Dierdre Wolownick becomes oldest woman to climb Yosemite’s El Capitan

Dierdre Wolownick, mother of the renowned climber Alex Honnold, has become the oldest woman to climb Yosemite’s El Capitan, breaking her own record after scaling the rock face for a second time on her 70th birthday.

Wolownick summited El Capitan last month. She had previously completed the climb with her son in 2017, a journey that took her 13 hours up and six hours down on the Lurking Fear route, which typically takes four days to complete. Still, this climb was grueling, Wolownick said.

“Climbing El Cap at 70 takes its toll, physically, mentally, emotionally. I’m not ‘down’ yet. Not sure I ever will be, completely,” she wrote of the experience.

Honnold’s own record-breaking climb up the 3,000ft granite rock face without ropes or safety gear was chronicled in the 2018 Academy award-winning documentary Free Solo.

Last month’s climb required two hours of challenging hiking through the woods, “grabbing small trees and edges of boulders”, and over a boulder-filled river bed before laddering up ropes anchored into the wall where “only your core strength keeps you vertical as you ascend”. The final third of the trek stretches “for what seems like miles”, Wolownick wrote. “Just walk steeply uphill, endlessly, grabbing whatever tiny edges you can find.” The climb was particularly difficult due to a foot injury, she said, and the fear of stumbling and falling into the valley below.

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Wolownick undertook the climb with friends, and they celebrated at the summit with champagne and cupcakes as the sun set, according to the Los Angeles Times.

She started climbing at 60 to better relate to her son, she told the New York Times, and committed to going to the climbing gym regularly. “Climbing was like a key opening this lifelong door. It was wonderful,” she said.

In the years since, Wolownick has become an experienced and active climber, and an occasional partner to her son. In Yosemite Valley, her visits attract fellow climbers and admirers, according to the LA Times.

Wolownick, who previously worked as a language teacher, author and musician, taught herself to swim in her 40s and picked up running in her 50s, the New York Times reported.

To train for El Capitan, she went hiking and climbing in Yosemite three days a week for 18 weeks, and started doing pull-ups. “I learned how to suffer through all kinds of discomfort because what you get from it makes it worthwhile,” she told the newspaper. “It’s the same for anybody who wants to follow a path of bliss. There’s a lot of suffering. With climbing, you just have to deal.”