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community weblog

"El Cap is complicated ... A lot can happen up there."

"The fact that this team was able to summit in the first place is a miracle," he said. "All the cards were against them ... At least one of [the children] cried on every single pitch. The kids obviously have intrinsic motivation to be on this wall, but they're kids. Their blood sugar starts crashing even the slightest, they're going to freeze up and cry." from The True Story Behind the "El Cap Kindergartener" Ascent [Climbing; ungated]
posted by chavenet on Jun 04, 2026 at 3:34 AM

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I am not a climber (severe fear of heights). Thankfully, I had never heard of these people before. This guy sounds like a total nightmare, and most likely his kids are going to grow up to hate him and hate climbing.

FYI: I was able to read the story on climbing.com in Reader mode in Firefox.
posted by hydropsyche at 3:49 AM

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Those poor kids.
posted by whatevernot at 3:54 AM

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On May 22, a 7-year-old reached the summit of El Capitan. Why are so many climbers upset about it?

Adults can consent to do dangerous things. Children cannot.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 3:59 AM

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Adults can consent to do dangerous things. Children cannot.

Well... that seems like an oversimplification and not a stance that is terribly useful in the actual world.

Seems like the bigger issue here is that this guy is pushing his kids to do ever-more-extreme things under sketchy circumstances at what seems to be great emotional cost and physical danger. For $$.
posted by ambulanceambiance at 4:17 AM

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Digging just a bit will reveal that this guy is also an anti abortion activist and fundamentalist Christian. So that's fun too.
posted by ambulanceambiance at 4:21 AM

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Yeah if he's trying to make half a million bucks selling his story of how Real Fathers raise Real Men, it's a self-serving grift where the kids are props.

I'm a real father. I am raising a son. My goal is that he not grow up to be an asshole. That's it. That's how you raise a kid. You try your damndest to ensure they end up being the kind of people that other humans want to be around. No insta moment or documentary film is required.
posted by caution live frogs at 5:01 AM

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When I asked why there was a time limit to learn jugging, Joe responded, "Joey's had two older brothers who have set a bunch of records." Beyond jugging El Cap and climbing other mountains, such as the Matterhorn, Sam has also experienced success in USA Climbing youth competitions. "Joey saw [Sam] get all these accolades," Joe explains. "He's seen all of that, and now he wants to follow Sylvan and Sam."

I understood what he was implying. If Joey waited too long, he'd lose the chance to become a record-breaker, too.

This "father" thinks his kid's accomplishments are what makes him a Dad. Nope!
posted by tiny frying pan at 5:08 AM

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I can think of all kinds of things that I would have done as a child but thankfully my parents would not allow me.

It's actually pretty easy to get kids to consent to things. Informed consent is what's difficult-or-impossible. Children generally don't have the education and life experience to understand what they're consenting to.
posted by at by at 5:09 AM

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The distinction is consent vs assent. Assent can be provided by any individual able to communicate. Consent can only be provided by an individual with capacity. A 7 year old child can never consent.
posted by saturday_morning at 5:17 AM

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Seems like the bigger issue here is that this guy is pushing his kids to do ever-more-extreme things under sketchy circumstances at what seems to be great emotional cost and physical danger. For $$.

sounds like you're saying rhe problem is that they couldn't consent
posted by sickos haha yes dot jpg at 5:40 AM

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Climbing like this is an inherently dangerous and difficult thing to do. Put enough kids in this situation and odds are that eventually one of them is going to die or be gravely wounded.

That's how people doing extremely difficult, dangerous things works.
posted by SoberHighland at 5:55 AM

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This is child abuse, and the authorities should get involved.
posted by NotLost at 5:56 AM

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> The distinction is consent vs assent.

Distinction noted. TIL and thank you.

I think the comments here are going to be indicative that general understanding of "consent" is as a synonym of "assent". So clarifying terms like this is worth doing.
posted by at by at 5:58 AM

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Consent is beside the point and not the issue. Children nan never really consent to anything really. This is about an abusive parent who will not act in his kids best interest.
posted by 2N2222 at 6:09 AM

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sounds like you're saying rhe problem is that they couldn't consent

I think the urge to say that the problem here is that kids can't consent is... well, sure, it's true, but it breaks down pretty quickly when you try to apply it as a larger rule for operating in the world. The world is dangerous. Parents are constantly being put in a position of managing danger for their children. In this case, there's obviously *also* issues of coercion, reckless disregard for safety, and emotional abuse at play.

(For the record: I, along with the vast majority of other folks-- climbers and non climbers-- think that taking a five year old up El Cap is an off-the-charts terrible idea even absent everything else.)
posted by ambulanceambiance at 6:14 AM

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"This isn't just about adventure," their fundraising website says. "It's about restoring what our culture has lost: real fathers raising real men." To date, the project has raised more than $450,000.

It's fucked-up when parents shuffle their children around like dolls in a diorama just to get a bunch of likes on Instagram, but it's quite a bit worse when Dad (and, presumably, Mom) puts the kids in mortal danger in order to further an ideological agenda.
posted by kozad at 6:23 AM

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Also that men must do dumb dangerous man stuff in order to be men.
posted by tiny frying pan at 6:43 AM

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And the dirtbag supporting had such limited experience he hadn't hauled before and learned how to haul from videos?

Note I mean "dirtbag" there in the true sense, the climber living in Yosemite with bare supplies and comfort to enjoy the magic of the place, literally sleeping in a dirty bag from rarely showering from maximizing enjoyment of the place.

As opposed to the dirtbag Joe Evermore who narcissistically dragged his screaming crying children up a 3,000 foot wall for publicity.
posted by glaucon at 6:55 AM

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There's going to be an "Everest Kindergartener" someday soon. Assholes.
posted by Halloween Jack at 6:57 AM

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Jesus christ he literally named his kid "Joey Danger Evermore" like he's Austin fucking Powers. Some people need to be locked up.
posted by We put our faith in Blast Hardcheese at 7:13 AM

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I was reading a NYT piece on little kids who are lifting major weights. Apparently, "it'll stunt your growth" isn't a Thing, acc. to researchers. At any rate, what was most striking about this story wasn't that a 10-year-old girl could deadlift more than I or most men of my personal knowledge can. It was that her father, a "lawyer and wrestling coach," on the one hand, was all "we don't have to push her," but, on the other, also started IG and TikTok accounts for her, which have almost a quarter of a million followers combined, with her most popular IG video getting 67M views. Did his daughter want that, or is this just a revenue stream to be developed?

tl;dr: It's always the fn parents.
posted by the sobsister at 7:18 AM

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No ascent without consent!
posted by PresidentOfDinosaurs at 7:28 AM

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The father really does sound like an ass; the whole time I was reading the article I was thinking of Jessica Dubroff. If he keeps it up it is just a matter of time until a similar tragedy happens to one of his kids.
posted by TedW at 7:57 AM

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reminiscent of the 'pre-teen solo sailing' and '14yo high altitude' stories. Just crazy.
posted by j_curiouser at 8:05 AM

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Maybe we can get a female climber to help shut down this attention seeking? You know, take the fundie view that life begins at conception, so free solo El Cap as soon as the pregnancy test shows positive, hey presto youngest climber to ever ascend, record unbeatable, all the postnatal kids can breathe a sigh of relief and stay on the ground
posted by caution live frogs at 8:16 AM

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Climber here. They were not climbing, they were jugging, which is where you use ascenders on a fixed line. It is not difficult and for these kids there was zero reason to do it on El Cap. The fact that he brought a film crew with him explains exactly what his motivations are. I really feel sorry for anyone who had to share the wall with this clown.

I've have a lot of friends who climb with their kids and the kids are actually climbing. A friend's six year old climbed every pitch on Devil's Tower. That's an actual feat. He's gone back and lead it several times as a teen an adult.

There are ways to make kids passionate about activities, this is not one of them.
posted by misterpatrick at 8:45 AM

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I'm not saying that using elaborate schemes to get your small children obsessed with outdoor adventure will inevitably backfire, but I am saying, from personal experience, an obsessive, competitive mountaineer-y dad can easily produce a teenager whose preferred form of "wilderness adventure" will be sleeping on the floor of someone's dodgy apartment in order to see bands play and go vintage shopping in a major east coast metropolis several hundred miles northeast of where you are supposed to be camping. I, uh, may know something about this.

Also, kids, you can buy a lot of records, beer, and vegetarian burritos with "gear money." You're welcome.
posted by Thivaia 2.0 at 9:23 AM

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After all, neither he nor his dad led or even cleaned any of the pitches.

So neither he or anybody in his family climbed it. They just fund raised for guys to lay the ropes and the kid used ascenders?

Fuck the dad and fuck the media for not getting it.
posted by WaterAndPixels at 9:48 AM

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People do so much fucked up shit for $$$.

This qualifies.

This is not what being a father is about. It's just putting your kids at risk for the clicks and upvotes.
Just fucking terrible.
posted by Windopaene at 10:21 AM

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So not only was this a) illegal, b) borderline child abuse--the kid lost his helmet!--and c) not even an actual hands-touching-rock climb, but they had to launch a fucking search and rescue mission for them at the end? This clown should be banned from Yosemite for life and reported to CPS.

I feel so bad for those boys. I'd love to know how much of it they actually, you know, enjoyed? (You'd have to ask when dad wasn't around, of course!) Rock climbing is one of the funnest things you can do with your kids. But this is treating them like goddamned circus animals.
posted by gottabefunky at 10:50 AM

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I think the search and rescue mission was for someone else, they just happened to be there. Also, I wouldn't say that what they were doing was anymore dangerous than anything else including driving there. It just appears that way. Climbing has a lot of redundancy when done correctly. As a climber, I'm just appalled by the fact that others did the climbing while the kids just jumared up. Also the whole hiring illegal guides is super sketchy.

If you want to see some fun climbing and frank discussion or mental illness, watch The Dark Wizard on Netflix. It's a four part documentary on late legendary climber and BASE jumper Dean Potter.
posted by misterpatrick at 10:55 AM

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The kids had to be in decent physical shape to ascend using jumars/jugs. That's it. The amount of skill required is limited, to be generous. I haven't climbed in ages, and even as a teenager/young adult, I was lousy at it. That said, he could have just had these kids climb that length of rope in a gym or at home, the amount of physical effort and work would have been the exact same.

If the kids were actually climbing El Cap, even if they were top-roped, that would be really impressive. Dragging these kids up the side of a big wall for a movie is slimy. In a just world he'll never get the rights to make the thing and get fined for the illegal employment of non-certified guides. I can hope.
posted by Hactar at 12:37 PM

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I can't get past the middle names: danger, lightyear, adventure.
posted by coffeecat at 12:46 PM

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they had to launch a fucking search and rescue mission for them at the end?

No, that was for someone else.

Even so the fact that YOSAR was prepared to care for the cold and hungry kids and Dad was not tells you all you need to know about priorities.
posted by oneirodynia at 12:54 PM

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misterpatrick: "Climbing has a lot of redundancy when done correctly."

Yeah, when done correctly, as the article notes, the kids would have been on belay the whole time, but Super Dad made sure to hire an unlicensed team so he could skip that 2nd rope to make sure it looked better on camera. Don't forget he also included enough people in his crew to violate the permit. So, in addition to Performative Parenting and Exploitation of Offspring, we have Not Real Climbing, Child Endangerment, Unlicensed Crew, Unsafe Climbing Conditions, Untrained Crew Members, and Improperly Licensed Film Crew... am I missing anything here?
posted by caution live frogs at 1:27 PM

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Nearly always just out of frame among so-called "Real Men" is the idea that to be a real man is to be a killer. Anyone can kill and everyone will die. What takes courage is to live and let live.
posted by ob1quixote at 2:01 PM

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P.S. I am reminded of the saga of Balloon Boy.
posted by ob1quixote at 2:05 PM

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saturday_morning: "The distinction is consent vs assent. Assent can be provided by any individual able to communicate. Consent can only be provided by an individual with capacity. A 7 year old child can never consent."

I disagree that the legal framework is useful or appropriate here. Children cannot legally consent to things (nor can they, in many cases, legally refuse to consent to things), but that's largely because our entire legal framework treats children as basically property. And quite frankly, while this story is obvious child abuse, so are many parenting practices which are much more common. The idea that parents are caring and competent guardians of their children's best interests is true much less often than anyone wants to acknowledge.
posted by adrienneleigh at 2:10 PM

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Aside from the (non-)issue of the (non-)climbing kid, that was stellar research and writing from Sam McIlwaine. I had no interest in reading the story, but ended up reading it anyway. Which is a NY-er level of credit to her writing.
posted by Dashy at 4:46 PM

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The documentary Maiden Voyage covers the 13/14 year old Laura Dekker solo sailing around the world. On the consent side a Dutch court actually had had to rule she was allowed to go. Her father did have her sailing solo at age 6 which is probably abuse, but maybe by 14 she had enough knowledge of self to want to do the solo trip?
posted by CostcoCultist at 5:31 PM

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Of course the manly-ist men are the abusers. What an ass. The kids obviously have intrinsic motivation...

Way to use your kids to make money, and I'll bet a goodly amount will go into his pocket to fund his next circus.

If he keeps it up it is just a matter of time until a similar tragedy happens to one of his kids.

Maybe there will be a tragedy, maybe not, if he's lucky.

But if something does happen, you betcha he will monitize it all over the internet, and wail to the skies that it wasn't his fault.
posted by BlueHorse at 7:26 PM

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Jugging up El Cap is way harder than climbing it - they're selling these plucky little tykes short.
posted by Flashman at 7:33 PM

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After a 1996 fatal accident during an attempt to set the record for youngest pilot to fly across the US, congress passed the Child Pilot Safety Act:

The statute prohibits anyone who does not hold at least a private pilot certificate and a current medical certificate from manipulating the controls of an aircraft, if that individual "is attempting to set a record or engage in an aeronautical competition or aeronautical feat."


Some magazines occasionally remind their readers that there's Another Aviation Achievement We're Not Reporting On and point out the dangers in pushing children into these situations.
posted by autopilot at 12:33 AM

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Um...am I the only one who wonders why there is no mention of a mother in this story? Who is she, where is she, what does she think about all this, did she have a say in the decision to let the boys do this? (Hint: probably not?) I haven't read any of the other articles about the Evermores, and I'm eager to do so now, because I want to see if she is erased from the historiography like the illegal guides.
posted by scratch at 5:26 AM

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The bit where the dad says he had eight people on his team, and the reporter adds it up and gets him to admit it was nine stands out to me. The dad lied because he knew he was breaking the rule. Violating the group size is minor corner-cutting in the grand scheme of things, but it makes me wonder what other corners were cut. We know about the illegal and inexperienced guides, the lack of a second rope, the missing helmet, the interference with search and rescue, the improper permitting, but is that all? And having had success on this attempt, would a future attempt feature more shortcuts?

That's how you get catastrophic failures that were entirely preventable.
posted by surlyben at 6:11 AM

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Scratch, I don't want to give them too many clicks but I think the mom Is at home with other kids?

Given this is a Christian Conservative family, it seems like they must follow the "men are to lead, woman are to be submissive" way of things. This is the dads profile from Christian men's group
posted by CostcoCultist at 6:27 AM

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am I missing anything here?

Maybe one more aspect. Due to the "too many people for the permit" issue, there's an additional, "He can't use any of the footage he shot commercially*" issue, which is a good thing, I think.

* as if there's any context other than commercial for him.
posted by mikelieman at 6:31 AM

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Costcocultist, I thought of that after posting. It's certainly plausible that Joe would "forbid" her from speaking to the media.
posted by scratch at 6:51 AM

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And another thing: I've never worn a climbing helmet, but I can confirm that motorcycle helmets, bicycle helmets, and horseback riding don't "come unbuckled." However, one can forget to buckle it. In which case it might fall off. Just saying...
posted by scratch at 7:00 AM

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Some magazines occasionally remind their readers that there's Another Aviation Achievement We're Not Reporting On and point out the dangers in pushing children into these situations.

I looked up more information about Jessica Dubroff, including some videos reporting on the crash, and I'm quietly furious. That little girl did not look enthusiastic about trying to break the record (although she wouldn't have; she legally could not be the pilot of record for the plane anyway, which of course makes the whole thing pointless). Her dad and the pilot of record both decided to lift off in weather which should have grounded them, apparently because Jessica was about to turn eight and another eight-year-old (!!!!!) had already done a similar stunt. Some days, I just want the hell off this planet, I swear.
posted by Halloween Jack at 9:29 AM

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I can't get past the middle names: danger, lightyear, adventure.

For some reason, I'm imagining this future in which, in his twenties or early thirties, with the slightly crestfallen look of Jason Stackhouse or Ryan Gosling in The Fall Guy, the kid with middle name "Danger" is in therapy, crying, finally getting back in touch with his emotions and the weight of expectations he's had to bear. Maybe he's grown into using his middle name as a pickup line; maybe his rugged bearing from climbing has helped. But inside, he's falling apart.

Anyway, I mean, I hope that potential future doesn't come true, and he has a better time growing up than that, and stays safe, happy, and healthy, but man. I worry.
posted by limeonaire at 9:42 AM

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