EDITION 09 - MAY 7, 2025

YosemiteClimbingYosemite ValleyChris Van LeuvenYosemite Climbing MuseumYosemite Climbing

May 6

Written By Yosemite Climbing Association

Your window into the stories, history, and ongoing work to preserve Yosemite’s climbing legacy.

A Note from the Editor

This week (5.5.25), I received a wonderful email from Dierdre Wolownick—Alex Honnold’s mom and a longtime climbing partner of mine—who always keeps me in the loop on what Alex is up to. This time, she shared the press kit for The Sound, a climbing-horror film slated for theatrical and video on demand release on June 27, 2025. The movie stars climbers Hazel Findlay, Brette Harrington, Adrian Ballinger, and Alex Honnold, with an original score by Smashing Pumpkins co-founder James Iha. The synopsis reads:

A world-class team of climbers gains rare access to the Forbidden Wall, closed for decades. Among them is Sean Hills, whose grandfather vanished on the wall 63 years earlier. Partway up, the team confronts a malevolent force that turns their ascent into a fight for survival hundreds of feet above the ground.

This week’s spotlight: Why Sasha  DiGiulian Loves Climbing in Yosemite.
Sasha and I first roped up for a lap on the Rostrum’s North Face in 2021. The next day, I flew to French Polynesia to meet a shark-swimmer (read the Men’s Journal story here) and climb on the small island of Makatea. I was so impressed with the climbing on the atoll that I told Sasha all about it, and she thought it would be a great fit for an episode of her show No Days Off. She invited Brette Harrington, and a month later, we flew to Tahiti (French Polynesia), took a short flight to Tikehau, hopped on a powerboat, and blasted out through the Pacific Ocean to Makatea, where we put up first ascents. Watch the episode here (see Instagram post here), and read my story for Red Bull here.

Chris Van Leuven

Editor, Yosemite Climbing Association News Brief

YosemiteClimbing.Org

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We’re excited to release **Nature’s Masterpiece** — a limited-edition t-shirt featuring a hand-painted watercolor print by the talented **Jess Leigh @jess_jess_leigh_.** Inspired by the **Yosemite Climber’s Credo**, each purchase supports our work through leading **education, stewardship, and community action** in Yosemite and beyond.
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Let’s protect what matters and resist what harms — for Yosemite, and for future generations.

Yosemite Matters:

A Call to Congress to Protect Our National Treasure

Huge thanks to everyone who has signed our petition to protect Yosemite! We've exceeded 300 signatures, and your support is creating a real impact.

Together, we’re urging lawmakers to safeguard our national parks and ensure NPS Rangers have the resources necessary to preserve these iconic spaces. If you haven’t signed yet, it’s not too late! Join us in protecting Yosemite today.

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*Sasha DiGiulian on Killa Beez, Chapel Wall. Photo: ChrisVan Leuven*

Why  Sasha  DiGiulian Loves Climbing in Yosemite

We were midway up the Rostrum in 2021 when Sasha and I started discussing fear on trad routes. For her, the idea of hanging high above a cam—especially in a heinous offwidth—sparked worries about dropping the next piece. I told her I felt relaxed in those situations, the same ease she shows when firing hard sport or alpine-sport lines, like her historic tick of the Canadian Big Wall Trilogy.

Since then, every time she visits the Valley, we sample cracks of every size and grade—from the meandering Royal Arches to mixed crack/sport testpieces such as Killa Beez, Astroboy (the lower pitches of Astroman), Freeblast on El Cap, and most recently the wide cracks at the Cookie Cliff. On this trip, we linked Enigma to The Enema (P1 5.9 fists/chimney; P2 5.11b overhanging hands/fists). Afterward, she gave The Stigma/Renegade (5.13 tips) a go, cruising roughly 90 percent of it while on top rope. Interestingly, she found the 5.11 she did earlier harder because “I was so out of my element.”

“The wider the crack, the harder it is for me—that’s a skill set I really want to develop. I need to get faster with gear and comfortable across a wider range of crack widths. Yosemite granite is tough and unforgiving, which makes it one of the most challenging terrains I’ve climbed on,” she told me.

For the past two seasons, Sasha has been working toward a free ascent of an El Cap line whose name she’s keeping under wraps. She’s dispatched many of the cruxes, but the sheer variety—heel-toe cams, chicken-wings, squeeze chimneys—still humbles her on 5.10 ground. That contrast is striking for someone who notched her 50th 5.14 in May 2024. Yet her Yosemite trips are about more than climbing hard.

“Yosemite is the birthplace of American rock climbing—just being on these historic lines makes you part of that story. What brings me back is the incredible atmosphere, the friends I’ve made, and the constant humility the climbs give me. You walk into the Valley and feel this crazy, all-encompassing energy that pulls you toward adventure.”

During each visit she and her husband, filmmaker Erik Osterholm, rent an Airbnb in a gateway town (her mom Andrea accompanied them this time) while she juggles El Cap laps with Zoom meetings as CEO of SEND Bars. Mornings are for business; afternoons for granite.

“Having small crag projects alongside bigger wall goals keeps the overall strategy—and psyche—high,” she says. Last season, she fired the 5.13d stemming corner Book of Hate—one of the Valley’s hardest single-pitch cracks. This fall, she has her eyes on The  Phoenix, Yosemite’s first 5.13 crack, and hopes to finish her El Cap project.

“Wide cracks, overhanging cracks—those unfamiliar terrains are what I’m embracing now.”