El Capitan’s main climbing face is about 3,000 feet (around 900–1,000 meters) from the base of the wall to the top, which is what climbers mean when they talk about the “height” of the El Capitan climb.

How tall is the El Capitan climb?

Most climbers are referring to the vertical rock face that rises from Yosemite Valley when they ask “how tall is the El Capitan climb.”

  • The tallest face is roughly 3,000 feet (about 914 meters) from base to summit.
  • In everyday terms, that’s more than half a mile of nearly vertical granite.
  • It towers about 3,500–3,600 feet above the valley floor, depending on the exact point measured.

The overall mountain summit elevation is higher:

  • The top of El Capitan is around 7,570–7,573 feet (about 2,307–2,308 meters) above sea level.
  • Yosemite Valley’s floor is much lower, which is why the wall feels so immense from below.

Quick context for climbers and hikers

If you’re thinking about actually experiencing that height, there are two very different ways:

  • Big wall climb :
    • Classic routes like The Nose or Freerider go up roughly 2,900–3,000 feet of technical climbing.
* Even expert teams often spend multiple days on the wall, sleeping on ledges or portaledges along the way.
  • Long hike to the top:
    • There is a strenuous hiking trail to the summit that covers about 16–20 miles round trip with roughly 4,800–5,200 feet of elevation gain.
* You still end up on that same summit plateau around 7,500+ feet above sea level.

A simple way to picture it

Many guides compare El Capitan’s height to famous buildings so it’s easier to visualize:

  • It is more than 2.5 times as tall as the Empire State Building’s main roof.
  • It is more than 3 times higher than the Eiffel Tower.

So when people say they “climbed El Cap,” they’re talking about scaling a continuous cliff roughly the height of stacking several skyscrapers on top of each other.

Bottom note: Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.