Start and Finish Times
Is a committee required to certify speed records Smart says, Until Yosemite appoints its own version of the International Olympic Committee IOC to impose rules . . . the only fact that will never be Hans on second variation pitch of Beggars Buttress 5.11 . Hans on second variation pitch of Beggars Buttress 5.11 . 1. Start the stopwatch when the first person in your party starts climbing where a norma party would start climbing. 2, Stop the clock when the last person in your party and all the...
The North Face of the Eiger
The North Face of the Eiger is one of the most infamous objectives in the climbing world, known prior to World War I as the last great problem. Nine climbers died trying to ascend the face before it was successfully climbed in 1938. All of those who died were caught in bad weather, a major contributor to their deaths. The Eiger rarely has good weather for many days in a row. In 1998 there was supposed to be a live TV ascent of the Eigerwand. The crew waited for good weather for forty-five days,...
Water Is Life
Drinking after you cramp is futile. Plan on having the right amount offluid and drink before you cramp up. And the right amount Everyone is different. There is a minimum as far as liters per hour, but you must adjust the quantity of water to bring on a given climb based on temperature, Peter Coward dying of thirst on Horse Chute. Gregory Murphy movement, and availability of water on the route, the approach, and the descent. I take two liters of water for an eight-hour push. I H.F. flavor my...
The Principle of Applying Speed on Short Routes
In 1989 I had climbed only one 5.12. With my head held high, i went climbing at Stoney Point in Southern California. After warming up, I put a toprope on a 5.12 route. On this testpiece, on my first burn, I hung on the rope twice. After quite a struggle, I got to the top. This took me about ten or fifteen minutes. From around the rock, my friend Andres Puhvel reared his head with a gleaming grin on his face. Andres had recently beaten me in a difficulty competition by a hair and had lost to me...
Books
Anker, Daniel, ed, Eiger the Vertical Arena. Seattle, Washington The Mountaineers, 2000, Arce, Gary, Defying Gravity High Adventure on Yosemite's Walls. Berkeley, California Wilderness Press, 1996. Ardito, Stephano. Mont Blanc. Seattle, Washington The Mountaineers, 1997, Bridwell, Jim. Climbing Adventures. Merrillville, Indiana ICS Books, 1992. Brookfieldjohn. Mastery of Hand Strength. Ironmaid Enterprises, 1995. Co I lister, Rob. Lightweight Expeditions. Ramsbury, Marlborough, England The...
Vision Failure and Triumph on El Capitan
In California's Yosemite Park, there is a world-famous rock known as El Capitan. One of my first memories of El Cap is from a family vacation to Yosemite when I was eight years old. My oldest brother Bob was climbing a route on El Capitan I tried to see him, but he was too far away. Then there was this big rescue for some guy on the Nose. I could see the rescuers lowering down the 1,000-meter face. My mom was worried that it might have been my brother who had gotten hurt, but it also seemed...
Leading in Blocks
Climbing can be tiring, and you don't climb as fast when you're tired. You could think of climbing in the traditional manner as a series of intervals. When swinging leads, the leader works his way up the pitch and gets to rest while the follower climbs the pitch. The follower is perhaps tired upon reaching the belay but still must plunge directly into the next lead. Once, I B,W. was climbing Pervertical Sanctuary on the Diamond of Longs Peak. My partner, George, had just followed the crux pitch...
Dream barriers look very high until someone climbs them Then they are not
Lasse Viren, one of the greatest distance runners of all time What is speed climbing To some it's what they see on TV the X Games, where people climb a 60-foot plastic wall in twelve seconds. To others it's plugging away up a 3,000-foot El Cap route in a day. Speed climbing is many different things to many different people, but at its most basic level, speed climbing is a philosophy about moving quickly and efficiently up difficult terrain. It doesn't have to be an all-out race for the world...
Competitions And Sport Routes
I love climbing precisely because it's pure play. Sure, sponsorships and sport climbing competitions have changed the equation i.e. people are starting to train , but for things like big-wall speed climbing it's still a bunch of friendly yahoos in pursuit of a worthless goal. It's nothing but fun. Jim Herson, holder ofboth the Salath6 and Half Dome speed records Imagine clawing up a gently overhanging 60-foot wall as fast as you can using holds about the size of baseballs. A rival climber, only...
Standard versus Speed Climbing A Comparison
Speed climbing, paradoxically, does not necessarily involve physically climbing faster. By using special techniques to minimize the time you aren't actually climbing, you can ascend routes much faster not by moving faster, but by moving continuously. Below is a graph of elevation versus time for two different climbs up the Yellow Spur in Eldorado Springs Canyon. The longer time line is of a conventional ascent I did with my friend Mark Oveson. We swung leads on the route, as a standard climbing...
Simuldimbing
Most of the time when you're simul-climbing, you're running it out a bit. You do this to conserve gear and because the terrain should be relatively moderate for you otherwise you shouldn't be simul-climbing at all . The sole reason to simul-climb is so you and your partner can move at the same time. This is only valuable when climbing more than a single pitch, and simul-climbing frequently involves running many pitches together as one giant pitch. When Hans and Jim Herson set the speed record...
Success versus Failure on the Direct North Buttress
While getting read to attempt the Direct North Buttress DNB of Middle Cathedral Rock in Yosemite in mid-November, my partnerjim Merritt and I got to talking about the multiplication of supplies. It started by simply reading the label on our energy bars, which said to eat one every hour with a quart of water while exercising. Well, we thought, we're definitely exercising. We needed to calculate how many bars to bring. The DNB is a serious, devious route that's 20 pitches long. Jim and I were in...
God has given me the ability The rest is up to me Believe Believe Believe
Billy Mills, gold medalist in the 1964 Tokyo Olympics Now we get into the weird and wild stuff of advanced speed. When I B.W. first heard of these techniques they seemed radical, but now that I've used them, they don't feel so strange. Simul-climbing is definitely different, but you might enjoy it. Are you ready for a new sensation Each route will present obstacles that require imaginative problemsolving. For example, when the leader is lowering out, preparing for a pendulum, the leader's...
Tips for Aid Climbing
Etriers. Use four-step etriers instead of five-step. For about 95 percent of aid placements, you are not on the bottom step of your etrler. For the other five percent of the placements, just add a quickdraw to the etrier to get the length. Also, use light etriers. You don't want your feet getting comfortable. You want an incentive to move. Using different color etriers helps decipher what's what in the tangle. I use red for right and lemon for left. 1 designed a pair of etriers for Yates that...
Info
Yuji Hirayama stayed at my Yosemite home for a few weeks in the fall of 2002. As usual, he was cruising most of the hardest free climbing routes all over Yosemite. Since I had helped Yuji on a few of his projects over the years, he thought to offer running up the Nose with me for a lark. Yuji had done it earlier that year with his friend Tomatsu in a respectable sub eight-hour time. Timmy O'Neill and Dean Potter held the current record at 3 24, set in the fall of 2001. I drove up to Yosemite...
Preface
Here's a challenge We have received a few reports about how fast our first edition was read cover-to-cover on-sight. The record for the first edition was just more than three hours. Ready Go It's been four years since I wrote the first edition of this book. Since then i have given numerous shows and clinics in which I've praised the stories in our first edition as great ways to motivate or inspire you to get out and get more climbing donel I have also pointed out the average Joe descriptions of...
Belays and Changeovers
When the leader yells, Two minutes, the follower gets everything ready so she can jump on the ascenders or climb the pitch. If the anchor is bomber, I usually take it all down, but remain clipped to one good piece. When the leader is at the top anchor and the follower is at the bottom anchor, no upward progress is being made. Don't let this last long do something to change it A classic problem happens when the climber at the top anchor yells Off belay, and the bottom climber doesn't hear the...
The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill mans heart One must
Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus i love climbing climbing up anything at all. From hiking up a trail to pedaling up steep pavement, from skinning up a snow slope to jamming up a crack, I love to climb. There is something in the struggle against gravity that elates me, I used to think that climbing was a passing fancy and that once I'd climbed El Cap, I'd move on to other adventures. I know now that isn't true. I'm a lifer. I decided to write this book for many reasons, but the most...
Articles
Achey,Jeff. Balancing Act. Climbing magazine 189 1999 74-81, 142-43. Bridwell, Jim. Brave New World. Mountain 31 1973 . Duane, Dan. Up on the Big Stone. Outside Magazine October 2000 80-88, Gore, Peter. The Unbeatable Body. National Geographic September 2000 32. O'Neill, Timothy. Yosemite Speed, Patagonia Summits. American Alpine Journal 2000 66-74. Pa gel, Dave. Great Innovations. Climbing magazine 192, 2000 120-131. Raleigh, Duane. Get on the FastTrack. Climbing magazine 148 November 1994...
Satans Minions Scrambling Ctub
Sent Monday, May 22, 2000 1 28 p.m. Subject Angel's Way tomorrow We're going to meet at the Devil's Thumb trailhead tomorrow at 5 30 a.m. yes, 5 30. The plan is to run up Bear Canyon Trail to the Mesa Trail to Skunk Canyon. Then we'll solo Angel's Way 5.2 or easier . This is about a 1,000-foot climb. Then we'll continue cross-country up to the summit of Green Mountain and descend the Green Bear Trail to the Bear Canyon Trail and back to the cars. It will be about 2,700 vertical feet. Bring...
Who Leads While Simulclimbing
1. Who wants to lead Who wants the greater risk 2. Is route finding a consideration Who's the best route finder on the team Does one of the team members have the route wired If so, she should lead. 3. Who ts fastest at placing solid protection 4. Will one climber need a real belay on a few short sections If so, it might be best if he were to climb second so he could climb on toprope with greater confidence and hence greater speed. On the other hand, leading this section might save a belay...
Third Flatiron
Just as with the Royal Arch route in Yosemite, Colorado has speed climbing records for routes of modest difficulty the most famous being the Third Flatiron, one of the world-famous and picturesque Flatirons that rise above Boulder. From easy scrambles to desperate sport routes, these rocks host countless climbs. The most famous of all these Dakota sandstone slabs is the Third Flatiron, CU, standing for the University of Colorado at Boulder, is painted on this face in 40-foot-high letters....
Women Speed Climbers
The speed bug hasn't bitten the women as badly as it has men. In fact, Steph Davis, one of the world's leading female climbers, wrote a letter to the editor of Climbing magazine expressing disdain for the childish efforts of one-upmanship displayed by the Valley speed freaks. This is somewhat surprising since her husband, Dean Potter, was the Valley speed king. And Steph herself has been credited with a number of fast ascents in the Valley and around the world. The difference for her was the...
The Future
The jumps in speed, enchainments, unroped climbing, and 5.13 free climbing that characterized speed climbing developments in 1999 and 2000 were amazing, but these are now being taken to the more extreme ranges of the world. In June 2001 Steve House and Rolando Garibotti climbed Alaska's 9,000-foot Infinite Spur in just twenty-five continuous hours. The mixed line on the south face of Mount Foraker had seen only three repeats since its first ascent in 1977, and the fastest previous climb was...
Obsessed with the Nose
The lifetime goal of many climbers is to climb E Capitan in Yosemite Valley. E Cap is probably the most highly sought after and widely climbed big wall in the world. The reasons are obvious great weather, no approach, relatively easy descent, perfect rock, variety of lines, etc. Bill and I have a total of sixty-one ascents on the Nose between us. For aspiring speed climbers the lifetime goal is not just to climb El Cap, but to climb it in a day. While the East Buttress 5.10b, 12 pitches is...
Miscellaneous Tips
2. To extend your reach another foot on hook placements, place the hook on top of your hammer and then slide it up the wall. 3. Create a mini-cheat stick by intertwining two stoppers together. This way you can extend your reach by one or two feet when trying to lasso rivets with no hangers. 4. Climb with lightweight biners such as the Black Diamond Neutrino or Kong Helium. This can take many pounds off a full aid rack. comfortable. Many climbers use aid ladders instead of or in addition to...
Fixed Lines
In Vosemite, a set of informal rules has traditionally been used. While clipping fixed gear is allowed, using preplaced fixed ropes is not. Obviously, fixing ropes in advance would make the next day's ascent go faster, and lots of non-speed teams use this approach. It is common to fix ropes down from Sickle Ledge on the Nose and down from Heart Ledges on the Salath . But on a speed ascent, the official start time is when the team first leaves the ground. If the first time the team leaves the...
The Nose and Beyond
By 1974, El Capitan had already been climbed in a day, but by the much easier and shorter West Face route. The Nose was the big prize, and the desire to climb this route in a single day led to speed climbing's biggest impact on the general climbing world. In the spring of 1974, Rayjardine traveled to Yosemite with Lou Dawson and Kris Walker and the world's only supply of a radical new device called a Friend. His goal was to climb the Nose in a single day. He first fixed ropes to Sickle Ledge,...
French Free
In order to French free quickly, you have to trust that your placements are bomber. The only way to gain this trust is through practice. Aid climbing is a great way to gain confidence in your gear placements. Because every placement is weighted, it is critically evaluated. If it fails, you're going to fall. While developing these skills, be sure to make placements very frequently to minimize the danger of a fall. Realize that cams rotate as you move past them this does not render them unsafe....
Traditional Roped Soloing
To make sure we're all on the same page, I will explain traditional roped soloing see Figure 5-1 . You, the soloist, start by building a bombproof multidirectional anchor and fixing one end of the rope to it. Next you attach a solo device to the rope, such as a Silent Partner or Grigri, and climb the pitch above, placing gear and clipping into the pieces. When you arrive at the next belay or anchor point, you build another anchor. Then you can rappel back down the rope to the first anchor, or...
Rockers and Ropemans
Folks have used Yates Rockers and Petzl Ropemans to reduce the disastrous effects of the follower falling when simul-climbing. This is not an approved use of these devices. Some thought should go into their use. When using a Tibloc, be sure you put the rope inside the combiner so the weight is not on the device alone in the event of a fall. It should be noted, yet still not recommended, that a Petzl Microcender or a Gibs Ascender could also be used in this manner. Shortly after you place the...
Longs Peak
Longs Peak has been the site of many speed records. The earliest known record for attaining the summit from the trailhead was a pedestrian three hours That was before Roger Briggs started whittling it down and promoting it among other speed climbers. Roger's first attempt took the time all the way down to one hour and thirty-eight minutes. The 5,000 foot ascent is almost completely a run hike, but does involve 150 feet of 5.5 climbing up the North Face route. Briggs would eventually set a...
Speed Records
1 56 16 Timmy O'Neill and Hans Florine November 1999 5 56 Lisa Coleman-Puhvel and Hans Fiorine October 1998 fastest female male ascent 8 16 Hans Fiorine solo June 2000 soloed two El Cap routes in a day 3 04 54 Yuji Hirayama and Nick Fowler May 2003 9 20 Hans Fiorine solo June 2000 soloed two El Cap routes in a day 6 32 Jim Herson and Chandlee Harrell July 1999 free variation on pitches 24 and 32 27 20 Sue McDevitt and Nancy Feagin June 1998 all female 23 20 Steve Schneider solo June 1992 13 00...
Unroped Soloing
Bill and I both enjoy unroped climbing but do it at a level far below our on-sight ability at least five number grades below for Bill, and usually more . Other climbers are quite comfortable closer to their limit. Derek Hersey, the legendary Colorado free soloist, would routinely free solo routes up to 5.11c when his on-sight ability was 5.12a a difference of only two letter grades. Hersey would on-sight solo up to 5.11a Peter Croft regularly soloed routes up to 5.12a and Dean Potter once...
Tips for Leading
Stay in the lead. It is strategically better in this context that means faster to keep the same leader throughout the whole climb. But if you must switch, leading in blocks is better than switching every pitch. Keeping the same leader means she can recover from each pitch while waiting for you to follow. She gets used to racking the gear the way she likes, and you figure out how she likes it racked. I recommend, for the sake of speed, working out an agreement with your partner for example, she...