Assault on El Capitan
2015 · 1 hr 7 min · Big Wall, Documentary · Adventure Sports TV
In 1983, two climbers established Wings of Steel on El Capitan's blank southwest face and were vilified for it, accused of drilling their way up a wall that Yosemite's hard-line locals considered sacred. The route sat unrepeated for 28 years, shrouded in hostility and myth, with a bounty on the second ascent.
This feature documentary follows Ammon McNeely and Kait Barber as they set out in 2011 to finally repeat the most controversial climb in Yosemite history and settle whether the original ascent was fraud or visionary. Part big wall epic, part investigation into how climbing communities decide what is legitimate, it is one of the most interesting films ever made about ethics on stone.
Review
One of the most interesting films ever made about ethics on stone, and it is a big wall film second. Wings of Steel went up El Capitan's blank southwest face in the early eighties, established by Richard Jensen and Mark Smith over 39 days on more than a hundred hook moves, and the Yosemite locals accused them of drilling their way up a sacred wall. The accusations escalated into threats, sabotaged gear and chopped bolts, and the route sat unrepeated for nearly three decades.
This is for anyone interested in how a climbing community decides what is legitimate. Ammon McNeely and Kait Barber set out in 2011 to make the second ascent, also over 39 days, with McNeely taking more than 500 feet of combined falls and dislocating a shoulder, and the film interviews both the first ascent team and the locals who tried to stop them. Skip it if you want free climbing. This is hard aid, and sixty-seven minutes of it.
What works is the investigation. The film treats the question of fraud or vision as genuinely open until the repeat settles it, and the interviews with the accusers are uncomfortable in the right way. What it gets wrong is length. The middle of the ascent runs long, and the Camp 4 politics are more compelling than the hooking.
Jeff Lowe's Clean Wall: Touchstone Wall is the other aid ethics film here, and it argues for clean climbing from the other direction. Watch Lowe for the principle. Watch this for what happens when a community enforces one.
