Top Local Stories: No. 1, the Dawn Wall climb

1. When Kevin Jorgeson and Tommy Caldwell rose off the floor of Yosemite Valley and attached themselves to the great granite face of El Capitan exactly one year ago, they hoped to exit in a different place — at the summit, 3,000 feet skyward.

What they couldn't have imagined on Dec. 27, 2014, is that they would emerge as different people, at least in the eyes of an admiring public. Jorgeson and Caldwell began their ascent of the daunting Dawn Wall route in obscurity and finished it in the full force of the media spotlight, a glare that didn't let up for months.

By now, Jorgeson said this week, normalcy has returned.

'I don't feel life has changed that much, honestly,' noted Jorgeson, born and raised in Santa Rosa. 'Now a year removed, things are calm again. It's kind of like life back to normal, you know? I drive the same car, live in the same house. Everything is pretty much the same as it was before. Which is awesome. I didn't want anything to change afterwards.'

Which is not to say that 'sending' the Dawn Wall, which many have hailed as the most difficult sustained free climb ever achieved, didn't make for a highly interesting year.

Jorgeson and Caldwell could see it build while they were on the wall, with news outlets from all over the world hanging on their Twitter and Instagram accounts and reporting on their every breakthrough and setback. When they reached the top they were greeted with a congratulatory tweet from President Barack Obama, which signaled the deluge to come.

'The press events of the Dawn Wall for me was one of weirdest things that probably ever happened to me,' Caldwell said from his home in Estes Park, Colo. 'When everyone is looking at you and holding you on a pedestal, it's hard not to feel like a fraud. … The in-depth interviews, I enjoyed that. But the day after, it went on for 10 hours and none of it was right.'

Corporations, charities, civic organizations, conservation groups – everyone, it seemed, wanted Jorgeson and Caldwell to relive the experience and explain, again, how they found the resolve to complete their famous climb. They presented to Microsoft, to Adobe, to Samsung and Old Navy, and to many others.

Jorgeson served as grand marshal for the NASCAR race at Sonoma Raceway and threw out the first pitch at a Giants game, a task that terrified him more than the most treacherous boulder in the world. Caldwell was invited to Google Zeitgeist, an exclusive creativity summit that included Nobel Peace Prize laureates, the surgeon general and Kanye West, and to a TEDx event in Kansas City.

'I hung out for a couple days with the head imager of the Hubble space telescope,' Caldwell said of the latter engagement, allowing himself a chuckle. 'I'm thinking, wow, this is not a world I've lived in. But at the same time I can kind of relate, because these people are all super into what they do.'

Jorgeson, in particular, warmed to the speaking engagements. As co-founder of an advocacy group called Pro Climbers International, he knew the importance of delivering a strong message and felt obligated to improve his storytelling.

'It's like, if I don't have one fresh idea coming out of this experience that isn't 'never give up' or whatever, then that is embarrassing. It's pathetic,' Jorgeson said. 'I really did feel like, dude, you lived through this amazing experience. What do you have to say for it?'

The circuit took Jorgeson and his girlfriend, Jacqui Becker, to London and Rome, and in between they squeezed in a trip to France where she used to live.

But while Jorgeson has relished the chance to travel and rub elbows with the famous and the impressive, that was never his primary goal. He has long sought to promote rock climbing and the natural areas in which it takes place. After the Dawn Wall, Jorgeson sensed that he and Caldwell had helped propel the sport into its moment of opportunity.

'The fact that people remember the story means that you can open up so many new doors that you couldn't before, simply because they remember, and they were so moved by the experience,' Jorgeson said. 'And that's a really intangible thing to have changed. But when you're dreaming some new thing up, being able to pick up the phone and call people who may not have picked up the phone before, it's pretty tangible then, right? So the horizon feels much more broad.'

Home life evolved over the year, too. Jorgeson and Becker got engaged; they'll be married next August. Caldwell's son, Fitz, has gone from a toddling 1½-year-old to a conversational 2½-year-old and his wife, Rebecca, is about six months pregnant with their second child.

One thing that 2015 did not deliver in abundance to Jorgeson and Caldwell: rock climbing. They were simply too busy, especially in the first half of the year.

Jorgeson has rectified that lately. He made several trips to Yosemite this fall, including a November visit to scale a stunning feature called Lost Arrow Spire with Sasha DiGiulian. Caldwell admits that he hasn't climbed nearly enough this year, and is desperately craving the rock.

Of course, each has looked for his next big thing. The pursuit of the Dawn Wall was such an obsession for so many years that Jorgeson and Caldwell admit to feeling a bit of an emptiness when they finally solved it.

Caldwell is filling the void by writing the memoir he has considered for years. As anyone knows who has read of his dramatic escape (along with his then-wife and two friends) from armed rebels in Kyrgyzstan in 2000, he has plenty to talk about. And true to form, Caldwell is attacking the writing process with gusto.

'It's like climbing the Dawn Wall. It's this big, daunting thing, and I love that,' he said. 'I want to do a really good job, and I'm taking it seriously. Of course, it feels a little different because I've been climbing my whole life. I haven't been writing my whole life. There are days when I think, 'Man, I'm gonna write the worst thing ever,' and other days it feels like it's coming together.'

Jorgeson, meanwhile, has been itching to find his next Moby-Dick. Curiously, it may be a stone's throw from his last one.

Just to the left of the Dawn Wall, on the face of El Cap, is another vertical strip that has never been climbed. It looks to be equally devoid of holds for fingers and toes. Jorgeson has rappelled from the summit to scout the upper 600 feet. More research is necessary, but the guy is intrigued.

'The aid route is mostly called New Dawn, which is kind of fitting,' Jorgeson said, smiling broadly. 'And it's a stunner.'

You can reach Staff Writer Phil Barber at 521-5263 or phil.barber@pressdemocrat.com. Follow him on Twitter @Skinny_Post.