What We Can All Learn From Climbing the Dawn Wall

It’s been wonderful seeing all the attention fellow El Capitan climbers are getting for their unbelievable adventure on the Dawn Wall.

For those who haven’t been following this story, climbers Tommy Caldwell and Kevin Jorgeson are climbing one of the toughest routes on El Capitan in Yosemite National Park, California. They have been on the wall for more than a week and will likely be up there a few more days. It’s been fascinating seeing the mainstream media try and describe just what it is these two adventurers are doing up on the wall. Using terms like, “free climbing” and “without the aid of ropes,” are leading the uninformed reader to imagine all sorts of dangerous outcomes.

However, one thing the media is getting correct is that this will be the toughest rock climb in the world once Tommy and Kevin are done. If you want to learn more about their journey, read the recent articles featured in the SF Chronicle and Rock and Ice.

Many climbers have made history in and out of Yosemite Valley. But why has this climb captured the attention of the mainstream media and the nation? Moreover, what can we all take away from the extraordinary feat Tommy and Kevin are tackling right now?

Three things come to mind:

They committed to something huge.

They decided it was important to them.

They are living, enjoying and being rewarded by the process… not the end result.

El Capitan is one of the biggest continuous sweeps of granite in the world. The Dawn wall provides 3,000 feet of beautiful climbing. This is the real deal. I’ve climbed the upper 60 percent of this route in less than a day but I was not holding myself to the rigid climbing style that Tommy and Kevin are holding themselves to on this project. They not only chose a large wall but one of the most respected and difficult styles in which to ascend. Going big always means immense reward in the end.

Climbing is silly. Climbing a 3,000-foot wall is silly and dangerous. Climbing it in the “free climbing” style they have chosen is at best an extreme niche of “craziness.” But is it crazy? These guys have chosen to push the very limits of their ability. They’ve chosen to hone their skills in their chosen field every day, every week, every month, every year. They haven’t settled on dabbling or entertaining themselves on smaller projects. They chose an enormous goal that requires all the various climbing skills and fitness they’ve worked so hard on for many years. Most rewarding things in life require the greatest input and effort. Money or community support couldn’t force or even encourage most people to take on this big a challenge. Yes, there is outside support now. That is because people are drawn to supporting mind-blowing accomplishment like this.

Tommy and Kevin may have a TV crew waiting at the top for them but that is not true of the dozens of times they topped out on the route over the past several years. When you “top out” in Yosemite you are not on the tip of a pyramid or on the point of a gendarme raising your hands over your head. When you top out in Yosemite you have essentially climbed out of a giant ditch. It is vital that you loved the climbing, loved the time on the wall and loved the process. You gain significant reward in the doing, not the finishing. The time they’ll spend in front of a TV camera on top and every interview thereafter will be a tiny fraction of the time they spent planning, training and executing this amazing adventure.

What we can all take away from this adventure is the inspiration to take on bigger challenges, set your mind to task and enjoy every step of the process. And that is pretty cool.