The efforts by Tommy Caldwell and Kevin Jorgeson to free climb a route up El Capitan’s Dawn Wall is really blowing up with much of the climbing world and now even the New York Times taking notice in this article by John Branch1. The piece does a reasonably good job of conveying what is going on, and it includes this quote from Caldwell that I really liked:
“This is my Moby-Dick, for sure,” he said. “For me, it’s just a fascination with the epic journey. I’ve always been a fan of stories of big journeys. And it’s a question of curiosity. I love to play with my physical and mental limits and see how far I can push them, and I just love to dream big.
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”
As for the current status of the big push to free the Dawn Wall, Tommy has succeeded through a variation of the “Dyno Pitch” which is roughly Pitch 15 1/2. Kevin has been stymied by the last difficult traverse pitch, Pitch 15, but they are resting up and he hopes to give it another go here soon.
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Stay tuned…
- As always with these kinds of mainstream articles, read the comments at your own peril ↩
comments were amazing
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among my favorites…
“This sort of extreme sport/conquest/challenge has become the hallmark of this generation. I believe it has surfaced and reached such popularity because life is truly meaningless. Men and women need to be challenged, to be sure, and since we have no wars requiring their mortal risk ( we hire the poor to do that job). They must find other challenges wherein to risk their lives and the lives of others. On this very day in 1945 these men might have been scaling a bridge to put detonation charges in place while receiving heavy enemy fire. We all have it too easy now.”
and
“Feats like this make me sick. Leave the mountain alone. Eat your ego for breakfast.”
and
“Sorry, but who really cares? Do something that genuinely makes a difference in the world. This is just the latest non-event. Yawnnnnnnn…”
and of course
“I doubt God will welcome such people if they die doing such life threatening foolhardy escapades. Life is precious, and a gift from God meant to be used for better things and not risked for a thrill. This isn’t like scientific exploration expanding the knowledge of God’s creation. This is simply foolish and irresponsible. There is nothing to be gained in such foolhardy adventures.”
comments are often becoming more entertaining than the article itself. and one could respond/reply to these but whats that meme out there…”i can’t go to bed yet, someone on the internet is wrong.” hahaha
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http://xkcd.com/386/
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It truly is a shame that we live in a time when people like Tommy and Kevin aren’t ‘scaling a bridge to put detonation charges in place while receiving heavy enemy fire’.
wtf
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We all have it too easy now.
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I used to joke with friends that the NYTimes comments section was the unhappiest place on earth. Just a gaggle of sad, unfulfilled basement dwellers getting their daily hate on. Pay no mind.
As for The Push, good luck to Tommy and Kevin!
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Thanks for the reader’s digest Van, much appreciated. “foolhardy escapades” LOL
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It is a bummer that all the commenters are such haters. Nighttime is a good news site. The folks who read that article have no idea what it takes to do what Tommy and Kevin are doing. When they finish the dawn wall it maybe the greatest free climbing accomplishment ever. So sick!
For sure I second Colin in saying good luck guys! Crush that thing!
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nytimes.com not nighttime. sorry
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My favorite comment:
“My hometown had granite deposits which were quarried. What was left was a swim hole surrounded by rock walls 100 feet high. We used to jump and dive off the walls and we’d get injured or die occasionally, with a noticeable correlation between injury and beer. Eventually, the good mothers of the city arranged for the quarries to be filled in. There is a granite brotherhood, and all I can say to these guys is don’t drink while climbing or your mothers will tear El Capitan down.”
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The comments on 8a right now are entirely counterproductive, and I think hurt the sport. Who are these armchair critics claiming whether or not they’re climbing it in a fair way? Give me a break.
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With the amount of media covering this (climbing and mainstream), you open yourself up to criticism. If ethics over adding a bolt on a traditionally protected single pitch 5.9 in Climbing Zone X can be debated , then the climbing community is going to debate the validity, style and ethics from the “Superbowl of Climbing.” Kevin and Tommy probably knew this was going to happen.
Climbing has gone mainstream maaaaaaaan.
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PS.
Next message from 8a.nu.
It should have been left for Adam Ondra to flash.
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8a is counterproductive and hurts our sport
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I think you should go on a 1 month climbing trip with Jens and blog about your adventures here!
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bring someone along to film it in slow motion
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That can’t be completely true. 8a is a valuable source for videos (occasionally getting them first), seeing what the sprayers like to say, and mostly to stare In awe of j webbs unreal boss ness. It does offer humorous claims & funny broken English, but it’s probably one of the more profitable climbing sites out there, you know why Narc, cause its getting traffic, & lot’s of it, however your site gets a loyal cult following. The thing is that we need to vamp up your site and make it able to compete in terms of traffic & therefore exposure so that we can start to make a healthier online presence & community instead of armchair discussions & debates on the forums of all sites. I suggest you get something proprietary and let’s take down the evil empire. Big ups to all the homies, tommy & k-jorgs for bein so shizzle in the high class expert rollin in style. Props to the narc for the commish on the valley uprising bonus, thanks for the download, hope your making a fair profit on it 😉 Overr n Out.
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8a sux. Narc for ever!!
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While the initial NYT article was a little dodgy (they’ve improved, e.g. their nice profile of Tommy), they really did put good folks on this. John Branch’s 3-part series on hockey enforcer Derek Boogaard was some of the best sports writing I’ve read in years, and his piece on skiers caught in an avalanche was excellent as well. Specialists like Andrew Bisharat of course provide more insightful coverage, but as far as non-specialists go, Tommy and Kevin couldn’t have asked for a better person. If he does a longform piece on this after the climb (especially with NYT’s awesome interactive graphics), it should be something to look forward to.
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I think the coverage has been really good all things considered
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no knowledge of rock climbing but have a question. what is the difference between alex honnold’s free climb taped by 60 minutes vs Tommy Caldwell and Kevin Jorgeson’s recent climb……
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The climbing you see Honnold doing on tv involves him climbing with out the protection of a rope – we call this free soloing-, so if he were to fall he would almost certainly die. The climbing that Tommy and Kevin were doing was protected by ropes – we call this free climbing – so that if they fell the ropes would catch them. This is relatively safe compared to what Honnold is doing on 60 minutes.
The biggest difference here is that the climbing that Tommy & Kevin were doing is at the cutting edge of what humans can physically do, hence they fall a lot and need ropes to protect them. The climbing that Alex is doing without ropes is relatively easy in the grand scheme of things, however what makes him so unique is that almost nobody would feel comfortable mentally climbing what he does without the safety backup of a rope.
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