Royal Robbins And Warren Hardings Wall Of Early Morning Light

In the wake of the recent success on dawn wall at the hands of tommy caldwell and kevin jorgeson america s cbs network has dug deep into its archives and unearthed some footage of the first ascent of the dawn wall originally called the wall of early morning light by 47 year old warren harding and 27 year old dean caldwell who established the climb in late october and early november 1970.

Royal robbins and warren hardings wall of early morning light. In 1970 warren harding and dean caldwell started up the wall of the early morning light also known as the dawn wall in yosemite national park. Harding and another climber didn t come down for rest even when a storm threatened their pursuit of the top. Two historic harding letters from wall early morning light supertopo s climbing discussion forum is the world s most popular community discussion forum for people who actively climb outdoors. Their rivalry came to head when robbins did the second ascent of harding s wall of the early morning light route and while hanging in bolts and bat hook holes that harding and dean caldwell had set robbins proceeded to cut off the hangers wanting to restore the rock to its pristine state.

The wall of early morning light travels through some exquisite terrain but is not as classic as nearby mescalito or perhaps even new dawn. Planning on just 12 days to ascend the route the two actually spent 27 days forging the line. Later partly erased by an outraged community notably lead by royal robbins and his willing partner don lauria took 27 days involved 330 holes. He quit erasing the bolts after just four pitches when he discovered that the climbing wasn t a simple bolt ladder and had instead the hardest nailing he had ever encountered.

Adams and bernstein recommend future parties bring sufficient supplies of small wire rivet hangers and a single large cam equivalent to a black diamond c4 6 in addition of course to a standard big wall el capitan rack. An observer watches warren harding and dean caldwell climb yosemite s el capitan in 1970 cbs news back then dawn wall was called wall of early morning light after a nearly month long climb the. In 1970 harding targeted the wall of the early morning light or the dawn wall of el capitan. Later along the climb with don lauria royal realized the climb was actually harder than it looked and respected it by not cutting anymore bolts and they were able to complete the second ascent.

He decided not to use fixed ropes this time but hammered plenty of bolts into the face of el cap.