El Capitan

The camera stands among the boulders at the foot of the wall, which is the only place you can get to that gives any sense of the scale of the thing. From directly underneath, El Capitan does not read as a cliff so much as a horizon turned on its side - the granite fills that side of the view from the ground to well above the top of the frame, and the trees at its foot are full-grown pines. The ground here is talus, blocks the size of cars that have come off the face over time, with scrub growing between them. Turn away from the wall and the valley floor opens out into forest with the sun coming through low.

El Capitan, also known by its nickname El Cap, is one of the most recognizable granite rock formations at Yosemite National Park. Like its neighbor Half Dome, El Capitan is clearly visible and accessible from the floor of Yosemite Valley, and its image has become synonymous with this California park. The enormous rock, whose name appropriately means “the captain” or “the chief,” towers 3,593 feet above the floor of the valley and its distinctive granite cliff face is a popular—and challenging—destination for rock climbers.

Formed by glacial erosion, El Capitan, like most of the rock formations in Yosemite, is formed primarily of the eponymous El Capitan granite, with veins of volcanic rock. It is the largest granite monolith in the world, being made of one solid chunk of granite. El Capitan has two rock faces that are popular with climbers, one facing to the southeast and one facing to the southwest. Between them is a ridge of granite that has been named The Nose, which is the most famous route up to the top of the cliff.

Located on the north side of Yosemite Valley, some of the best views of the towering monolith are actually from roads on the valley floor, including the area around Bridalveil Falls, which is directly opposite El Capitan.