Free the Magic Mushroom: Another El Cap Route Goes Free
Tommy Caldwell, the 29-year-old climbing machine from Estes Park, Colorado, continues to leave his mark on Yosemite Valley’s El Capitan, the grandest big wall in the world. In a spring of amazing American ascents, Tommy, paired with 35-year-old Justen Sjong, did the first free ascent of Magic Mushroom, which was Tommy’s 12th free route up El Cap—more than anyone else including the prolific Austrian Alex Huber, who has done seven. The duo cranked this 2,900-foot aid line, first climbed by Canadians Steve Sutton and Hugh Burton in 1972, in a five-day ascent from May 12 to May 17 after rehearsing the route’s hard sections for five weeks.
Working as a team, Caldwell and Sjong traded leads on the ascent, and the second climber also free-climbed every pitch. Caldwell reports that the Mushroom offers lots of sustained hard climbing, with eleven pitches of 5.13 and 5.14 and nine pitches of 5.12 climbing. Plus the 28-pitch route, just left of the famed Nose Route, is way steep with the top twelve pitches overhanging. The new free version of Magic Mushroom follows about 70% of the original aid line, which wandered in places, and climbs more directly up the face. Much of the new free route, rated VI 5.13d/14a, follows cracks, including lots of flared chimneys, finger-tip laybacking up thin corners, and wild stemming.
Photo above:The free Magic Mushroom follows cracks left of El Cap's obvious Nose.
Photograph © Paul Beard/Getty Images
Comments
Tommy Caldwell: The Greatest Athlete Ever?
When Kelly Slater won his 8th world title, SURFING Magazine ran an editorial entitled “Kelly Slater: The Greatest Athlete Ever.” The editorial pokes fun at mainstream sports commentators who think they can pick one sport as the hardest, with the best of that sport being entitled the greatest. Traditional sports authors feel that boxing requires the toughest combination of strength, endurance, quickness, and mental stamina - to take multiple hits to the head and still stay focused. Mohammad Ali being the best boxer ever, websites like stake his claim. Not surprising.
SURFING Magazine’s editorial is notable for challenging Mohammad Ali to enter the wrath of a ten foot pipe, and maybe surf it if he thinks he’s athletic enough. Kelly Slater, they point out, puts his athleticism on the line: if he can’t surf the wave, he will be pounded into a reef. Wimpy Mohammad Ali has an ambulance ready and waiting.
So now’s the time for climbers to claim our rightful place! We require every athletic talent not just for show, but for survival. If football players don’t have what it takes to keep going, they can sit down on the bench. But climbers take the gamble that our athleticism will carry us to the top, with the consequence for miscalculation no less than death. We find our reward not by outrageous salaries, but by feeling more alive than we ever thought possible.
Congratulations Tommy. You’re the best!
OOOOPS!! I am new to HTML. I forgot to put after the hyperlink! Please edit this!
And, send comments to: alec.ferguson@gmail.com
Happy climbing,
Alec.