An 8-year-old is climbing El Capitan in Yosemite National Park. Here’s how to follow him

Sam Baker has been planning his climb up El Capitan’s granite walls for the past two years.

Well, as much as any 8-year-old can, even if one whose parents are rock-climbing enthusiasts who gave him the middle name “Adventure” and took him on his first climbing trip at age 3.

Sam and his father Joe Baker have already climbed a third of the iconic rock, located on the west side of Yosemite Valley inside the national park in Central California.

On Monday, the pair set out to reach the summit, some 3,000 feet above the valley floor. If successful, Sam would be the youngest person to make the trip.

“Together we will spend at least four days and three nights living on the wall,” Joe Baker wrote in a post on his Facebook page.

“The entire time hanging either our fingers or our anchors. Just imagine walking for a mile of sidewalk on your fingers, but strait up. But then we also have to drag up everything that they need to live, including hundreds of pounds of just water. This will be a historic achievement for an 8 year old.”

The entire process will be filmed and shared via the pair’s social media accounts and on a website called SamAdventure.com, which chronicles the Colorado family on its various climbing journeys with the intent of inspiring other families on journeys of their own.

They solicit photos and/or video shout-outs on social media, or even their videos.

Obviously, this isn’t Sam’s first outing.

At the age of 5, he climbed Pingora Peak in the Cirque of the Towers, Wyoming, and the Nose of Mount Albert near Independence Pass, Colorado. He climbed all five of the Flatirons in Boulder, Colorado, and already scaled Yosemite’s Fairview Dome and Lost Arrow Spire and Eichorn Pinnacle in Tuolumne Meadows.

Nor is he the first child to attempt the climb.

In 2019, 10-year-old Selah Schneiter and her father spent four and a half days climbing El Capitan’s Nose route, which runs up the center of the rock’s face and has attracted the best climbers since it was first scaled in 1958.

Ascending El Capitan at any age isn’t without dangers. Climbers have been known to fall from the rock. Even Hans Florine, who set a record for climbing the Nose route in just over two hours, had to be rescued from the mountain in 2018.

Joe Baker knows the risks.

“There are lots of people talking about the risks,” he wrote in a post on Facebook on Monday. “It’s important to also be discussing the rewards which far outweigh the risks. Start by asking: How would I be different today had I ascended El Cap with my dad when I was 8 years old? What do you think some of the rewards are?”