GEAR HEADS
It's April 15—a good six weeks before hot summer weather slams shut the El Cap free-climbing window—and Caldwell and Sjong are in Caldwell's garage, sorting gear after their first two days of exploratory climbing on Magic Mushroom. It's early in the season, and hardly anyone else is on the wall; there's no competition for this climb. Nonetheless, Caldwell and Sjong keep their heads down, avoiding any preemptive announcements of their plans to anyone but wives and close friends. Their strategy during the month they'll spend learning the route is simple: Hike to the top of El Cap, spend the night, and then, at first light, rappel in and rehearse the upper 1,500 feet, where overhanging headwalls rear above the apron of less-than-vertical slabs below.

High on the wall, they'll evaluate the free possibilities, learn the moves, and plan the placement of hardware. They'll start early—every afternoon at around two o'clock, the sun smacks this part of El Cap, heating the stone and causing the climbers' hands to sweat, reducing friction. They'll climb in two-day blocks and then descend to rest at Caldwell's house, refueling on Rodden's home-baked chocolate-chip cookies.

So far, moving individually, self-belayed by hauling pulleys called Mini Traxions, the pair has assessed a 1,000-foot section of obtuse, flaring chimneys ("bombays") that begins two-thirds up the wall. Organization and studious ropework have been key to rigging the worker lines. Sjong says you can't just drop a 1,000-foot rope—it can hang up on ledges or in cracks, and it might have to be cut. Instead, the climbers tie their static lines (non-stretching rope) into a belay station every 150-odd feet, using a knot Caldwell calls a super 8. This is a figure-eight-shaped knot tied on a doubled-over length of rope, with loops big enough to clip in to each anchor point separately, equalizing the load.

Down in the garage, Caldwell and Sjong discuss the protection they'll use on the near-crackless chimneys. They want to have adequate free protection that won't significantly alter Magic Mushroom.

Adequate usually means placing a piece every body length or so, given that any fall will involve plummeting twice the distance from the piece below you. The chimneys are an airy place, where the climbers are enclosed in a granite fold that opens into the void. As they're learning on the wall, the "runouts"—the distance between each piece of protection—will sometimes require them to climb 15-foot stretches between tiny cams.

The chimneys are subtle features requiring a contortionist's grab bag of nightmare tricks: blind, behind-the-head, straight-armed presses that morph into wide stems; painful knee bars, in which the lower quadriceps is cammed against the rock; heel-palm opposition, in which both feet are kept, toes down, on one wall while the palms are extended as if in supplication. Sjong says he'll wear only cotton on the climb, since it snags well on the granite, providing extra friction.

"What are we missing?" Caldwell asks. He's pillaged the gear reservoirs behind the garage wall, emerging with highly specialized pitons that they'll hammer into the chimneys. On the floor sit ten Peckers of various sizes—wafer-thin, beak-shaped pins that fit into hairline seams. Caldwell has also pulled out a dozen-odd Bugaboos and Knifeblades (flat-bladed pitons with forged, offset eyes, also for use in tiny cracks); seven angles (traditional, spear-shaped pitons, for slightly wider cracks); two Realized Ultimate Reality Pitons (square mini-hatchets, half the size of a credit card); a debolting tool—essentially a re-milled piton resembling a tuning fork, for removing unreliable old bolts; a hand drill, two bits, and a blow tube for clearing rock dust from the bolt holes; and six bolts and hangers, to use in place of removed hardware.

They look over the spread. Caldwell jokes that it would be much easier to aid-climb the thing. "To be fit to free-climb takes a lot of work," he says. "I mean, you could drink a gallon of wine every night and still aid up El Cap."

"You're not supposed to do that?" counters Sjong. They both laugh, knowing that the aid climbers' road map is what has allowed them to make these explorations in the first place.

"Those chimneys are going to be scary," Caldwell continues. Once they hammer a few pitons in the chimneys, the guys figure they can lead the rest of the route on traditional gear—the nuts and cams that the leader places and the second removes.

Atop El Cap, the climbers found a partially damaged portaledge, which they put in place below the chimneys, 18 pitches up. They'll spend the next three weeks or so on the wall, eventually trying the hardest pitches on top rope and then on lead. While they're in this worker-bee phase, they'll also ferry supplies down from the summit.