Since 1961, when Royal Robbins, Tom Frost, and Chuck Pratt made the first ascent, the Salath猫 Wall on Yosemite's El Capitan听has stood as one of the pinnacles of big wall climbing. The first ascent crew split the climb into two trips: they听climbed听the first 900 feet in three and a half days, then came down on fixed lines. Several days later, they went back up the fixed lines and took another six days to finish the climb.
In 1997, Japanese climber听听tried to onsight the route鈥攚hich means they attempted听to climb it on his first try without any falls or prior knowledge of the line. Hirayama fell at the Teflon Corner, pitch number 24 of 35. If that pitch sounds familiar, it鈥檚 because the Salath猫 Wall shares approximately 鈥檚 terrain, the route Alex Honnold famously free soloed听in 2017 after years of practice. The two routes diverge at pitch number 29, the Headwall, with Freerider taking a slightly easier line.
Onsighting a route takes a particular set of skills.听Primarily a climber has to be incredibly good at reading difficult sequences of moves. But they鈥檝e also got to be strong enough to hold on while they figure things out, or to downclimb to a rest when they鈥檙e a little unsure how to proceed. A single fall and the onsight doesn't count.听
Enter Adam Ondra, by far the best climber in the world. The 25-year-old Czech has onsighted routes as hard as 5.14d (the Salathe Wall is 5.13b), but had never onsighted anything听as massive as the 3,000-foot Salath猫 Wall.
Last weekend, he gave it a go. Starting at a minute past midnight, Ondra and his partner, Nico Favresse, made it up over 2,500 feet to the Headwall (the route鈥檚 crux) where Ondra fell twice.
鈥淪ome dreams came true yesterday, but the ultimate鈥攖he onsight鈥攊s not fulfilled,鈥 Ondra听wrote on听. 鈥淎nd the nature of onsight is that it will never be fulfilled any more. It is only one try, lots of pressure in case of such a legendary route like Salath猫听in Yosemite on El Capitan.鈥
With Ondra鈥檚 one chance gone, this monumental achievement听remains to be听accomplished.