Hello fellows,
First of all i would like to apologize since English is not my primary language.... sorry for the errors.

Back in 2013 I became one of the first Costa Rican's to climb EL Capitan with my partner Gino....
I remember when we were about to start our climb this guy appeared from nowhere carrying a bunch of haul bags with a tons of water.... He introduced himself and ask us about our climb and we started a conversation at the base of Salathe Wall..... after a couple of minutes I asked him about his partner to which he replied... No, I have no partner I will solo the shield.... I was kind of shocked.... asking myself... how in the world this guy is climbing "solo" on El Cap....

By that moment of course, i didn't know to much about big wall climbing and stuff, the highest thing we have here in our country is 50 meters of sport climbing ""we have discovered recently a wall around 500 meters, but that is a subject of another report"" :) .... the guy's name is Yann Cammus from Canada, a great guy, always laughing... he showed us his "metallic partner" the silent partner and explained us a little be of how it worked and stuff. We all went to our climbs and had a blast since the beginning.

Couple of months later I contacted him by facebook and started to ask him things about soloing since I really wanted to know more about "THE DARK AND FORBIDDEN ART OF ROPE SOLOING" Andy Kirkpatrick....

I started to train seriously on the thing around April 2014, got my porta ledge, hooks and pitons I would needed and started to plan to "SOLO" Zodiac 5.13c/d - 5.7 A3.

All the things got together and the 1st of June 2015 I flew to LAX rented a car and drive to Yosemite.... the second of June I got everything ready, took my haul bags from the bridge to the base of Zodiac with the help of my friend Manuel, we both slept there and the 3rd of June at 5.30am I blasted off for the best 6 days of my live, even though I got up and downs during those days they were definitely a blast.

Going back one day in my report.... I passed by the bridge on the 2do of June to remain Tom Evans I would be on Zodiac, Mark Hudon was there and they both wished me luck.... Tom Evans told me this ""IF SOMETHING GOES WRONG JUST HAVE A BREAK AND RELAX.... DON'T COME DOWN, JUST GO UP"" I treasured those words and had them in my mine during the all climbing.



I baptized my silent partner :) i named it "BUMBLEBEE", He was a good friend to be with up there, didn't drink my water or eat my food, didn't snore at all, pretty nice guy.....

day 1, I climbed 3 pitches, linked the first two, everything was good and things just flowed naturally.

Day 2, I started climb around 7.30 after have breakfast and had planed to climb 3 pitches that day but things went kind of slow so at the end of the second day I was on pitch #5. I was enjoying the climb and had no rush since I had water and food for 6 days...

Day 3, I wake up early that day, 4.30am and started to climb at 6.30, it was a great day even though I climbed just two pitches, I had a "cluster f*#k" that took me 2 hours to solve, had to set up a temporary anchor equalizing 2 pieces and rappelling down to the belay, I was on a C3 section and task was complex but I got it done....

Rain and thunderstorm came into the valley and I was getting to the "el portal" pitch #7 and scape from the rain since the overhang part of the route protected me from that moment on.

Day 4, another cluster f*#k that took my mind out of the thing.... wind was heavy and some how ropes got out of the rope bags and get trapped underneath
of the pigs, rope ends were tense and was hard to solve it.... couldn't move
down or up.... finally I got things under control.... later on I dropped couple of webbing and one of my aiders (I had a spare in the pig), but from that moment I realized how thin the line between success and the failure is, I mean, just drop another aider or a grigri or an ascender could make things really hard, not that you can´t keep going but definitely harder and longer, with same water and food..... that's a ""what if I get on this position"" thing to think about.... and be prepare... soloing is just you and only you.

Anyway I took the aider from the pig and kept climbing during the day, at the end of the day I was at pitch 9.





Day 5.... just great day, windy, fresh, climbing was great pitches were amazing, a lot of free moves on those 5.8 before peanut ledge, took a fall but bumblebbe was ready to catch me.... Tom Evans was there to shot just the second before I fell and the second after that..... :)


My right hand was worked, it swelled and hurt every night from the day 3 on and started to be numbed from day 4.... (today June 24 is still numb, some nerves pinched on my neck or back y guess, working on that with a therapist).










Day 6 I topped out around 3pm-4pm, hauled pigs to the top, went to the creak for some water, racked everything and spent the night there...



On the day 7 I managed may way down, slow but enjoying it.... I guess most of the climbers who climb El Cap for the first time are well prepare for the climb but not know anything for the way to get down to the valley which is hard by the way. It was my second time up there and I knew the way down well.

Couple of more pictures from Tom Evans, El Cap Reporter.... great pictures...









Thanks you all for Read my TR, and thanks to all the people involve on the "bigwalls" climbing world.....

Thank You Yann Cammus for everything you have taught regarding of rope soloing.

Will be climbing El Cap again in 2017 so, see you in two Years.