I had been in the Valley for just over a month (it had been a great month) and was about to leave. John Alcorn—who I’d climbed Astroman (5.11c, 10p) with, one of my favorite days of the trip—had been there for a few weeks and was also wrapping up his stay. So, we decided to get in one last climb—something on El Capitan sounded fitting. John’s original goal for the trip (which he hadn’t been able to attempt because his partner was injured) was to work on Freerider (5.13a, 30p) (Freerider is a 3-pitch variant of the famous Salathé Wall on the southwest face of El Capitan, but climbers often just say Freerider to refer to the entire route, which is actually mostly pitches of the Salathé Wall). So, we decided to scope out a few of its pitches.

We had both previously climbed Freeblast (5.11, 8p)—the first eight pitches of Freerider, plus the descent down to Heart Ledge (which counts as Pitch 9)—so we planned to jug the fixed lines up to Heart Ledge and start climbing from there. The day’s main goal was to reach the Monster Offwidth (Pitch 15), though we weren’t sure how long the Hollow Flake (Pitch 11) would take us, so we figured we’d just see how far we could get.

The “5.11c” move at the start of Pitch 10 off Heart Ledge is reputed to be one of the hardest moves on the route, and it lived up to its reputation. John managed to pull it on lead after a few tries, while I couldn’t quite get my foot to stick on the slick rock and ended up aiding through. Pitch 11 was the Hollow Flake—a full-on adventure involving a long 5.10d layback downclimb, a foot traverse, and then a 5.9R lead up a massive flake (mostly protected by #6 and #7 cams). There are several ways to top-rope the follower on the downclimb; we chose to thread our tagline through a carabiner at the top. The pitch was time-consuming and took a couple of hours to get both of us through—but next time it’ll go quicker.

The next few pitches offered some enjoyable climbing. We eventually caught up with the party ahead of us, who had taken an hour-long break on a ledge. Just as we arrived, they started climbing again, forcing us to wait a bit. With the 4:49 p.m. sunset and our desire to avoid rappelling in the dark, that delay cost us valuable time. We climbed to the base of the Ear and would have liked to continue up to the Monster Offwidth, but decided to play it safe and start our descent.

We managed to rappel with a single 70m rope. The rappels were a bit diagonal but went more smoothly than expected, and soon we were back at Heart Ledge and rappelling the fixed lines to the base. We reached the ground just after sunset.

Even though we didn’t make it to the Monster Offwidth, it was a fun and fulfilling day exploring several pitches of Freerider and spending time high on El Capitan. Between the long jug to Heart Ledge, the involved pitches, and reaching a high point halfway up the wall, it felt like a full-value day. We finished it off with pizza at Curry Village, joined by John’s friend Marina—a perfect way to cap off our time in the Valley.

This page includes an overlay of Freerider/Salathé Wall up to El Cap Spire (a bit farther than we got), along with pitch-by-pitch photos from our climb. I’m inspired to come back and work more of Freerider/Salathé Wall in the future.