UKC

James McHaffie Climbs Salathe WallNewsflash

© Jack Geldard

James McHaffie in Margalef, Spain  © Jack Geldard
James McHaffie in Margalef, Spain
© Jack Geldard

Top British trad climber James 'Caff' McHaffie has just free-climbed Salathe Wall, 5.13b, on El Capitan, Yosemite.

Caff was climbing with Dan McManus who narrowly missed out on a free ascent on the headwall pitch. The pair climbed the route in a big-wall ground-up style, which basically means that once leaving the ground they stayed on the wall until they topped out.

This is Caff's second free ascent of an El Capitan route, after he climbed Pre-Muir Wall, 5.13c/d, with Hazel Findlay and Neil Dyer in 2012 (UKC News Report). 

We will publish a more detailed report once we have more information, so keep an eye out for that.

You can watch a video of Mayan Smith-Gobat climbing the crux headwall pitch below:


James McHaffie is sponsored by: Boreal, DMM, Rab and Sterling Rope

Dan McManus is sponsored by: Scarpa


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22 May, 2014
Awesome! E
22 May, 2014
Got a photo of a party on Salathe head wall last week, but I guess it wasn't these guys as they've only just completed? Amazing effort.
22 May, 2014
Awesome vid! The climbing looks so hard and SO insecure!
22 May, 2014
It's hard to tell in the video, is the head wall overhanging a lot?
23 May, 2014
Don't ask me! But from the photos I have seen it seems to be at least vertical to slightly beyond.
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