Of the twelve free ascents of the Nose, only Tommy Caldwell and Beth Rodden's 2005 ascent and Babsi Zangerl and Jacopo Larcher's 2019 ascent involved both climbers freeing the route.

Now, at age thirty-three, my mission was to free climb every inch of this legendary three-thousand-foot rock formation. My partner was a British climber named Simon Nadin, a tall man with a soft voice and a sunny-faced complexion, whom I had met at a World Cup competition in 1989.

In January 2015, Caldwell and Kevin Jorgeson completed the first free climb of The Dawn Wall on El Capitan in Yosemite National Park, after six years of planning and preparation. Their 19-day ascent of The Dawn Wall was the first-ever free climb of a big wall route at the grade of 9a (5.14d) in history.

The Nose is a big wall climbing route up El Capitan. Once considered impossible to climb, El Capitan is now the standard for big wall climbing. It is recognized in the historic climbing text Fifty Classic Climbs of North America and considered a classic around the world.