[Hide Comment] Say, that's a great write up on the route!!! Nice effort! Sep 25, 2013

[Hide Comment] A 4.5inch cam is a #3 camalot? Apr 14, 2016

[Hide Comment] No, it's not. That means you need cams that will protect a 4.5" wide crack, which in the case of BD Camalots that would be a #5 or a fairly tipped out #4. Apr 14, 2016

[Hide Comment] FA of the pitches on this climb was done at 3 different times.
1. FA(right side of El Cap Tower and partial traverse): Yvon Chouinard, Chuck Pratt, Dennis Hennek, Chris Jones, by 1970
2. FA of Dihedrals and upper pitches, starting from right of Mescalito (as the Wall of Early Morning Light): Warren Harding, Dean Caldwell, 11/1970
3. FA (using right side of El Cap Tower, finishing traverse to Dihedrals, and entire route): Charlie Porter, summer/1972 Oct 4, 2019

[Hide Comment] P.S. The 7 pitches on the right side of El Cap Tower were freed except for one move at 5.13c A0 by Leo Houlding and Jose Pereyra in 1999 as "Passage to Freedom".
Usually nailing on pitches that have been freed and have been aided clean is frowned upon. Oct 4, 2019

[Hide Comment] That A0 on Passage to Freedom is a four inch Alfa Romeo hood ornament bolted to a blank slab by Houlding. Oct 4, 2019

[Hide Comment] Clint describes the history of the route really well. In Sept 1976 I did the 'Charlie Porter' line with Mark Hudon and Rainsford Rouner. We had a great time and found the climbing to be varied and once on the Harding/Caldwell section, really spectacular. Oct 26, 2019

[Hide Comment] First Free Ascent, Alex Honnold Tommy Caldwell. Nov. 1 2019 Nov 14, 2019

[Hide Comment] The Nov. 5 Rock & Ice article says Tommy Caldwell, Alex Honnold and Kevin Jorgeson freed the Passage to Freedom route to El Cap Tower, so Kevin should be added to that FFA.
And then Tommy and Alex went back later and freed to the top with their separate finish - across the Jardine Traverse,
then right where the Nose goes left to Camp 4, joining the Dawn Wall 1 pitch below Wino Tower.
And finishing on the original Dawn Wall instead of on Mescalito. Nov 15, 2019

[Hide Comment] I did this route with Peter Prandoni back in the Autumn of 1977. We did the next ascent after Hudon, Rouner, and Cole, so this would have been the 3rd or 4th. We climbed side by side with a Canadian party on Mescalito, who topped out a day ahead of us. The Canadians threw their haul bag off the diving-board feature atop our route, a practice the park service tolerated for about two years, until they got sick of tourists reporting bodies falling. It sailed past us way out from the wall, and unfortunately landed on Lay Lady Ledge, 1000 feet up. The red bag was visible there for most of that season. I don't know who ever retrieved it. We had better luck. Our bag landed right at the base of the slab below the start of the route, standing upright as though someone had gently set it there. I remember being mildly terrified on Harding's rivet ladders in the Blank Dihedrals. They only stuck out about 1/4 inch. You had to hang tiny wire cables (#1 stoppers) over them, which often fell off after you climbed past. No idea how deep they drilled them. At that time Harding and Caldwell's famous wine bottle was still sitting atop the Wine Tower. A fantastic adventure. Oct 9, 2021

[Hide Comment] Just to highlight an interesting fact about this route; Clint Cummins gives the FA history above. As he points out, Chouinard and company climbed the right side of El Cap Towers and bailed after beginning a bolt ladder heading up and right toward the "Blank Dihedrals". Next, Harding and Caldwell climbed the Wall of Early morning light, which began to the right of the current New Dawn route. Royal Robbins erased the start of this route during the second ascent. When Porter soloed the FA of the route now known as the "New Dawn", he actually only added about 50 feet of new climbing to bag a new route which ascends the tallest portion of El Capitan. Mar 15, 2023

[Hide Comment] Climbed this in October of 2023 with 5 nights on the wall. It was in good condition other than some of the lower out tat is getting old. We brought triples to BD C4 #5. In retrospect I would only bring 2 #5's but the 3 #4's were very nice for a couple pitches just before El Cap Tower. The crux pitch from a technical climbing standpoint was Pitch 25 (Sloan guide) but the headiest pitch was probably Pitch 17 to Wino...lots of small aluminum heads without many new bolts to clip (unlike pitches 15 and 16). Pitch 21 is not C3...it took very good gear (small cams and nuts). The bivy at the top of Pitch 24 is awesome! It is sloping but pretty long with lots of good bolts to hang the ledge and an amazing view!

We didn't bring a dedicated lower out line for the bags. We just used the back end of the haul line. This worked fine because we didn't link pitches 13 and 14 on the first big traverse. On the upper traverse pitch 20 from the Sloan guide is wrong on the length. That pitch is more like 120-130ft. We had plenty of tail from the back end of the haul line to lower out the bags. Nov 1, 2023

[Hide Comment] Adding a little to Marlin's comments above:
Fixed to P3 and then slept on Lay Lady, El Cap Tower, Wino Tower, Pitch 20 ledge (tight but doable), and Pitch 24 (stellar!)

Everything went clean with offsets, small nutting, and especially hand placed beaks getting us through the more commonly nailed pitches. Many of the old rivets/bolts from P12 on through the rest of WOEML are in okay condition considering the grade of the climb, but are certainly on their way out. Many original aluminum rivets on P15-17 that take the smallest cinch rivet hangers at best. Most anchors are at least 2 good bolts, but a few were only 1 good bolt with a complement of older relics that could use a good overhaul (pitch 12 anchor especially). Rivets on P26 were big new fatties, but there is an exp. fragile flake hook move that is a time bomb. Will likely need a new rivet when small flake eventually breaks off. We never needed it, but brought a bolt/rivet kit just in case and would certainly recommend subsequent parties do the same.

Be sure to go past the first set of anchors on P16 before the little roof (looks like obvious belay with multiple good bolts) to the next belay about 30' higher (less awesome hardware but at least 1 good bolt). We could only make it to the "50m rope belay" on the lower shoulder of Wino with our 60m instead of making it all the way to Wino proper. Nov 2, 2023