On January 31, Seb Berthe became the 4th climber to send the 32 pitches of the Dawn Wall on El Capitan, the most difficult multi-pitch route on the planet. The Belgian climber had already attempted it in 2022 after coming to the USA by sailboat. True to his convictions, Seb did the same this winter, coming all the way to America by boat to climb this 900-meter-high Yosemite masterpiece. Self proclamed anti-fascist, Seb Berthe wants to use the sporting feat to highlight the fight against the “hateful rhetoric” in Europe and the USA.
The most intense two weeks of his life : that’s how Seb Berthe describes those two weeks in January, half under the snow, spent on a portaledge free-climbing the 32 pitches of the Dawn Wall on El Capitan, with his partner Soline Kentzel. The Dawn Wall is the wall on El Capitan where Tommy Caldwell has patiently deciphered the very rare weaknesses that make free climbing possible, culminating in his ascent, with Kevin Jorgenson, in nineteen days in 2015, and several years of prospecting for Caldwell.
With its 900 m, 32 pitches, including two 9a pitches (500 m from the ground) anda multitude of of pitches between 8a and 8c, the Dawn Wall is the hardest major route in the world. A year after the Americans, Adam Ondra stunned everyone by completing the ascent in eight days in a row (after a month’s work) in 2016, at the age of 23 at the time.
Six years