Climbers Complete Historic Ascent on El Capitan

YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK, Calif. (AP) -- A pair of Americans completed what had long been considered the world's most difficult rock climb Wednesday, using only their hands and feet to scale a 3,000-foot vertical wall on El Capitan, the forbidding granite pedestal in Yosemite National Park that has beckoned adventurers for more than half a century.

Tommy Caldwell and Kevin Jorgeson became the first to free-climb the rock formation's Dawn Wall, a feat that many had considered impossible. They used ropes and safety harnesses to catch themselves in case of a fall, but relied entirely on their own strength and dexterity to ascend by grasping cracks as thin as razor blades and as small as dimes.

The effort took 19 days as the two dealt with constant falls and injuries. But their success completes a yearslong dream that bordered on obsession for the men.

Caldwell was the first to finish Wednesday afternoon. He waited on a ledge for Jorgeson, who caught up minutes later. The two embraced before Jorgeson pumped his arms in the air and clapped his hands above his head. Then they sat down for a few moments, gathered their gear, changed clothes and hiked to the nearby summit.

A crowd of 200 people gathered in the meadow far below broke into cheers when the men reached the top. Their relatives watched from the ground using telescopic monitors.

Caldwell's mother, Terry, said her son could have reached the top several days ago, but he waited for his friend to make sure they got there together.

"That's a deep, abiding, lifelong friendship, built over suffering on the wall together over six years," she said.

The trek up the world's largest granite monolith began Dec. 27. Caldwell and Jorgeson lived on the wall itself, eating and sleeping in tents fastened to the rock thousands of feet above the ground and battling painful cuts to their fingertips much of the way.

Free-climbers do not pull themselves up with cables or use chisels to carve out handholds. Instead, they climb inch by inch, wedging their fingers and feet into tiny crevices or gripping sharp, thin projections of rock. In photographs, the two appeared at times like Spider-Man, with arms and legs splayed across the pale rock that has been described as smooth as a bedroom wall.

Both men needed to take rest days to wait for their skin to heal. They used tape and even superglue to help protect their fingertips. At one point, Caldwell set an alarm to wake him every few hours to apply a special lotion to his throbbing hands.

They also endured physical punishment whenever their grip slipped, pitching them into long, swinging falls that left them bouncing off the rock face. The tumbles, which they called "taking a whipper," ended with startling jolts from their safety ropes.

Caldwell, 36, and Jorgeson, 30, had help from a team of supporters who brought food and supplies and shot video of the adventure.

The pair ate canned peaches and occasionally sipped whiskey. They watched their urine evaporate into the thin, dry air and handed toilet sacks, called "wag bags," to helpers who disposed of them.

There are about 100 routes up the rock known among climbers as "El Cap," and many have made it to the top, the first in 1958. Even the Dawn Wall had been scaled. Warren Harding and Dean Caldwell (no relation to Tommy) made it up in 1970, using climbing ropes and countless rivets over 27 days.

No one, however, had ever made it to the summit in one continuous free-climb - until now.