Following His Brother’s Footsteps, 8-Year-Old Conquers El Capitan
A new name has been added to Yosemite’s record books.
Eight-year-old Sylvan Evermore and his father, Joe Evermore, reached the summit of El Capitan on October 24 after a weeklong ascent up the 3,000-foot granite giant. The climb comes three years after Sylvan’s older brother, Sam Evermore, made history as the youngest person to scale El Cap at the same age.
The Evermores, formerly known as the Baker family, live in Colorado Springs and took on the Freerider route, a notoriously challenging line on Yosemite’s most iconic wall. Like his brother, Sylvan used a method known as “jugging”, or rope ascent, where climbers use handheld devices to inch up fixed ropes set by a lead climber above.
It wasn’t easy. Sylvan’s dad said his son cried at times, unsure if he could keep going. “It was 100 percent his choice,” Joe wrote on Instagram. “Step by step, move by move, he pushed through fear and found something deeper.”
While some climbers have debated whether rope ascents should count as full climbs, others say the effort is still extraordinary. Yosemite legend Hans Florine told the San Francisco Chronicle that jugging up El Capitan is “difficult in its own right.”
With both brothers now having summited one of the most famous cliffs on Earth, the “El Cap Kids” seem destined to return to the big wall before long. This time, perhaps, on their own ropes.
