She wanted to feel the fierce wind gust through her hair, followed by an evening of staring and sleeping under the moonlit sky after conquering the 3,200-foot steep granite wall.
She first achieved this feat in 2017 when she was 66 years old. It took her 13 hours to complete the technical climb, and by the time she reached the top, it was too dark to see the summit or the view.
“Most elite climbers who climb the route we climb, secret fear, took four or five days, and we did it in 13 hours.” Wolovnik told CNN. “But I still wanted it, I wanted to be there and see what it was like for me. I wanted to sleep there, to watch the sunset and the sunrise, and I felt like I had to.”
It will be equipped with the necessary knowledge and equipment to back up a granite monolith. Volonic made his dream come true, scaling El Capitan in just six hours, to watch the sunset on his birthday.
“It’s an amazing place to be at the top, I could write an entire book about how it felt,” Wolonik said. “How powerful it felt, I just flew away. Nothing like it.”
After reaching the top at sunset, Volonik and his friends drank champagne and shared a birthday cake while enjoying the spectacular views.
“I didn’t start climbing 10 years ago to be the oldest woman to reach the top, I did it to get closer to my son,” said Volonic. “I climbed El Cap for myself, because I wanted to experience it all.”
“Free solo” is climber-speak without ropes, no safety gear. Free solo climbing is a high-stakes sport. It is either death or perfection.
Reputed for its near-steep cliffs, Yosemite’s El Capitan was considered impossible to climb until 1957, when American rock-climbing pioneer Warren Harding made it to the top with two colleagues. But they weren’t just using their hands.
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