According to Rock&Ice, Alex Honnold and Tommy Caldwell have set yet another speed record on The Nose of El Capitan, with a time of 2 hours, 1 minute and 53 seconds (2:01:53), just five days after they set a time of 2:10:15. That's 880m (2,900ft) climbed in just over 2 hours! The question remains: Will they break the 2 hour barrier? Watch this space...
On 30th May, the pair stopped the clock after just 2 hours, 10 minutes and 15 seconds, breaking Brad Gobright and Jim Reynolds' record of 2:19:44 from October 2017. Now they've gone and shaved 8 minutes and 22 seconds off their barely week-old record!
Hans Florine - the man who has notched up more El Cap ascents than anyone else - and a gathering of big wall enthusiasts have been spectating these speed attempts from the meadows. Honnold told Men's Journal that a stuck rope slowed the pair down, forcing an abseil to retrieve it and costing them 'a few minutes.'
Despite the excitement of these record breaking attempts, the past few days in the Valley have proved bittersweet, following the news that two experienced big wall climbers, Tim Klein (42) and Jason Wells (45) fell to their deaths while climbing the Freeblast on Saturday.
Comments
Sounds like they don't need to push any harder (and up the risk) to get sub 2. Just keep doing it like that until they get the perfect run.
Sounds like they don't need to do it at all now really, other than to satisfy a happy ending to a big budget documentary. Any glory/celebration must be tempered somewhat by the recent accident.
I guess once someone/they get sub 2 hours, the incentive to go any faster will be at lot lower.
and Hans Florine watching with a couple of broken legs from a similar escapade on the Nose a few week ago.
I thought it was the same news story at first. Kind of is in a way.
early reports I'm hearing that they've now done it in 1:58, (from someone who is there, so not officially confirmed by Guinness World Records yet)