Only one person is known to have free soloed El Capitan: Alex Honnold.

Quick Scoop

  • El Capitan is a roughly 3,000‑foot (about 900‑meter) granite big wall in Yosemite National Park, California.
  • In June 2017, Alex Honnold climbed the route Freerider on El Capitan with no rope, no harness, and no protective gear, making the first and so far only full free solo ascent of the wall.
  • His ascent took about 3 hours 56 minutes and is widely described as one of the most impressive athletic achievements ever recorded.
  • The climb and its preparation were documented in the film Free Solo , which won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.

Some other elite climbers have free climbed El Capitan (using ropes only for safety, not to pull themselves up), but not free solo: for example Lynn Hill on The Nose, and Tommy Caldwell and Kevin Jorgeson on the Dawn Wall. However, these ascents are not free solos because they used ropes for protection.

TL;DR: When people ask “who has free soloed El Capitan,” the answer is just Alex Honnold. Everyone else on El Cap has either used ropes for safety or has not soloed the full wall in true free‑solo style.

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