The Rostrum 5.11c

The Rostrum is a freestanding granite tower on the south side of Yosemite Valley, reached by a steep approach trail below El Capitan. Its classic line, the North Face, climbs 700 feet in 9 pitches at 5.11c up cracks and corners, with a well known variation on pitch 8 called the Alien finish that pushes straight out an overhanging roof at 5.12b. The roof pitch demands a powerful move from a good jam to an undercling, then twin finger cracks up a steep headwall, a short but pumpy test after eight pitches of more moderate climbing.

History

Warren Harding and Glen Denny made the first ascent of the North Face in 1962. Ron Kauk and Bruce Yablonski freed the full route in 1977, and Tony Yaniro later added the Alien finish, the harder roof variation that climbers now use as the route's signature pitch. In 2008 Dean Potter free soloed the route through the Alien finish while wearing a small BASE jumping parachute, a technique he called FreeBASE: free solo climbing with a rig on his back that gave him a chance to deploy a chute if he fell from high enough above the ground. At the time it was regarded as the hardest long free solo done in Yosemite. Alex Honnold soloed the Alien finish without a parachute in 2011.

On film

Dean Potter FreeBASE - Climbing Free Solo With A Parachute (2021) covers Potter's 2008 ascent of the Rostrum through the Alien finish. The short film follows the climb itself and the reasoning behind FreeBASE: soloing a long, overhanging pitch of granite with a parachute as a last resort rather than a rope, on a route that tops out around 5.12 through the roof.