Muir Wall

The Muir Wall is an outstanding route that follows a beautiful natural line of crack and corner systems just left of The Nose. Although moderate in grade, this route sees relatively little traffic due to its very sustained and demanding nature, which requires lots of technical aid climbing.

The history here is some of the best on El Capitan. In June 1965, Yvon Chouinard and TM Herbert made the first ascent over eight days, and in doing so changed what was possible on the Big Stone: it was the first El Cap route established by a team of two, and the first done in a single push from the ground with no fixed ropes. No umbilical cord to the Valley floor, no retreat, just two climbers and everything they could carry. They named it for John Muir, and Chouinard's account of the climb in the 1966 American Alpine Journal remains one of the most celebrated pieces of climbing writing ever published. Three years later, in April 1968, Royal Robbins spent ten days alone on the route making the second ascent, which was also the first solo ascent of El Capitan, at one point taking a leader fall onto a single RURP, which held, and which now sits in the Yosemite Climbing Museum. Fitting for a wall born of two-man commitment, the current speed record was set in 2020 by a team that included Tom Herbert, TM's son, who honored his father's eight-day first ascent by climbing the route in just over twelve hours.

This route has been climbed at 5.9 C4, but most parties will probably want to bring some pins and a hammer to keep the grade at A2. For more detailed info and topos, check out any of the current Yosemite Big Walls guidebooks.

The approach is the same as The Nose but once at the base of the wall continue west till you come to a large left facing dihedral just left of Moby Dick (Moby Dick is a good alternate start for the route). This approach should take about 20 to 30 minutes with a haul bag.

Standard Gear: cams in triples from .5" to 3", an extra 0.75" or two, and doubles in Black Diamond 4" to 5" equivalent. Micro cams are very useful on many pitches, bring doubles if you've got em. Bring a solid set of nuts including offsets, as well as one or two sets of micro nuts (incl. offsets). Bring a single medium hook, but you could possibly use a beak instead on the 1-2 hook placements on the route.

Clean Rack: bring two wide cam hooks (narrow may work as well) and as many beaks as you've got (at minimum, bring doubles in all sizes, but ideally several more). Offset cams, ideally doubles in the smaller sizes. Totems (especially black to yellow) were great for the strange shallow scars on the upper pitches. Ballnuts.

Nailing Rack: bring one cam hook, an assortment of about 8 to 10 LA's, a few 1/2" and 5/8" angles and a sawed off 3/4" and 1" angle. Finally bring 2 to 4 KB's and 1-2 beaks in sizes small, medium, and large.