El Capitan (To-tock-ah-noo-lah) is probably the greatest easily accessible big wall in the world. Almost 1000 meters of excellent, steep granite, right in the middle of Yosemite Valley, with good conditions roughly half of the year: El Cap is hard to beat. It was first climbed by Warren Harding, Wayne Merry and George Whitmore in 1958 via the Nose. The first free ascent was done via the Salathรฉ Wall in 1988, by Paul Piana and Todd Skinner. Lynn Hill became the first person to free El Cap by leading every pitch in 1993, when she did the Nose. Since then, many historical climbs have followed, including the first one day free ascent (Lynn Hill on the Nose in 1994), Tommy Caldwell's Dawn Wall (5.14+, climbed with Kevin Jorgeson in 2015) and Alex Honnold's free solo ascent of Freerider in 2017 to just name a few. In recent years, free climbing has become more and more popular, with the Huber brothers' Freerider and Golden Gate receiving several ascents every season. Both are located on the south west face and are variations of the Salathรฉ Wall. El Corazon, the Pre-Muir and El Nino are popular objectives as well.
