Disabled Climber Marks 10-year Anniversary with Return Trip to Yosemite Christine Hanley, Associated Press Writer San Francisco Chronicle - July 19, 1999 Fresno, Calif. (AP) -- The mountain again calls Mark Wellman. Ten years to the day since he first scaled the daunting face of El Capitan at Yosemite National Park, the disabled athlete plans another arm-pumping trip to the top of the 3,200-foot monolith. "My message isn't for the disabled to come and climb El Capitan,'' said Wellman, who plans to start his climb today. "It's to climb whatever mountain that is the barrier in their life. And that can be anything.'' In 1989, Wellman, who has had only partial movement in his legs since a 1982 climbing accident, became the first disabled person to conquer El Capitan. Wellman, 39, was a Yosemite ranger when he made his first ascent. He now lives in the mountain community of Truckee, Calif., where his company, No Limits, sells outdoor equipment for the disabled. Wearing his company's custom-made chaps and using a special T-bar system, Wellman will hoist himself up six inches at a time by doing pull-ups as partner Mike Corbett climbs ahead and sets the ropes. Wellman expects it will take a week and about 7,000 to 8,000 pull-ups to summit, resting between each pitch, which can range anywhere from 100 to 140 feet. "It's a meticulously slow process,'' he said. On the 1989 trip, Wellman scaled the route called "The Sheer.'' This time around, a stronger, bulkier Wellman will be taking a different path, a difficult route known as "The Nose.'' "It's classic,'' Wellman said. It's also one of the most challenging of the 75 or 80 routes that reach the summit. Named for its appearance and made famous by photographer Ansel Adams, "The Nose'' is the highest unbroken granite cliff in North America, with the toughest-to-tackle angles on its lower third. "There's going to be a lot of difficult moves,'' said Wellman, who broke his back 17 years ago when he slipped while descending a steep chute of the 13,700-foot Gables Peak south of Yosemite, adding that difficulty doesn't necessarily mean extreme danger. "The only way I'm falling is if you had a rock fall and it cut the rope,'' Wellman said. Wellman travels around the country giving motivational speeches and remains a passionate sportsman, embarking on adventures in alpine skiing, cross-country skiing and white-water kayaking. But he has not attempted a big wall climb since conquering Yosemite's Half Dome in 1991. He and Corbett, 45, will be lugging 200 pounds of gear. They plan to survive on 100 pounds of water and a diet of cold food; power bars, canned beans, dried fruit, trail mix and bagels. They'll sleep on natural ledges when they can, and on a doublewide, portable ledge when they can't. They'll also be lugging along a cell phone and a digital camera that will help them update reports on the internet.