Canadians Climb a 36-Pitch Yosemite 5.13a
Dexter Bateman and Danny Poceta have made a five-day ground-up team ascent of Golden Gate on El Capitan
Canadian climbers Dexter Bateman and Danny Poceta have climbed the 36-pitch Golden Gate, a 5.13a big wall free route on El Capitan.
Bateman wrote an in-depth summary of their ascent (read below), in which he said, “We have been waiting a long time to do this climb, we started talking about it in 2021, last spring we drove to El Cap to find it was a waterfall, and we were lucky enough to both get some time off work to make it happen this fall. I free climbed El Cap, and couldn’t be happier. Thank you Danny.”
Golden Gate heads up the first 20 pitches of Salathé Wall before a technical down-climb, a 5.13a, the 5.12 golden desert, the A5 traverse and the razorblades pitch. The first ascent was in 2000 by German brothers Alexander and Thomas Huber. Other Canadians have freed it over the years, including Bronwyn Hodgins in 2021 – read an interview with her here.
Bateman and Poceta are highly accomplished Rockies climbers, with several difficult first ascents and repeats. In 2020, Poceta and Bateman, along with Simon Yamamoto, repeated the Rockies trad test-piece The Path 5.14a – read more here.
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