Freerider 5.13a

Freerider is a free climbing route up El Capitan in Yosemite National Park, California, linking crack systems and face climbing over roughly 30 pitches and about 1,000 meters, up to 5.13a. It shares much of its line with the Salathé Wall before finishing further right, and is one of the standard modern free routes up the wall, requiring efficient crack technique and multi-day route-finding when climbed as a single push.

History

El Capitan itself was first climbed in 1958 by Warren Harding, George Whitmore and Wayne Merry, using siege tactics over 47 days on the Nose. Freerider later became the line most associated with fast, technical free ascents of the wall: Alex Honnold used it for the first free solo of El Capitan, on June 3, 2017, in 3 hours 56 minutes, and returned with Tommy Caldwell the following year to set a speed record of 1:58:07 on June 6, 2018.

On film

Yosemite Experience, a 2026 Xpedition Films release, follows Nicolas Favresse and Sean Villanueva O'Driscoll after three weeks of learning to trad climb, culminating in a free ascent of Freerider in a five-day single push, presented in the film as the origin point of their climbing partnership.