Consider that the first ascent of the Nose route on El Cap (in Yosemite) took nearly two months.

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Neither one of us has ever climbed a route on El Cap before.

WSJ: El Capitan's Nose in a Day | By Michael J. Ybarra

Hanging from 100 feet of rope in the middle of El Cap, I started running back and forth across the smooth face.

WSJ: El Capitan's Nose in a Day | By Michael J. Ybarra

And, unless you're Spider-Man (or Lynn Hill, the first person to free climb El Cap), you have to resort to aid to ascend it.

WSJ: Training for the Big Wall | By Michael J. Ybarra

Aid, by contrast, is about standing on gear placements and engineering your way up steep or overhanging blank walls like El Cap, which can take days to ascend.

WSJ: Training for the Big Wall | By Michael J. Ybarra

Few features in the world so dominate their landscapes as El Cap does Yosemite, where its two enormous walls of granite, towering 3, 000 feet above a meadow, jut into the valley like a ship's prow.

WSJ: Training for the Big Wall | By Michael J. Ybarra

Ever since I started climbing in Yosemite seven years ago, I knew someday I would try to get up El Cap, which for more than half a century has been the proving ground for the best climbers on the planet.

WSJ: El Capitan's Nose in a Day | By Michael J. Ybarra