El Capitan
Sign in to saveAlso known as El Capitán, El Cap, To-To-Kon Oo-Lah, Tote-Ack-Ah-Noo-La
vertical rock formation in Yosemite Valley, California, United States
Key facts
- Elevation
- 7,573 ft (2,308 m) NAVD 88
- Prominence
- 9 feet (3 m)
- Isolation
- 1.5 miles (2 km)
- Native name
- To-tock-ah-noo-lah ( Southern Sierra Miwok )
- English translation
- the captain
- Pronunciation
- / ɛ l ˌ k æ p ɪ ˈ t æ n / el KAP -i- TAN
- Location
- Mariposa County, California , U.S.
- Parent range
- Sierra Nevada
- Topo map
- USGS El Capitan
- Rock age
- Cretaceous
- Mountain type
- Granite rock
- First ascent
- November 12, 1958 ( 1958-11-12 ) by Warren Harding , George Whitmore , and Wayne Merry
- Easiest route
- Hike
via Wikipedia infobox
Wikidata facts
- Instance of
- climbing area
- Country
- United States
- Located in
- Mariposa County
- Elevation
- 2307
- Material used
- granite
- Image
- Capitanyose.jpg
Show 9 more facts
- Commons category
- El Capitan
- Commons gallery
- El Capitan
- located in protected area
- Yosemite National Park
- mountain range
- Sierra Nevada
- topographic prominence
- 3
- time period
- Cretaceous
- different from
- El Capitan
- described at URL
- openbeta.io/crag/7058a6a5-7e19-5b3c-ba19-ab99dd6c923e
- native label
- To-To-Kon Oo-Lah
via Wikidata · CC0
~19 min read
Encyclopedic overview
El Capitan (Spanish: El Capitán; lit. 'the Captain') is a vertical rock formation in Yosemite National Park, on the north side of Yosemite Valley, near its western end. The granite monolith is about 3,000 feet (914 m) from base to summit along its tallest face and is a world-famous location for big wall climbing, including the disciplines of aid climbing, free climbing, and more recently for free solo climbing.
The top of El Capitan can be reached by hiking out of Yosemite Valley on the trail next to Yosemite Falls, then proceeding west. For climbers, the challenge is to climb up the sheer granite face. There are many named climbing routes, all of them arduous, including Iron Hawk and Sea of Dreams.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “El Capitan” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.