After climbing about a quarter of the route, they retreated to re-supply, leaving four fixed ropes in place.

A year later, Robbins and Frost returned and did the route in a single push from the bottom.

[4] In 1979, Mark Hudon and Max Jones, climbing from the ground up, led all but 250 feet of the route free, adding three pitches of 5.12 and 5 or 6 of 5.11.

[4] The Salathe Wall was the first major route on El Capitan to be fully free climbed, and was the first-ever free ascent of a big wall route in history at the grade of 5.13b (8a).

[5][6] In 1995, Alexander Huber became the first individual to free climb all the individual pitches, leading every pitch free himself in two pushes (with one hanging belay for a rest), and using an easier variation avoiding one of the cruxes, and assigned a grade of 5.13b.