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
Comments