On Monday, June 7 we climb with our sleeping bags to the so-called El Cap Spire. We spend a comfortable night on the unique tower 500 meter over the trees of the valley. How beautiful it is up here. I am happy: the so-called Monster Offwith lies already behind us. I free climbed this infamous pitch already last year. The route Golden Gate is running up to El Cap Spire on the same route as Free Rider. For fear of the heat we startet at 6 a.m. Now is lunch time and we allow ourselves bagels and cheese. For today we have achieved our target. We will spend the night here.

Tuesday, June 8: relatively early we move on. Actually we have enough time. Only just 11 pitches separate us from the summit. The hard granite is not really very compfortable to sleep on without mat. So we are quickly out of our sleeping bags and back climbing around 7 am. The first crux is waiting for me at pitch number 23. The boulder pitch. A vertical plate with the smallest ledges and steps. The main difficulty is a pincer grip, which I have to strain on my shoulder in order to to press my left foot to the opposite wall of a dihedral. As soon as the foot is pressed, I have to grip with my hand into the crack at the same height to then draw my whole body weight on that left foot. Afterwards is goes straight up throught the crack dihedral. Actually this pincer grip was relatively big. But last year part of the grip broke off. Now you need a little bit more power and the single move in the dihedral is mor difficult than during the first ascent. Nevertheless I succeed immediately and this relatively easy. In the way I have momorized it last week: grip after grip. Alex follows and we climb on. This year it is very wet which complicates the climbing. In the second crux pitch I have to capitulate for the first time. I slip down the wet dihedral and fall into the rope. After this fall I go to the next belay station. Alex let me down to the beginning of the pitch. I use a T-Shirt to dry the wet grips. Maybe it helps a little bit. I pull the rope and make a 15 minutes break. Then I start the pitch again. This time it goes better. I can hold the wet grips and don’t slip anymore. The last difficult pitch is climbed. The rest is routine and I am about to free climb my second route on El Cap. It is more or less exactly 2 pm when we reached the summit plateau.

Free Rider is the second route which I was able to free climb. For me a perfect trip comes slowly to its end.