Climbing El Capitan

[Jim Dockery]

Since many members seem to frequent Yosemite, and then of course shoot the biggest wall there, I thought I'd share a few pictures from a climb of the Salathe Wall back in the early 70s. Shot with a Rollie 35 on Kodachrome 64.

Early Climb (63)

• Jim Dockery
• Jun 2, 2018

Me following a pitch high on the wall - I'm climbing the rope using jummar clamps.

Early Climb (66)

• Jim Dockery
• Jun 2, 2018

Just above the last picture you climb a 20 ft. roof (horizontal overhang) then up onto "The Headwall" which gently overhangs for 300 feet. Rick is right at the lip. At this point I think anything dropped will clear the wall and land in the trees almost 3000 ft. below.

Early Climb (65)

• Jim Dockery
• Jun 2, 2018

2nd pitch of the headwall. Beautiful rock and good cracks makes for moderate but spectacular aid climbing (using sling ladders attached to gear as opposed to free climbing using just your body).

Early Climb (67)

• Jim Dockery
• Jun 2, 2018

My partner Rick leaves the bivy ledge at the top of the headwall on our last morning (we took 4 days). This was the most glorious and comfy night on a wall of my life. Behind me was just wide enough for our bodies, plenty of room for us both to lay out, with a sandy floor held in by a nice lip that also kept us from rolling of into the void.

El Cap B

• Jim Dockery
• Jun 2, 2018

Morning view down to the valley from the wall

 

[JimFox]

Oh man Jim! That is crazy cool. I think you got me a bit dizzy in that first shot looking down. That's totally amazing not just to climb El Cap, but then to be able to have a camera with to shoot photos too? Pretty amazing stuff.

 

[Ben Egbert]

Very good of you to show us these images from a place, and doing something that I would never do. But I do admire and greatly respect those who do. What an experience this must be.

 

[AlanLichty]

Wow - Glad you took pictures so we could see the view. No way I will ever see that with my own eyes.

 

[Jim Dockery]

Thanks for all the comments. I loved doing that back in my 20s - we had such a good time on this climb. We'd already done a few other walls so knew how to handle logistics and technical aspects of a multi-day climb, and trained like maniacs so it actually felt easy - we called it "vertical backpacking". I won't be doing anymore climbs like that again though, so it's fun to look back at the pictures, which sometimes give me the same feelings of vertigo and "that's crazy!" that you guys express.

 

[Bill Crawford]

I thought I recognized your name, the first time I got on Focal World. I was a climber for a few years, started about 79'. I climbed with Matt Kearns and Jim Yoder quite a bit in the mid 80's. I never did get up any of the big walls like El Cap, really enjoy your pics!

 

[Jim Dockery]

Thanks Bill, glad to virtually meet you. I moved away from WA back in 73, and didn’t move back until 91.

 

[JohnC]

Jim, those are fantastic...other than they make me queezie just looking at them.