List of climbs that go all free on El Capitan

I've looked for a long time for a list of all the true El Cap routes that go free, and I can't find one. After a few days of searching, here's my list currently: 

1. The Nose (FFA Lynn Hill, 5.13+/5.14-)
2. The Salathe Wall (FFA Todd Skinner and Paul Piana, 5.13b)
3. Freerider (FFA Alex and Thomas Huber, 5.13a, FFS Alex Honnold)
4. West Buttress (FFA Tommy Caldwell, Beth Rodden, 5.13c)
5. El Corazon (FFA Alex Huber, 5.13b)
6. Golden Gate (FFA Alex and Thomas Huber, 5.13a)
7. The Heart Route (FFA Mason Earle, Brad Gobright, 5.13b)
8. Muir Wall Shaft Variation (FFA Tommy Caldwell, 5.13c)
9. The Pre-Muir Wall (FFA Rob Miller and Justin Sjong, 5.13b)
10. Magic Mushroom (FFA Tommy Caldwell and Justen Sjong, 5.14a)
11. Dihedral Wall (FFA Tommy Caldwell, 5.14a)
12. The Zodiac (FFA Alex and Thomas Huber, 5.13d)
13. El Nino (FFA Alex and Thomas Huber, 5.13b/c, FFA of the Pineapple Express, Sonny Trotter) 
14. The Dawn Wall (FFA Tommy Caldwell and Keven Jorgenson, 5.14d)
15. Passage to Freedom / New Dawn (FFA Tommy Caldwell and Alex Honnold, 5.13c)

That's 15 routes on the Captain that go free. Am I missing anything? It's been a minute since a new climb went all free on El Cap, so I've been interested to see when the next one will go down. It's actually crazy that basically all of them are either TC or Huberbaum routes. Especially with how many people have spend years of their lives throwing their heads against that wall. 

EDIT: 

16. Lurking Fear (FFA Beth Rodden and Tommy Caldwell, 5.13c)

17. The Prophet (FFA  Leo Houlding and Jason Pickles, 513d R)

18. Secret Passage (FFA Nicolas Favresse and Sean Villanueva, 5.13c)

Are you not counting the west face because it's only grade V? Doing that approach with heavy haul bags if freaking gnarly man; I say it counts. I do realize I am the least authoritative voice on this matter of anyone who holds such an opinion on this site. However, as someone who has done that approach numerous times with heavy bags (portering gear for PtPP of all people) and climbed part of an adjacent route I none-the-less feel the need to express my strong opinion that climbing the West Face is climbing El Cap. 

Lurking Fear, The Prophet, and the Secret Passage are missing from the list.

Ricky Harline wrote:

Are you not counting the west face because it's only grade V? Doing that approach with heavy haul bags if freaking gnarly man; I say it counts. I do realize I am the least authoritative voice on this matter of anyone who holds such an opinion on this site. However, as someone who has done that approach numerous times with heavy bags (portering gear for PtPP of all people) and climbed part of an adjacent route I none-the-less feel the need to express my strong opinion that climbing the West Face is climbing El Cap. 

Unless I'm mistaken, multiple folks who've free'd El Cap have said it's not a real El Cap route. Honnold has a story about Potter trying to solo the West Face before he could, so he went and nabbed it first so that Dean couldn't claim to be the first person to free a Captain route, and no one calls that the first solo of El Cap. Ray Jardine also freed that route before Todd and Paul's ascent of the Salathe, and not too many folks call that the first route that went free on El Cap. I've never climbed in the Valley, this is just a serious interest of mine, so I have no skin in the game whatsoever, but that's just the general consensus for those who do have significant skin. 

JCM wrote:

Lurking Fear, The Prophet, and the Secret Passage are missing from the list.

LURKING FEAR! How could I forget about the coolest named route on that rock. 

Looking through the Sloan Big Wall Select (AKA Ultimate guide) book and a R&I article here are some you missed: 

• Lurking Fear 5.13c FFA Tommy Caldwell, Beth Rodden June 2000
• Triple Direct 5.14a (only one independent pitch but considered an independent route due to historical nature according to Sloan)
• Mr. Midwest 5.13  FFA Eric Bissel, Cameron King May 2016
• The Platinum Wall AKA The Direct Line 5.13+ FA Rob Miller, Roby Rudolf October 2017
• The Prophet 5.13D X FA Leo Houlding, Jason Pickles October 2010 
• Secret Passage 5.13C Nico Favresse, Sean Villanueva October 2006
• Lost In Translation 12B/C Nicolas Favresse and Ivo Ninov

Caleb BR wrote:

Unless I'm mistaken, multiple folks who've free'd El Cap have said it's not a real El Cap route. Honnold has a story about Potter trying to solo the West Face before he could, so he went and nabbed it first so that Dean couldn't claim to be the first person to free a Captain route, and no one calls that the first solo of El Cap. Ray Jardine also freed that route before Todd and Paul's ascent of the Salathe, and not too many folks call that the first route that went free on El Cap. I've never climbed in the Valley, this is just a serious interest of mine, so I have no skin in the game whatsoever, but that's just the general consensus for those who do have significant skin. 

Yeah, that's fair. When I talk to real valley wall climbers it seems split 50/50, but it does seem at the top of the game that they don't consider it a "real" El Cap route. For us mere mortals I still say it should count, though. =)

There’s a cool poster with all the free routes - 

https://www.climbingmaps.com/shop/p/el-capitan-free

^^ It's getting harder to define Big Wall too. Is RNWF still grade 6?

So I looked in MP. West face grade 4. DNB 5

Regular route 6.
Pitches: 20, 18, 22 I think 

>>El Nino (FFA Alex and Thomas Huber, 5.13b/c, FFA of the Pineapple Express, Sonny Trotter) 

Technically El Niño isn’t free, there is a rap. Seems like this still de facto “counts” as a free route by most people’s standards though. pineapple is all free. 

What's left of Lost in Translation after the rockfall?

Ricky Harline wrote:

Looking through the Sloan Big Wall Select (AKA Ultimate guide) book and a R&I article here are some you missed: 

• Lurking Fear 5.13c FFA Tommy Caldwell, Beth Rodden June 2000
• Triple Direct 5.14a (only one independent pitch but considered an independent route due to historical nature according to Sloan)
• Mr. Midwest 5.13  FFA Eric Bissel, Cameron King May 2016
• The Platinum Wall AKA The Direct Line 5.13+ FA Rob Miller, Roby Rudolf October 2017
• The Prophet 5.13D X FA Leo Houlding, Jason Pickles October 2010 
• Secret Passage 5.13C Nico Favresse, Sean Villanueva October 2006
• Lost In Translation 12B/C Nicolas Favresse and Ivo Ninov

Dope. This is the kind of stuff I was looking for. Some of the obscure routes risk being lost to time! 

>>El Nino (FFA Alex and Thomas Huber, 5.13b/c, FFA of the Pineapple Express, Sonny Trotter) 

Technically El Niño isn’t free, there is a rap. Seems like this still de facto “counts” as a free route by most people’s standards though. pineapple is all free. 

It's interesting what counts as a "free climb" sometimes. Like, I know that I watched a film once where it was Kauk and a few others "free climbing" on half dome, and they were yo-yoing, rope swinging, rapping, and a bunch of other fuckery. I'm not sure if they were just saying they were free climbing for the TV, or if the term has kind of solidified over time to mean no hanging on the rope at all, but it seems like "free climbing" has changed over time. 

philip bone wrote:

^^ It's getting harder to define Big Wall too. Is RNWF still grade 6?

So I looked in MP. West face grade 4. DNB 5

Regular route 6.
Pitches: 20, 18, 22 I think 

I'm pretty sure that Moonlight Buttress still counts as a wall climb, which is ~12 pitches. If Moonlight counts, RNWF should definitely count. 

Half Dome was once considered to be a soft grade 6. Approach was not factored in. Free and in a day ascents have changed perceptions on grades. It seems strange that DNB is higher grade than West Face but its just numbers in a data base. And, approaches do factor in-- in the real world. All this being said; what is an El Cap route? 

. . . or more relavant to this conversation: what is a free El Cap route from a guide book perspective? 

According to Sloan's Big Wall book El Nino truly became a free climb when Alex Honnold and Sonnie Trotter put up their La Nina variation that skips the rappel. So it is a real free climb with the La Nina variation. 

Matt Miccioli wrote:

What's left of Lost in Translation after the rockfall?

Sloan's Ultimate Guide shows the rockfall on the topo and it shows the rockfall zone ending just before Lost in Translation, so according to Sloan it shouldn't be affected at all. No idea myself, but there's a start. 

With Tommy’s recent ascent of The Heart Route and Babsi’s recent ascents of Freerider and Golden Gate (her 8th free el cap route) it got me wondering, has anyone free’d all 18 routes on El Cap? Surely Tommy has the most but I’m not sure how many? Anyone have a way to tally the score? Cheers!

East Buttress 5.10 b FFA Frank Sacherer ,Wally Reed , 1964

OP can you add the FFA years too please?

Certain climbers (past and present) want to claim that the West face is not a proper El Cap free climb because it would somehow diminish their "status" as an "El Cap free climber." Valley elitism is lame. 

It's on El Cap, it's no shorter than the Zodiac. It's an El Cap free climb. It's also harder than the numbers would suggest and hella fun. 

Maybe I'm wrong and I haven't kept up as opinion has settled, but I i remember Brad/Mason rating the Heart Route 13b/V10 or some such. It's a strange rating convention but IMO makes some sense given the location on El cap, esp if that V10 is a single move vs. declaring 14- for the whole thing. Either way, I think it's not quite correct to give it 13b and lump it in with most other free wall routes which seem to resolve in the 13b-d range.