The Conquest of El Capitcm

It was a classic feat: two men against the unforgiving granite face of a mountain. From a beginning without fanfare, through a frustrating, storm-slowed ascent to a triumphant end, the assault on the Wall of the Early Morning Light --the sheerest approach to the summit of Yosemite's El Capitan Peak--was an atavism. For those who watched, it was like all high adventure, an escape from the ambiguities of ordinary life where seldom are there clean, finite beginnings, middles and ends to anything, and unalloyed success is rarer still.

Warren Harding (no kin to the President) had led the first conquest of El Capitan by the easier, "Nose" route in 1958. He met Dean Caldwell, a climber since his teens, in a bar in the Yosemite Lodge two years ago, and the two set out to master the most difficult path up the 3,000-ft. cliff in their first climb together. Harding, 46, and Caldwell, 27, hauled 300 pounds of equipment. They averaged only 150 ft. each day, screwing expansion bolts into the wall as they inched their way upward. The ascent--originally scheduled to take twelve days--stretched into the longest continuous effort in the history of rock climbing in Yosemite.

As the climb lengthened, officials and fellow climbers worried that the two would run out of supplies; a rescue party was organized, but the climbers refused to be taken off the mountain. Harding and Caldwell lessened their rations by half and "found that we felt better and stronger. The only problem was that we thought about food a great deal. We'd fantasize about things like Chinese noodle soup or sweet rolls and hot coffee."

At night, they slept roped to the side of the mountain, inside a Harding-designed hammock-tent that was suspended from several pitons. They usually climbed from 7 a.m. until 5 p.m., and during the entire ordeal found only three ledges wide enough to stand on. There were two falls during the ascent: Harding cut his hands and legs after a piton gave way; Caldwell took a similar spill, "slithering down like a ride in an amusement park." Both men were in good condition at the end.

When they reached the top, they found friends who had hiked up the less rigorous side of the peak and were waiting with champagne and the fantasy foods requested in messages dropped to the Yosemite Valley floor. Also in attendance were 40 reporters and cameramen, one of whom finally provided activity for the would-be rescuers. While the climbers celebrated near by, a member of one of the television crews, suffering from a hernia, had to be carried off the mountain by a park-ranger rescue squad.

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