Did an 8-year-old really climb El Capitan in Yosemite? Not exactly. It’s complicated

Three years ago, a 10-year-old and then a 9-year-old were also reported to have had successful ascents. But they mostly used special hand clamps that allowed them to climb a rope without touching the rock face, a very different experience from traditional rock climbing. This led some mainstream members of Yosemite’s climbing community to reject the achievement.

In the past year, the 8-year-old’s father, Joe Baker, has continued a year-long media frenzy, describing Sam Baker in interviews with CNN, ABC, NBC and elsewhere as a “world-class climber” on the verge of joining the ranks of the famous pioneers of the great wall of Yosemite.

“You can’t climb El Cap unless you’re an expert in the sport,” says Joe Baker in a video promoting his son’s climbing exploits and posted on his family’s personal website. “That’s what we’re developing is a young man who is an expert in the sport. He can really do anything that great climbers can do.”

The Baker family did not respond to multiple requests for comment from The Chronicle. At the top of the family’s website, where the Bakers are collecting donations related to their son’s cause, is the tagline: “Second grader and dad’s body climb El Capitan.”

It was not said that Sam used the same techniques as the two children who had gone before him.

Early Saturday, when the climb was completed, CNN ran a story with the headline: “8-year-old boy becomes youngest person to climb California’s El Capitan.”

For members of Yosemite’s climbing community, some of whom skeptically followed the ascent, the achievement deserved an eye roll and a shrug, not a headline. And Joe Baker, in a triumphant Instagram post, no longer uses the word “climb” to describe what his son has done.

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It is difficult to climb what is probably the most famous climbing wall in the world without being noticed. And in that case, Tom Evans took special notice of the Bakers last week.

Evans, 78, is a retired high school teacher from Southern California who spends three months of the year documenting activity on El Capitan’s sheer walls. He is part of the valley’s close-knit climbing community, an unofficial record holder with an unwavering devotion to the integrity of the sport.

Almost every day during the peak climbing season — six weeks in the spring and six weeks in the fall — Evans stands in El Capitan Meadow with a pair of binoculars mounted on a tripod telephoto lens and a clear view of the entire rock face, snapping photos and chatting with great wall climbers. He’s been at it for 27 years and updates a climbing blog he calls ElCap Reports daily with detailed observations and close-up photos of the various groups making their way up the walls.

What Evans saw from the Baker family did not qualify as rock climbing, he said.

“It’s a publicity stunt,” he told The Chronicle on Thursday.

Evans watched the Bakers climb every day. He estimated that he watched them for at least eight hours over four days as they advanced hundreds of feet up the cliff. He said that he did not see either the son or the father try to put a hand on rock and physical scale on the face.

Instead, he said, they were led by a pair of guides who climbed the route as might be expected — leading pitches, setting defenses, establishing anchors and hauling supplies — and then fixed lines so the Bakers could to “rise”.

Jagging involves using hand-held devices called ascenders that slide up a rope and automatically lock into place. They are used with leg loops capable of supporting the weight of a person. The entire setup is attached to a person’s waist belt, allowing the user to safely move up without interacting with the elements of the scale.

“The guides do everything I’ve ever seen,” Evans said. “That’s why it’s not a climb.”

The technical term for the activity is rope climbing and it is not considered by climbers to be very challenging or comparable to climbing disciplines.

Evans posted scathing criticism of the Bakers’ rise on his blog, and his like-minded readers responded with comments dismissing the venture and ridiculing the media campaign to legitimize it.

For their part, the Bakers claim to love sports. Joe Baker and his wife say they were introduced to rock climbing. They now have three young sons, who often take them climbing outdoors and to the gym. He says in the promotional video that he tried to climb El Cap years ago but partially failed. Getting his son up the wall, he said, would be “a life-changing adventure that we’ll always talk about.”

Evans said he ran into Joe Baker at the Mountain Room restaurant in Yosemite Village the night before the father and son began their climb. The father had seen Evans’ criticism online and the two men “had a very heated discussion,” Evans said.

“He said, ‘What’s the problem?’ And I said, ‘All the media coverage has got to stop. I know there is no way your son suggested we take this record. It’s about you,’” Evans recalled telling Joe Baker. “He said, ‘It’s not about the record, it’s about spending time with my son.’ I said, ‘Then why all the publicity?’

The two men separated.

“I was pretty rough on the guy, I have to admit,” Evans said.

“I’m very annoyed by this because climbing El Capitan puts you in an elite group of climbers,” Evans said. The Bakers are “blatantly stealing that reputation for their own use.”

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There is nothing inherently wrong or dangerous about climbing a rock wall while rope climbing. Done right, it’s a very safe way to travel vertically, climbers say.

But the Baker family’s behavior on El Capitan has raised questions.

First, there is no official rock climbing registrar. It is unclear how the Bakers intend to claim a world title.

The National Park Service does not monitor exploits on Yosemite’s walls. It’s possible the Bakers will petition Guinness World Records, which is by no means an exhaustive repository of the sport’s greatest achievements – although it does list a handful of different ones, including the speed record on the Nose of El Cap route set by Honnold and Caldwell in 2018.