UKC

Pietro Vidi has made the second free ascent of Lurking Fear, 5.13c, El Capitan, twenty-five years after it was first freed by Tommy Caldwell and Beth Rodden, in 200.

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Hi Xa, there is a mistake towards the end of the article. 'Tribe' is not E11 - it is ungraded and both repeaters (James Pearson and Pietro himself) respected Jacopo's decision to keep it that way. It is estimated to be around 9a/9a+ but an E-grade was never estimated.

Good stuff. Does show how good Tommy and Beth were back then that it's gone unrepeated for 25 years and has taken a V16 level climber to finally repeat it.

One thing I have heard is that Tommy and Beth never made a continuous push ascent of "Lurking Fear" - pretty sure Tommy himself told me this but my memory is a bit hazy. They found this one pitch really hard so fixed static lines up to it and came back day after day until they sent, then went to the top. So it did make me wonder if this might be the first continuous free ascent of the climb? I think "Lurking fear" boulder is meant to be absolutely nails and very conditions dependant, hence the strategy to fix a line up to it and return when the connies alligned.  

I don’t think this was technically a continuous ascent either. He reportedly sent pitch 2, went back down to the ground for a day to wait out bad weather, then finished the route.