UKC

Oliver Tippett has made a rare British rope-solo ascent of El Capitan in under a day in Yosemite National Park. He climbed the 19-pitch, 600-metre route Lurking Fear C2 using a mix of free and aid-climbing techniques onsight in 17 hours and 26 minutes.

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That's awesome. Well done!

Animal! Sounds amazing, enjoy!

"I'm not a strong free climber" says the guy who leads E8!

Good effort! I think I'm more impressed with the 10 days on South Seas/POW though! Did a little double take when I read that.

This is very impressive, as is everything else in the interview, especially given the relatively short time he's been climbing. Very well done Oliver, stay safe.

Is the Obsession = E6 a typing error?

Si.

Cheers everyone!

I thought Obsession was E6 since I found that a bomber offset cam went in just above the break, effectively making the route safe. I did toprope it first though.

What size (and do you need a sprinting belayer)? Might have to make a return visit.

How did you find the traverse pitches on LF, I remember it being pretty back and forth in the middle?

I think I used a purple-green WC offset. You place it from standing in the halfway break, so maybe it’s about 60% of the way up but at the start of the proper climbing. I reckon if you fell it might be a bit like falling off Life Assurance, though I’ve not done it.

I thought there were a couple traversey pitches (7 and 11) but they weren’t so bad to second since I backcleaned most of the gear and didn’t have a bag to lower out.

Sounds like a adventure. We had a funny moment on pitch 11 where my partner had back cleaned, then got to the end of the traverse but forgot to clip the bolt and started hooking with about 20m of rope out but nothing clipped, fairly exciting

I've done life assurance but wouldn't like to fall off. I think the move on Obsession is slightly harder and the fall would be less clean. Obviously falling is best avoided for both!

Ah, that makes sense then. I found an offset wallnut 2 when I did Piece of Mind, it's pretty obvious and you pretty much climb right over it. It made me wonder why it's considered a solo. My foot slipped just as my fingers reached the top and I touched the ground on rope stretch, but only because my mate jumped off the ledge to take rope in. The gear held though and I didn't fall off next go.

Life Assurance is WAY easier than Obsession and the gear is totally bomber. It's a decent fall but there's nothing to hit.

I don't think it's way harder, I thought life assurance was probably a 6B/+ boulder and Obsession is probably 6C ish. Definitely much worse to fall off though, even if the offset cam were to hold.

I think that the climbing equivalent of Godwin's Law is that all climbing discussions ultimately degenerate into grade debates about grit routes. More fun when the route which sparks the discussion is vastly larger than anything on grit

Potentially weird question - what footwear did you go for?

There's quite a bit of Lurking Fear where climbing shoes would be helpful, but standing in aiders for 17 hours in climbing shoes is pretty miserable.

Funnily enough I found Obsession to be very similar to Egg Arete at Cratcliffe, so thought it was maybe 6B boulder. 
 

I brought a pair of very upsized La Sportiva Finales on Lurking Fear and planned to wear them on most pitches with any free climbing. I ended up using them on P1 for the mandatory 5.10 free climbing in order to skip the window pane flake (although I’m not sure how much I actually needed them since I could mostly reach between bolts). I didn’t use them again after that and stayed in my approach shoes since most of the stuff I was free climbing wasn’t too hard. The climbing shoes may have been more comfortable in the end since my approach shoes have got holes in them…

Makes me chuckle when you say P1, because that variation around the windowpane flake is actually P3 I think? Good link from the ground!

I know what you mean about the approach shoes, I destroyed two pairs in Yosemite last year - by the end of the trip I was looking for excuses to put my free shoes on.

Given you were going for a lightweight setup did you go without a #5 for the offwidth on P8? Maybe P3 for you.

Haha yeah. I linked 3 pitches at a time for the first 4 of my pitches.

I brought a #5 for the 11d offwidth on P17 (P6 for me) and placed it for protection on the P8 one (P3 for me).I think I’d go without it if doing it again in a day, but it was certainly nice to have.

Thanks - I'd forgotten about that little steep offwidth on P17. Enjoy the rest of your time out there.

This has just made me much more psyched to try it, as that's one of my favourite boulder problems in the Peak!!

Also, good effort on Lurking Fear. Having only ever climbed El Cap as a pair I find it hard to get my head around the logistics of climbing it as a rope-solo - let alone climbing it rope-solo, quickly. I guess the short answer is that you strip back the style so that it's simple. Suffice to say the amount of clutter we had with us made it far from simple 😅

Reading this also reminded me of just how amazing El Cap, and big-walling, actually is. There's nothing quite like it!!

There’s actually quite a lot less clutter when soloing I find. It forces you to neatly bag your ropes, and there’s only one person’s lanyards to get tangled in stuff. Like you said, for walls in a day it’s even more stripped back, with no bags and effectively one rope. The only things hanging off my anchor whilst I led were two shopping bags of rope, my backpack, and the fixed end of the lead line.

Definitely get on Obsession, it’s bloody good and hopefully a lot less committing with the offset.