Corbett had carried his friend, 29-year-old Mark Wellman, to the base of El Capitan. But Wellman would have to pull his own weight — three quarters of a mile — practically straight up.

It had been seven years since Mark Wellman made his last climb. He was on his way down when he slipped on some gravel and plummeted into a crevasse.

Wellman dangled at 13,000 feet, wedged in a crack with a broken back, for 30 hours. “I remember I couldn’t wait until the sun came up to warm me up,” he recalls.

His legs were paralyzed, but his spirit was not. Wellman bounced back and took a job as a ranger in Yosemite National Park. He began to dream of climbing again.