Of The Prophet’s 13 pitches, eight include an R rating and one sports a deadly X at the end of its grade.  Who’s going to repeat this bold El Cap free route?

The Canadian climbers Sonnie Trotter and Will Stanhope are raring to try.  

“All we need is a fuggin' weather window,” writes Trotter in an e-mail to Black Diamond.  

Trotter and Stanhope have been in the Valley working The Prophet’s individual crux pitches and now feel ready for a free push.  But the weather may not hold.

“Three [to] 5 inches of snow in the next 24 hours,” writes Trotter. “But it’s worth waiting for.”

The Prophet, established by Leo Houlding in 2010, takes a striking line up El Cap’s Southeast face. The total package involves loose and runout 5.13 climbing, a huge downward huck dubbed the “Devil’s Dyno,” and a splitter crack on the 11th pitch called the A1 Beauty, which is the route’s overall crux and rated 5.13d.  

Houlding first attempted the line in 2001, ground-up, onsight and with no drill.  

“We wanted to free a new route on El Capitan, utilizing no aid, no drill, no Portaledge and no fixed rope,” wrote Houlding in Rock and Ice 192.  “To us it was–and remains–the ultimate challenge.”   

Houlding had to compromise his style to succeed on The Prophet, rehearsing the upper pitches on a top rope.  Nine years after his first attempt, after years of mishaps and injury, and after riding out a final storm high on El Cap, Houlding opened one of El Cap’s hardest and boldest free routes.

Trotter wrote earlier this week in an e-mail to Rock and Ice, "I am down here in the Valley with my friend Will Stanhope, and we've been spending the last four weeks working on Leo Houlding's legacy climb, The Prophet, entirely inspired by his article in Rock and Ice last year.   We got all the crux pitches down, all we have to do now is wait for a weather stretch to go ground up.  But, alas, it's going to snow on Thursday.   ARGHHH!   I have my fingers crossed."

[Top: Trotter leads high on The Prophet. Above: Stanhope attempting the "Devil's Dyno."

[Another day on the Captain. Above photos by Paul Bride.]

[Houlding climbs the A1 Beauty. Photo by Alastair Lee.]