Yosemite climber hopes everyone conquers a Wall

His finger tips will eventually heal, and the attention of his feat will eventually fade, but Kevin Jorgeson hopes at least something will be remembered of the first free climb of the Dawn Wall on El Capitan in Yosemite National Park.

“I want to see all the people who were inspired and felt a visceral connection to the story realize they all have their own kind of Dawn Wall,” said Jorgeson while attending the Outdoor Retailer Winter Market recently in Salt Lake City.

“People will forget our names – I’d forget them, too – but we provided a concrete example of dreaming big and the struggle, challenge and eventual success that comes from doing it. I don’t care if they forget our names, I just don’t want them to forget how it feels to dream.”

On the afternoon of Jan. 14, 19 days after they started, Jorgeson and his climbing partner Tommy Caldwell reached the top of the Dawn Wall. They climbed the 3,000-foot granite wall visible from the valley below using nothing but their own bodies.

Ropes were used only to prevent them from falling – and fall they did.

The route was parceled into segments known as pitches. The climbing partners faced 32 such pitches to reach the top. About halfway through, Jorgeson faced the toughest test.

“I got stuck on No. 15 for a week. It was the hardest climbing of my life,” Jorgeson said while hanging out at the Adidas Outdoor booth at the twice-annual outdoor gear convention.

Jorgeson’s fingers were raw and split from the climbing by Pitch 15, one of the most challenging of a difficult route. The tape covering the cuts on his fingers, which had already been treated with Super Glue, made it difficult to find a grip on the granite.

Jorgeson split his fingers in five places when he finally completed the difficult pitch.

“I didn’t want to be the guy who almost free-climbed Dawn Wall. You can’t just skip a pitch and count it,” he said. “If I hadn’t made it that day, I would have needed another three or four days to let them heal.”

Jorgeson held up his hands when someone stopped by to congratulate him and said he expected them to be close to normal in two weeks or so.

The cracks and crevices above Pitch 15 provided a little more grip, and Jorgeson was able to climb them with tape on his delicate fingers.

Caldwell came up with the idea of the free climb in 2007. He spent a season, according to Jorgeson, exploring the wall to see if it was possible. When Jorgeson heard about the idea, he wondered if Caldwell needed a partner.

They knew each other and had climbed minimally together at that point, but Caldwell took him on and the pair spent many hours planning their route.

“We spent every October and November for the past seven years on the wall,” Jorgeson said. “I have no idea what I will do in the fall now.”

Family and friends deserve a lot of credit for supporting the climbers, but Jorgeson said there were more climbers than just he and Caldwell on the Dawn Wall for 19 days.

“The climbing community is a tribe, and the tribe is stoked,” said Jorgeson. who has climbed in Utah locations like Little Cottonwood Canyon on the Wasatch Front, Indian Creek near Canyonlands and bouldered in Joes Valley.

“We couldn’t have done it without all the support. People didn’t scoff about our dream, they helped us live it. I feel like we are all celebrating together and they have a right to feel invested in the accomplishment.”

International media covered the climb, and people flocked to the Yosemite Valley to watch the climbers make their way to the summit. Social media was abuzz with the hashtag #DawnWall as the world waited.

“The great thing beyond the physical feat was that this was an organic climb,” said Tim Bantle, managing director of Black Diamond, an outdoor gear company based in Salt Lake City. “It wasn’t paid for. It wasn’t sponsored. This was Tommy and Kevin’s project.

“They tried for years, and years and they failed and they failed and they failed and then they succeeded. It is truly inspirational, and it doesn’t have anything to do with the business of the sport; it is the love of the sport.”

The reality of completing the climb was still sinking in for Jorgeson at the end of January. While he says he doesn’t care much for all the attention, he will do whatever he can to inspire others to climb their own Dawn Wall.

Even if it means answering questions like “where did you go to the bathroom for 19 days?” like one person asked him Wednesday.