La Niña 5.13b/c

La Niña is pitch 11 of the Pineapple Express variation to El Niño on El Capitan's Southeast Face, a 45-meter, bolt-protected pitch rated 5.13b/c. It follows a thinning black flake to a crimpy boulder move around V7 into a good sidepull, then continues on slightly chossy 5.12a rock out right to a shallow corner. Within a 27-pitch, mostly free line up the wall, it is regarded as the hardest single pitch of the route, demanding precise footwork on small edges after already-tired forearms from the pitches below.

History

El Niño was first freed by Alex and Thomas Huber in 1998 at 5.13c over 27 pitches. It stayed unclimbed in its entirety as a single free line until Sonnie Trotter, climbing with Tommy Caldwell, found a way around a stretch of blank granite near Big Sur Ledge and established the three-pitch Pineapple Express variation, completing the first true free ascent of El Niño on November 19, 2018 in a one-day push of about 13 hours. Trotter and Alex Honnold had scouted the variation together the year before. La Niña sits within that variation and is consistently cited by subsequent parties as the pitch that decides whether a team frees the route.

On film

Arc'teryx Presents: Ground Up (2024) follows Amity Warme and Brent Barghahn on a ground-up free attempt of the El Niño Pineapple Express variation, shot over eight days on the wall. La Niña is one of the crux sections the pair has to negotiate, and the film uses it to show the tactical decisions of a ground-up attempt: when to fix rope, how to manage skin and energy heading into the pitch, and what it takes to send it clean without prior rehearsal from above.