So I was born and raised in Des Moines, Iowa. I’m a three hour drive from the nearest limestone crag and a full ten hour drive from the front range of the Rockies. People always ask me just how I got into rock climbing as a hobby in the first place; the honest truth is that I don't really know.

Seeing as how there was nobody in Des Moines to mentor me in the art of gear placements and wall systems, I learned by a lot by trial and error. I learned how to place gear while mock leading at a Wisconsin quartz crag. I practiced aid climbing in the oak trees in my backyard by slinging branches and pounding nails in the bark using them like hanger-less bolts. Every chance I got I went on climbing trips. I spent weekends in the Black Hills climbing the needles and climbed at Lumpy Ridge in RMNP. All of that paled in comparison to the 8 day trip my brother and I took to Yosemite National Park the spring of 2009.

After that adventure, we were both hooked. Dreams of climbing El Cap kept me up at night. The hours spent reading trip reports on SuperTopo and looking up Yosemite videos on the internet were distracting me from my classwork at Iowa State University. Basically, I had caught the fever. We scheduled a trip the fall of 2010 and spent the time leading up to it preparing for what I hoped would be a dream trip – my chance to climb The Captain.

The trip began just like any other – driving into the valley and peeing our pants when we saw the intimidating sheer granite face of El Cap. In the four weeks we had to spend in The Valley we had our minds set on climbing the Northwest Regular Route of Half Dome and if the stars aligned, tackling The Nose.
In a matter of two weeks we had cruised up the Northwest Regular Route with no problems. To be honest, we were surprised with ourselves. Half Dome looks so massive and intimidating from the ground, we were surprised to find the climbing very manageable, straight forward, and tons of fun.
Our success on Half Dome fueled our fire. We were now excited as ever for The Nose, and now had the confidence to think we actually stood a chance at conquering it. Our concern now became crowds. Seeing the traffic jams slogging up The Nose did little to excite us for the upcoming climb. But, we geared up for it anyways. It was the end of September, and we were set for our go up the route when an unusually warm stretch of weather pushed into the valley. With highs in the upper 90’s, we were not about to go up a big wall, so we waited. Finally the weather cooled, and we made our push with a 20% chance of rain for the next few days.

We got our start at six in the morning. We started out moving fast and feeling very good, and hit the stovelegs as the sun was coming up.

We passed Dolt Tower and were making our way up to El Cap Tower when the first of the rain came in. It was nothing but a drizzle, so we continued up – hoping that the real weather would hold off for another couple of days.
The sky cleared again as we made it to the Texas Flake – which by the way, doesn’t get nearly the credit it deserves. As a 5.8 chimney, we found it to be harder than most 5.10 splitters we encountered on the route. The fact that the entire chimney is protected by a single bolt adds to the intimidation. The boot flake and king swing were every bit as cool as the hype.

Because we were moving relatively well, there was nobody ahead of us on the route, and the weather was beginning to look as if it might change, we decided to try to top out our second day instead of taking three days as we had originally planned.
We began to short fix, link pitches, and back cleaning to try to cover as much ground as we could our first day before the sun went down. I climbed the pitch after The King Swing with no pro to allow my brother to second the pitch with a smaller lower out.

We set up our portaledge at the top of 19 as darkness set in.

The following morning started out beautiful, and feeling refreshed from our night of rest we began climbing.
We were climbing with a sense of urgency again due to the fear of the weather closing in. Scott led the Great Roof and backcleaned the entire pitch so I would only require one big lower out. I imagine it was a bit of an intimidating first aid lead – I’m glad he didn’t take a fall, it would have been quite the whipper.
The changing corners pitch was surprisingly challenging. The little aid that we were required to do on the route was completely straight forward, usually plugging in a few cams and French freeing short sections was enough to get by. Changing corners, however, required many offset micro nuts and cam hook placements. I was impressed by the lack to fixed gear on the pitch. The sky was still clear, but the rumbling thunder in the distance added to our sense of urgency.
Unfortunately, three pitches from the top, the storm opened up. Almost instantly the sky turned from sunshine to dark clouds and lightning. We didn’t dare bring out the cameras through the storm for fear of ruining them, so we didn’t end up with any pictures. We hung from the belay for two and a half hours draping our portaledge fly over us in a vain attempt to stay dry. It was cold, cold and wet.
One of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen was the massive waterfalls running off Middle Cathedral rock. From under our rain fly we heard what sounded like a combination of a train and a hurricane. I poked my head out from under the make-shift shelter to see Niagara Falls running off of Middle Cathedral. It was amazing; I just wish I had my camera to capture it.
The rain finally slowed and the lightning let up. At this point we were left with a decision. It was now dark, we were wet and cold and the rock was still dripping. We had three pitches to climb, or we could set up our ledge, warm up with our 0 degree bags and top out in the morning.
Two hours later we were standing on the top of El Capitan. Cold, wet, dehydrated, and extremely tired, we had made it to the top. In any other setting I would have been miserable under these conditions. But cold, wet and tired seemed like the most appropriate way to stand at the top of The Captain.
We made it down the East Ledges the following day in the rain to find that the forecast had changed from 20% chance of rain over two days to 90% chance or rain for the next 7 days. Its lucky we topped out when we did.

Now the only question left is, what next? I had dreamed of climbing El Cap for so long that having done so is almost a disappointment. I need to find some other climb that inspires me to keep in shape during the long winter months in Iowa. Any ideas?