American climber Sasha DiGiulian became the first woman to free climb Yosemite’s El Capitan’s longest route: the Platinum Wall. The climb took 23 days to complete. For nine of those days, she was stuck on a portaledge, a hanging tent climbers use to sleep on vertical rock faces, while enduring relentless storms with heavy rain, snow and fierce winds that battered the wall.
“It’s the proudest climb of my career. I can’t believe it!” she texted from the summit with swollen, taped fingertips. DiGiulian summited the 914m (3,000ft) wall after a three-season effort on the route, earning the first female ascent of the line.
The storms did eventually break
© Pablo Durana/Red Bull
The 39-pitch Platinum Wall, also known as Direct Line, was established between 2009 and 2017 by American climber Rob ‘Platinum’ Miller and various partners, including Elliot Faber and Jay ‘Shaggy’ Selvidge. Although Miller completed the route, he didn’t free every pitch in a single continuous push. The first free ascent was made in 2017 over 14 days on the wall by Miller and Swiss climber Roby Rudolph, who successfully freed the entire route.
“I’ve always been rooting for her and wanting her to succeed,” Miller said of DiGiulian’s ascent. “I’m excited for her success, not just for herself, but because I’m excited to see people climbing a route that took a long time to go from concept to reality.”
Sasha DiGiulian’s historic ascent of El Capitan’s longest route
DiGiulian took 23 days to complete the climb
© Pablo Durana/Red Bull
DiGiulian prepared for the climb over three seasons, rehearsing the glacier-polished first two-thirds until she unlocked it and rappelled into the upper third to work the final series of crux pitches. She began her continuous ground-up attempt on November 2, endured prolonged storms that kept her from making significant progress over weeks at a time, and topped out on November 26 under clear skies and melting summit snow.
“Super epic [that] we are still here!” DiGiulian texted about the messages she received from famed climbers Alex Honnold and Tommy Caldwell during the storm’s roughest stretch. Each morning, as condensation pooled inside her portaledge and water dripped into her cocoon while she shivered in place, she sent updates of her own: “COLD and super wet up here… we’re through the worst of it, I hope.”
Each morning, as condensation pooled inside her portaledge fly and water dripped from the anchor into her cocoon while she shivered in place, she sent updates of her own: “COLD and super wet up here… we’re through the worst of it, I hope.” She added, “It feels like it’s raining here with how much snowmelt there is.” When the storms finally broke, she wrote, “Feeling hopeful with this sun though.”
Climbing partner Elliot Faber, unable to complete the crux pitches, gave up his free effort and supported DiGiulian, waiting out the storms in a nearby portaledge as torrents raged around them and chunks of ice fell on them from the summit.
Despite improved conditions, the crux pitches remained wet, but she climbed them anyway, putting up the biggest fight of her career.
A rare feat: Only the fourth ascent of Platinum Wall
DiGiulian and Faber are only the fourth team to complete the route
© Pablo Durana/Red Bull
This ascent marks only the fourth time a team has climbed the route. Germans Tobias Wolf and Thomas Hering completed the second ascent in 2018. Alex Honnold and Tommy Caldwell climbed the route earlier this season, just before the series of major storms swept across the Sierra.
Those storms quickly reached DiGiulian and Faber, who were roughly 240m (800ft) below the summit. As atmospheric rivers and fierce winds battered their camp, the pair advanced only 60m (200ft) over nearly two weeks. Even after the storms subsided and the sun returned, water continued to sheet down from the summit, keeping key cruxes wet.
A unique challenge: The Platinum Wall’s distinctive features and final toll
The Platinum Wall is a uniquely challenging undertaking
© Pablo Durana/Red Bull
Despite the conditions, DiGiulian persevered. In total, she led 27 of the route’s 40 pitches, including every crux. These include the 5.13c White Wizard steep-face pitch; the 5.13c Dog’s Head roof crack; the 5.13a Platinum fingertips crack (“super soaked,” she wrote); an unnamed 5.13d stemming corner requiring a long jump at its finish; and the seasonally wet 5.13a undercling roof, Teahupo’o.
The route has 23 pitches of 5.12 and six of 5.13. Although the topo lists 39 pitches, DiGiulian added a direct start via Pine Line, increasing her total to 40. Because of the combined difficulties, powerful traverses under a huge roof, long downclimbs and its complex, circuitous nature, “The route is unlike anything I’ve ever climbed in the Valley,” Miller, the climber who established the line, said. Where other El Cap free routes primarily follow crack systems, the Platinum Wall follows a majority of seemingly blank face sections protected by the most bolts of any route on the formation.
Reflecting on the final stretch to the summit, Miller added: “What I remember about every time I’ve climbed El Cap is how it just becomes steeper at the top, so there’s a lot more to give – you’ve gotta give a lot to El Cap to pay the final toll to get off.”
Sasha DiGiulian: A trailblazing career in climbing and beyond
DiGiulian is a true trailblazer of her sport
© Pablo Durana/Red Bul
Thirty-three-year-old Sasha DiGiulian holds one Overall Female World Champion title, went undefeated for 10 years in the Pan American Championships, and became the first woman to climb 5.14d with her ascent of Pure Imagination in Kentucky’s Red River Gorge in 2011. She has climbed more than 50 routes rated 5.14, completed the 5.14 Canadian Big Wall Trilogy: War Hammer on Castle Mountain; The Shining Uncut on Mount Louis; and Blue Jeans Direct on Mount Yamnuska, and made the first female ascent of the 5.14b big wall route Rayu in northern Spain. In 2017, she made the first free ascent of the 15-pitch 5.13 Misty Wall in Yosemite.
In 2023, she published her memoir, Take the Lead: Hanging On, Letting Go, and Conquering Life’s Hardest Climbs, and in 2024, she appeared in the HBO documentary Here to Climb, which documents her career as a professional climber, hip surgeries, and top climbing achievements. She is also the founder of the energy bar company Send Bars in Boulder, Colorado.
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Sasha DiGiulian
American climber Sasha DiGiulian has made a career of overcoming the odds, with more than 30 first female ascents to her name.
