MUSHROOM MAGIC
On May 31 at 5 P.M., Caldwell and Rodden uncoil their rope in the oaks below Magic Mushroom. Rodden stops Caldwell to daub on sunscreen and ask if his knot is good. Caldwell has timed their departure to coincide with three important windows: having enough daylight to complete the 5.13 traverse on pitch six; beginning the stacked pitches of 5.13/14 in the chimneys at first light; and arriving above those, poised for the 5.13d Seven Seas pitch, in concert with El Cap's cooling midday updraft.

The plan is this: Caldwell will lead on a 60-meter, 9.8mm dynamic (stretchy) rope. Atop each pitch, he'll clip the super-8 knot into the anchor; Rodden will then speed-jumar. Once at the anchor, she'll stay tethered to her jumars five feet down, a dynamic setup that keeps her from being yanked abruptly skyward if Caldwell falls while she's belaying.

Caldwell is going superlight. He will rack the gear in order of placement and bring only what he needs; use one-ounce carabiners; and carry Spectra slings, made of featherweight climbing-spec nylon. He'll harness-rack the gear until the chimneys, at which point he'll clip it in to a Spectra sling over his shoulder, to prevent it from rubbing the rock. Rodden will carry a stripped-down backpack stuffed with jackets, top layers, a sausage-and-cheese sandwich, and spare headlamp batteries. The pack also holds Caldwell's "ninja shirt," a black hoodie that grips the rock well and has brought luck in the past.

Along the route, Caldwell has left four caches in place. The first, at one-third height, contains energy bars, sports-drink mix, a 1.5-liter bottle of water, and supplemental protection. The second, halfway up, holds a gallon of water. The third is at the fixed portaledge, 18 pitches up, where the pair will nap below the chimneys. Here, Caldwell has crammed into a haul bag two sleeping bags and pads, more bars, Power Gel, a Red Bull, a stove, oatmeal, recovery-drink mix, cashews, long underwear, a puffy jacket, a 100-gram bag of climbing chalk, and another gallon of water. He's also stashed a pair of La Sportiva Miura rock shoes, new but slightly broken in. The final cache sits below the 25th pitch: another gallon of water and a Red Bull.

Caldwell estimates that the legwork in the chimneys puts 250 pounds of force on his feet, quickly rendering the shoes soft and imprecise; he wants to start the hardest leads with a fresh pair. He knows he'll have to be bold, climbing quickly and decisively so as not to bog down. But he's a veteran—as long as he stays on top of the protection and ropework, even when tired, he won't face any falls longer than 40 or 50 feet.

Rodden is key to the ascent. "She's really good up there—she's fast, she knows the systems really well," Caldwell says. "But, probably more important, she understands what I'm going through physically and emotionally." Rodden, for her part, knows Caldwell won't buckle or freak. With only one rope between them and no easy retreat, this matters.

"I've never seen Tommy scared on El Cap, nope," says Rodden, who recalls him once leading two 5.12 pitches in a snowstorm to get them off the wall. "Up there, he's in his element. Ever since he could walk, he's been in the mountains."

Caldwell will move through the night, headlamp-climbing through one 5.13b crux, the Bird Beak pitch. There, he'll lead the opening 30 feet (the hardest) with only the three pieces he needs, and then, tethered to a small cam, he'll drop a loop of rope to haul up protection for the remainder. Failure has crossed his mind: "I've never done something like this that has this many hard pitches," he says. "I could just run out of power."

Which is precisely what happens.

On June 1, 20 hours after starting, Caldwell and Rodden reach the Seven Seas pitch. Caldwell has freed everything thus far, but here, 110 feet off the belay (and 2,600 feet above the ground), he falls three times on the route's last really hard move, a long, technically precise reach to a flake. Rodden spends four cold, cramped hours belaying on this pitch alone. Hanging off his harness back at the belay, Caldwell takes 30-minute naps between attempts. Rodden massages his blasted forearms, which have started seizing after only two moves, forcing his hands open.

Caldwell drinks a Red Bull. Nothing. The climber is exhausted, and the sun's come around, too, blinding him, heating his shoes so they roll unhelpfully, and making his hands sweat. He decides to give up, and the pair jumars to the top, summiting 23 hours and 45 minutes after starting.

Up on the summit, Caldwell doesn't moan or blame the gods. His big toes have gone numb (they'll remain so for weeks), and his hands and feet are so swollen that the small climbing wounds in the flesh ("gobies") have countersunk. But he's ready for another go.

Six days later, on June 7, Caldwell and Rodden return. Caldwell has gone back midweek, relearning the pitches and reprovisioning. This time, the pair tops out in 20:02. This time, Caldwell leads every pitch free, taking only five falls total, having to redo two 5.13 pitches—but not the Seven Seas. No climber anywhere has achieved anything like this.

"From my perspective, Tommy Caldwell's ascent of Magic Mushroom all-free in a day is state of the art, an unimaginable perfor­mance of passion, overpowering will, and Olympian talent," says John Harlin III, editor of The American Alpine Journal. "For 50 years, El Cap has been the granite crucible—the world knows what happens here and who does it, because this is the gold standard. And right now the standard-setter is Tommy Caldwell."

Caldwell says he entered a "super-relaxed" state during the climb, which allowed him to move more quickly and precisely, reaching the pitch-18 portaledge with time enough for a three-hour nap. And he wasn't, he adds, especially pumped on the Seven Seas. Up there, within earshot of Rodden's shouted encouragement, Caldwell snagged the flake to finish the pitch, then raced through a final, 5.13a rope length to the summit slabs.

After crashing out back home, Caldwell had enough energy to return the next day, hike the East Ledges, and take down fixed lines and gear caches. "Which leads me to believe," he says, "there must be room for more."