Adam Ondra to Top Dawn Wall with Free/Aid Ascent

Adam Ondra is staying focused on the Dawn Wall, despite the heavy rains and poor climbing conditions. “After the period of rain and two days of rest, I went onto the wall with Pavel for three days,” said Ondra to Black Diamond. “The plan was to send pitch 15 [5.14d] and 16 [5.14a] the first night. Hauling took us a while, so we got to our basecamp under the crux pitches in the dark. But it did not matter really. It was finally cold enough for pitch 15!”

A photo posted by @blackdiamond on Nov 2, 2016 at 10:16pm PDT

Ondra had to skip the first few metres of the pitch due to water running, but noted the opening moves are easy. He sent the shorter pitch 15 on his fourth attempt of the night. He continued to climb into the Loop Pitch, pitch 16, and is going to link it with pitch 14 5.14a. “It is much harder—the whole pitch could be around 5.14c, but I think it is worth it,” said Ondra.

Ondra and Pavel are currently resting on the portabledge and will work the next four 5.13+ pitches to Wino Tower. They will then continue to the top of the route to complete their ground-up free/aid ascent. “Life on the portaledge is just great. We’ve just had oatmeal for breakfast and it is pleasant temperature to hang around in the sun and we even have solar panels to charge our phones.

“Life is pretty sweet up here. Even using wag bags when necessary is not as bad as I thought.” Now that Ondra has worked through the cruxes, we will be waiting to hear if they will be going for a single-push free ascent. Click to watch the clip below.

The start of pitch 15 (second traverse pitch 5.14c) was wet, so I started without these first five meters and "sent" the pitch on my 4th go at 11 PM. It turns out that only night climbing makes sense on these razorblades. @blackdiamond #Montura @mytendon @lasportivagram #Yosemite #dawnwall #elcapitan

A video posted by Adam Ondra (@adam.ondra) on Nov 2, 2016 at 1:50am PDT