Rock climbing veterans have spoken out against a man from Colorado who said he and his 8-year-old son climbed one of the most notoriously difficult rocks on Earth earlier this month. El Capitan is a 3,000-foot-high granite rock formation in Yosemite National Park that has challenged even some of the world’s best adult climbers. Joe Baker made multiple references to “climbing” it with his young son, Sam, with CNN even reporting the 8-year-old set a “climbing record” last week. Good Morning America followed suit. However, the San Francisco Chronicle reports the pair used a technique previously used by a 10-year-old and 9-year-old for the climb. That technique, according to the Chronicle, uses “special hand clamps that allowed them to ascend a rope without touching the rock face, a very different experience than traditional rock climbing.” The claim led members of the Yosemite climbing community to criticize the pair. “This is a publicity hoax,” climbing expert and “unofficial record-keeper” Tom Evans told the Chronicle. He told the newspaper that he watched the pair’s ascent and “did not see either the son or the father attempt to put hand to rock and physically scale the face,” while also noting they used guides who fixed lines for the Bakers to “jug up,” a term used to describe the ascending technique. The Baker family did not respond to requests for comment from the Chronicle but father Joe has notably stopped using references to “climb” in his social media posts, instead claiming Sam had “completed the youngest rope ascent of ElCap.”
