Yosemite: an adventure that stays with you

Text and images by Alessandra Prato

It is in these moments of extreme vulnerability that the memories of my most beautiful adventures keep me going.

I hold on to them tightly and remind myself that pursuing your dreams is worth it, even when it involves risks, uncertainty and consequences that are difficult to accept.

For the past three weeks, I have been using a wheelchair following a climbing accident: during a fall, I fractured both feet. And “vulnerable” is exactly how I feel. Limited in my movements, dependent on others, forced to slow down in a way I did not choose. I cannot go where I want, I cannot distract myself as I normally would, and I cannot even easily distance myself from my own thoughts.

So I try to focus on the most beautiful ones: on powerful emotions, on adventures full of life, on those moments that remind me how deep my need is to be in the mountains, to climb, to feel part of something greater.

Daily life is complicated right now. It is exhausting, both mentally and physically. I am trying to keep my spirits up: many friends have come to visit me and, while receiving visitors can be tiring, it is also wonderful to feel so much closeness and support. It is beautiful to have my friends nearby, to see how much they are willing to give me and to think that, although I hope I will never have to, I would naturally do the same for them.

Yesterday Andre came by, and together we revisited one of those adventures that can give me motivation right now. One of those experiences that remind me that, as soon as I am able to walk again and move independently, I will want to put myself to the test once more in what I love doing: climbing in the mountains.

I am talking about El Capitan in Yosemite National Park, which I climbed in May with Andre.

Andre and I met a few years ago after booking a trip to Taghia without even knowing what the other looked like. It was one of those slightly risky decisions that I enjoy, with potentially opposite outcomes, but in this case it turned out to be a great success. We immediately climbed well together and laid the foundations for a strong partnership and, above all, a very deep friendship.

We have not climbed together many other times: we live far apart, and he has a wonderful family to whom he devotes most of his time, so he does not have many opportunities to leave and go climbing. But for Yosemite, he made a major sacrifice, because he too knows how important it is to pursue your dreams.

He had to juggle family and work commitments twice because of me. In November, when the trip was originally planned, I was denied a visa because of an old trip to Iran, whose consequences I had been completely unaware of.

So we finally took our chance in May: a whirlwind trip to Yosemite. It was not a holiday, but an extremely ambitious plan whose outcome was anything but certain. Andre and I wanted to climb the “Free Rider” route on El Capitan, that colossal wall of vertical granite that rises before you as soon as you enter the park and leaves you speechless.

It was a choice that suited us perfectly: we are both ambitious and, as a rule, always ready to take risks.

We decided to embark on this adventure with no previous Big Wall experience, but with exemplary motivation — and stubbornness.

The first few days were a precarious balance of adrenaline and tension. We hardly had time to settle into the park, partly because our schedule was so tight and partly because we were anything but relaxed. We wanted to maximise our chances of completing the climb successfully.

To do so, we studied the route description in meticulous detail, watched highly experienced American climbers pack their Big Wall haul bags, and discussed strategies and manoeuvres out loud that we had never actually tried in practice. Meanwhile, we cursed the car with the dead battery in the pouring rain and, above all, me for insisting that we sleep in a tent at Camp 4 for the “full Yosemite experience” — a decision that was, of course, also influenced by my limited budget.

For me, the tension reached its peak when we went to the base of the fixed ropes to practise ascending them with our absurdly heavy haul bag. That was the moment of truth.

Armed with jumars, aiders and a great deal of resignation, we tried to work out how to climb more than two metres of rope per hour, while encountering American pro climbers, highly skilled in aid climbing, who looked at us with a mixture of admiration and pity, probably wondering where on earth we thought we were going.

We did not even have a portaledge, a decision I do not entirely regret: hauling even one bag that heavy was already complicated enough.

A little worried but extremely determined, we allowed ourselves just one form of acclimatisation: the first ten pitches of the route, which lead to the first bivouac ledges. The pitches were demanding but spectacular, and I felt incredibly strong. We left some water and gear on the ledge and descended the fixed ropes, looking forward to our one and only rest day before the big adventure.

The following day, the real vertical journey began. After the slow and exhausting ascent of the ropes with our haul bags, we prepared the first pitches for the next day and spent our first night on the ledge, enjoying the first of five extraordinary star-filled nights on the wall.

Our goal was to free-climb as much of the route as possible, but without repeating pitches after a fall or resting on the rope: we had no time to waste. And because we did not have a portaledge, we could not sleep wherever we wanted. We had to reach the ledges, but we could not climb beyond them either. We had a strict schedule to keep.

The route was difficult. The climbing style was different from what we were used to and, although I had spent the previous months training on cracks, everything still felt new, technical and demanding.

The setting, however, was extraordinary. The rock was magnificent and, almost miraculously, we met hardly anyone along the route.

There are moments I will never forget: the awkward chimneys, the dreamlike cracks, the suspended ledges. The freeze-dried dinners, our first experience with our homemade “poop tube”, the Canadian we met on the route while he was attempting it solo, the haul bags getting stuck and the swearing that followed.

Then there was the pendulum swing after Enduro Corner. Andre cheering me on as I struggled through the offwidths. The final tiny bivouac ledge, where we slept sitting up, pressed close together, with nothing but empty space beneath us.

But above all, I will never forget the understanding and mutual support between Andre and me. Whenever one of us was tired, the other noticed immediately and somehow found the strength for both of us.

My most beautiful memory remains the moment we topped out and saw the famous little tree at the summit of El Capitan, the one we had only ever seen in videos until then.

We shouted and cried with joy, using up every last bit of energy we had left. We spent our final evening and night on the summit, celebrating as though we were in paradise, reminding ourselves that even if the route had been climbed by many others, free and in far less time, we too had done well.

Laughing and joking, still unaware of the endless descent that awaited us, we looked forward to all the simple pleasures we would enjoy on our final day in the park: a shower, a steak, a walk, a swim in the lake. They seemed like the height of luxury.

And, all things considered, those simple pleasures are the same ones I long for now, temporarily confined to the sofa: taking a walk on my own two legs, going out for ice cream by myself, swimming in the lake.

Over the past few years, life has taught me to put everything into perspective. To be adaptable, resilient and able to adjust to situations and the unexpected.

One day you dream of El Capitan; the next, you dream of being able to get from the sofa to the kitchen on your own. Every dream is valid, vivid and worthy of determination.

Thank you, Andre. I would not have wanted anyone else by my side on this adventure.

ROCK II DFS GTX

Technical approach and light climbing shoe, for via ferratas and mountain trail hikes.

Alessandra Prato

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