Climbing El Cap - a Noob's Perspective

One of my goals this year is to climb El Cap in Yosemite.  Why, you ask?  Honestly, I have to ask that question myself.  I mean, why would anyone want to spent multiple days clinging precariously to the side of a cliff, a thousand feet of air under them, with ropes and gear tangled around them, having to poo in a paper grocery bag, eating cold spaghettios from a can, and sleeping on a suspended ledge.  Besides that, I haven't even begun to address the constant fear to be experienced...fear of your rope breaking, fear of rock fall, fear of bad weather moving in...fear of "bad" things happening, whatever that may be...fear becoming your constant friend, always poking at you to remind you of the situation you have voluntarily chosen to put yourself in.
 
This is an adventure, one that I will share with two partners who have years of big wall climbing experience and are willing to allow me to tag along and teach me.  It is an opportunity for me to face down these fears and hopefully find the inner strength it takes to accomplish a big climb like this. 

I heard a quote one time that has always stuck with me (I don't know the author, sorry), "If it's something that scares you, you probably should do it."  We can choose to never do the things that scare us and always wonder, "what if...?" or we can take on a positive attitude and say, "I can do this, I will do this" and take on that which scares us and see what the ride offer.  Who knows?  You might just discover things about yourself you never knew.   

I have taken on a very positive attitude toward this climb.  We are going to have fun...we are going to have fun...I tell this to myself every day - and I believe it.  Yes, I will be scared, but there will be moments of reward as well.

We are heading up Aquarian Wall on El Cap tomorrow - this should take us somewhere around 10 days to climb.  I will be updating this blog on our progress, so follow along - this is going to be good.

Me with El Cap in the background.

You can also follow our progress daily from the online report, http://www.elcapreport.com/

Here is our route:

Photo Credit:  Chris McNamara, Supertopo

Wish us luck on a safe journey...

Sonya