Why Ground-Up Matters
In an era of rehearsed redpoints and pre-placed gear, choosing to climb a route ground-up is choosing the unknown. You do not know the sequences. You do not know where the rests are. You do not get to practice the crux moves on a top rope first.
For me, that is the point. Ground-up climbing is the purest test of everything — fitness, mental game, route-reading, nutrition strategy, and the willingness to commit when you cannot see what comes next.
The PreMuir Project
PreMuir links two of El Capitan is most iconic features: the Pre-Muir Wall and the Muir Wall. The result is 33 pitches of sustained difficulty up to 5.13c/d, with no easy pitches to recover on.
We started at 4 AM. The headlamp beams on granite. The smell of pine and chalk. That particular silence that only exists in Yosemite Valley before dawn.
Thirty-three pitches is not just a climb. It is a relationship with a piece of stone that unfolds over two days.
The Crux Pitches
Pitch 21 nearly ended our attempt. A thin seam splitting a blank face, requiring precise footwork on crystals the size of pencil erasers. My forearms were already deep in the red from 20 pitches of climbing, and the moves demanded fresh-fingers precision.
I fell twice. Sat on the anchor. Ate half a tortilla wrap. Closed my eyes and ran through the Three-Breath Protocol. Then pulled back on and sent it clean on the third go.
What 33 Pitches Teaches You
A climb this long compresses an entire season of lessons into two days:
- Pacing is everything. You cannot climb every pitch at maximum effort. Some pitches you climb for efficiency, saving your reserves for the ones that demand everything.
- Nutrition cannot be an afterthought. I ate every 90 minutes, whether I wanted to or not. By pitch 25, I was grateful for every calorie I had banked.
- Partnership is sacred. On a ground-up big wall, you and your partner are a single organism. Communication, trust, and shared commitment are not optional.
- The summit is not the point. The point is who you become on the way up.
PreMuir taught me that I am capable of more than I think — and that the hardest moves are rarely the ones on the rock.
