A boulderer, a sport climber and a big wall superstar walk into a bar…
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and promptly send it.
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In the words of my bro Brad, “Sending good thoughts to TC on El Cap – in my mind the white light surrounds TC and snow doesn’t touch him”
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any update on this
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http://www.jstarinorbit.com/2012/11/progress.html
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