YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK, Calif. — The two men attempting to free climb the daunting 3,000-foot Dawn Wall route of El Capitan spent much of Monday morning in their tents, hanging 1,200 feet above the valley floor.

When Tommy Caldwell and Kevin Jorgeson are not climbing, they are doing all the things that ground-bound people might do on their couch: resting, eating, drinking coffee, talking on cellphones and surfing the Internet. One difference is that they often sand their battered fingertips. Another is that they go to the bathroom in a bag.

For people around the world following their ascent, the wonder of attempting what many consider the most difficult rock climb in the world is hard to comprehend. But to those who have never climbed so much as to their own roof, the logistics of spending weeks on a wall, in winter, thousands of feet above the ground, is something beyond the realm of imagination, too.