El Capitan

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Fred Padula
1978
USA
Color
57 min

The film follows three climbers as they do the 3000-feet (900 m) vertical ascent of The Nose, the classic first big-wall climb on El Capitan. A fourth climber follows the group and films their ascent but is never seen in the movie. The climbers need three days to reach the summit, which means they have to spend two nights sleeping on steep ledges, waking to magnificent views. Several minutes of the film is filmed in the pitch black when the climbers are caught by nightfall before reaching a ledge to spend the night. The screen is dark when one climber is heard trying to belay another when a bolt breaks loose and the climbers fall, luckily unharmed.