Oct. 30 (UPI) — An 8-year-old boy became the youngest person to climb the face of El Capitan in Yosemite National Park in California’s Sierra Nevada.
Sam Adventure Baker started the perilous rope climb with his father, Joe Baker, on Tuesday and finished Friday. The El Capitan rock formation is a massive granite monolith that rises 3,000 feet above Yosemite Valley.
“What an amazing week! I’m so proud of Sam. He completed the youngest rope ascent of ElCap! In a few years he might be back breaking more records,” Joe Baker said in a post on Facebook.
Climbing it generally requires sleeping on the rock face, though speed climbers have ascended El Capitan in under two hours. Joe Baker shared photos of the young boy on a sleeping pad secure to the cliff face.
Joe Baker told CNN on Friday that his son was “in a harness before he could walk.”
“He seems really happy to be up there and spirits are high,” Sam’s mother, Ann Baker, told CNN.
Baker said in the post Friday that the family would begin the 8-mile hike back down Saturday.
According to The Guardian, the record for the youngest person to ever climb El Capitan was previously set by Selah Schneiter, 10, in 2019.
