Almost Free: Mark Hudon Shares Memories of a Bid to Free El Capitan’s Salathé Wall, in 1979

I did another wondrous catch later on also. Max was up working the Double Cracks and dropped a nut and biner. I was standing on top of the Ear, saw the nut fall, and Max was easily 50 feet or more above me. I simply leaned out, stretched out an arm and caught it dead in my hand! It was a really stupid thing to do, actually. What if the biner had hit a bone in my hand and broken it? 

The luck and stupidity of youth again, eh? 

OK, so anyway, we get up to Mammoth and fix ropes down. The next day, we hike back up with the loads, including a whole pound of chalk, jugged the lines and hauled the bag. We free-climbed up to the pendulum, did the pendulum, never even thinking of free climbing it for some reason (probably the same reason we never thought of downclimbing the rappel off Mammoth) and got to Lung Ledge. We left the bag there, grabbed the rack and ropes, and free-climbed the three pitches from Lung to the bottom of the Ear. Next day, jugged and hauled the lines, I led the Ear, Max soloed it while I hauled and he got ready for the Double Cracks. 

Now, you must mention this: in my humble opinion, Max was the best climber in the world that day. He went up on that pitch, maybe lowered off once, but went back up, falling now and then but coming down to a no-hands rest. Eventually, he did it all but for four aid moves in a row toward the end. I followed it, was amazed at how hard it was, and probably did all the moves Max did but certainly not as continuously. We called it mid-5.12. It was easily the hardest free climbing ever done on El Cap at that time and very close to the hardest climbing ever done in the Valley. 

We free-climbed up to El Cap Spire, left the bag, and went free climbing. We freed two or three pitches again right up to the bottom of the Double Corner pitch, a pitch we "knew" wouldn't go free. As we were doing it, we looked at a variation that looked like it would need some gardening but would go at about 5.9. Why we didn't stop and clean it and climb it, I'll never know. 

Next day, wake up, jug lines and go free-climbing again. 

At this point, Max and I had been climbing with each other almost four years. Never in that time did I see Max get sewing-machine leg or take an overly long time on a pitch, or back off or freak out in any shape, form, or manner. I'm sure Max would say the same about me. We were the perfect team. We never had tangled ropes, we never had an epic, or a clusterf—k. The bag never got stuck, no one ever dropped any important gear — we always finished our leads; we never left any gear fixed. It was all smooth and flowing. We were both totally devoted and totally in with the program. 

I forget when it was, but after a while we simply stopped yelling climbing commands. You'd be belaying, you'd see that you were near the end of the rope, all of a sudden a lot of rope would go out and then stop. Then the haul line would start moving and the bag would start bouncing. We'd lower it out, and a few minutes later the climbing rope would get a few jerks and you'd start climbing. Both of us figured, ‘What the f—k else could be happening?’ The leader had arrived at the anchor, pulled up rope to build the anchor, hauled the bag and then put you on belay. Simple as that. We used to laugh at the guys who would be out in the dark yelling, "Is the BLUE rope tied off? Can I jumar? Are you off belay!?!?!?"