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El Capitan is composed almost entirely of a pale, coarse-grained granite approximately 100 MYA (million years old). In addition to El Capitan, this granite forms most of the rock features of the western portions of Yosemite Valley. A separate intrusion of igneous rock, the Taft Granite, forms the uppermost portions of the cliff face.
El Capitan is a prominent granite cliff that looms over the valley, and is a rock climbing favorite because of its sheer size, diverse climbing routes, and year-round accessibility. Granite domes such as Sentinel Dome and Half Dome rise 3,000 and 4,800 feet (910 and 1,460 m), respectively, above the valley floor.
The valley is about 7.5 mi (12.1 km) long and 3,000–3,500 ft (910–1,070 m) deep, surrounded by high granite summits such as Half Dome and El Capitan, and densely forested with pines. The valley is drained by the Merced River, and a multitude of streams and waterfalls flow into it, including Tenaya, Illilouette, Yosemite and Bridalveil Creeks.
In 2019, 10-year-old Selah Schneiter and her father spent four and a half days climbing El Capitan’s Nose route, which runs up the center of the rock’s face and has attracted the best climbers ...
This page was last edited on 12 October 2024, at 09:35 (UTC).; Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License; additional terms may apply.
It offers wide views of Yosemite Valley, Yosemite Falls and El Capitan. The main attraction of Taft Point is the giant fissures in the mile-high granite rock. The fissures are breaks and cracks in the mountain that drop directly down to the valley floor at some points.
El Capitan has two main faces, the Southwest (on the left when looking directly at the wall) and the Southeast. Between the two faces juts a massive prow . While today there are numerous established routes on both faces, the most popular and historically famous route is The Nose , which follows the massive prow.
The Salathé Wall is one of the original big wall climbing routes up El Capitan, a 3,000-foot (900 m) high granite monolith in Yosemite National Park.The Salathé Wall was named by Yvon Chouinard in honor of John Salathé, a pioneer of rock climbing in Yosemite.