YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK, Calif. (AP) - A pair of Americans completed what had long been considered the world's most difficult rock climb Wednesday, using only their hands and feet to scale a 3,000-foot vertical wall on El Capitan, the forbidding granite pedestal in Yosemite National Park that has beckoned adventurers for more than half a century.
Tommy Caldwell and Kevin Jorgeson became the first to free-climb the rock formation's Dawn Wall, a feat that many had considered impossible. They used ropes and safety harnesses to catch themselves in case of a fall, but relied entirely on their own strength and dexterity to ascend by grasping cracks as thin as razor blades and as small as dimes.
The effort took 19 days as the two dealt with constant falls and injuries. But their success completes a yearslong dream that bordered on obsession for the men.
Caldwell was the first to finish Wednesday afternoon. He waited on a ledge for Jorgeson, who caught up minutes later. The two embraced before Jorgeson pumped his arms in the air and clapped his hands above his head. Then they sat down for a few moments, gathered their gear, changed clothes and hiked to the nearby summit.
About 200 people were waiting for them, including Caldwell's wife and Jorgeson's girlfriend, who welcomed them to the top with hugs and kisses.
The trek up the world's largest granite monolith began Dec. 27. Caldwell and Jorgeson lived on the wall itself, eating and sleeping in tents fastened to the rock thousands of feet above the ground and battling painful cuts to their fingertips much of the way.
Free-climbers do not pull themselves up with cables or use chisels to carve out handholds. Instead, they climb inch by inch, wedging their fingers and feet into tiny crevices or gripping sharp, thin projections of rock.
There are about 100 routes up the rock, but no one had ever made it to the summit in one continuous free-climb - until now.