Top mum! Daredevil’s mother wins 3,200ft of rock in Yosemite National Park.

  • Dierdre Wolownick (70) celebrated her birthday climbing a dangerous 3,200ft rock.
  • She is now Yosemite National Park’s oldest woman to climb El Capitan.
  • Alex, her son was the first to attempt it without safety equipment and ropes.










You might expect a mother of a rock climber who is daredevil to be scared of her son’s exploits.

But not Dierdre Wolownick – who was instead inspired to scale a deadly 3,200ft (975m) rock face on her 70th birthday.

She is the oldest woman to have climbed El Capitan in Yosemite National Park. Since 1905, it has claimed the lives of more than 30 people.

Dierdre Wolownick, 70, is now the oldest woman to scale El Capitan in Yosemite National Park

70-year old Dierdre Wolfnick is now the oldest woman who has climbed El Capitan in Yosemite National Park

Ms Wolownick with her son Her son, Alex Honnold, who was the first person to tackle the rock face without ropes or safety equipment

Ms Wolownick with her son Her son, Alex Honnold, who was the first person to tackle the rock face without ropes or safety equipment

The west face of El Capitan, a deadly rock which has claimed more than 30 lives since 1905

The El Capitan west face, a rock that can cause death and has claimed more then 30 lives since 1905

Alex Honnold, her 36-year-old son, was the first to climb the rock face without safety equipment or ropes, as shown in the 2018 Oscar-winning documentary Free Solo.

The American mother and son also scaled ‘El Cap’ together in 2017 after she began climbing at 58.

She said ‘I was just a lumpy old middle-age woman completely taken with jobs and chores. Climbing was like a key opening this lifelong door.’

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