BURSTIt’s been another busy few months in Yosemite with climbers visiting from around the world to test themselves on El Capitan. Here are just a few of the highlights.
Sachi Amma, 5.15 climber and World Cup champion, recently climbed his first El Cap route with Lurking Fear, having teamed up with legend Yuji Hirayama. Pietro Vidi recently made the second free ascent of Lurking Fear, a 19-pitch 5.13c, a quarter of a century after Tommy Caldwell and Beth Rodden made the first free ascent.
In May, Canadian Ethan Morf became the youngest climber to free El Cap in a day after his free ascent of Freerider. He said, “After doing Freerider in the fall, I knew I wanted to come back in the spring and go for an in-a-day send. But I hadn’t done any of the proper preparation. I immediately started working the route—bottom half from the ground, top half by rapping in. The whole time I felt in way over my head. The only people I’ve seen do this are people I idolize—people who seem superhuman. How could I possibly belong in that realm? To me, free-climbing El Cap in a day has always been a crown jewel—it felt unimaginable. But after a few weeks of work, I was feeling (somewhat) dialed on all the pitches individually. I still wasn’t confident, but after talking with friends, it seemed like it was time to just give it a rip. Turned out I was ready—it went down. But not without a fight. I screamed my way up the upper pitches—never fought so hard in my life.”
Also this month, Jordan Cannon and Michael Vaill climbed The Nose, Salathe Wall and Lurking Fear in a day. And Kate Kelleghan and Laura Pineau climbed the Yosemite Triple in under 24 hours. For more from the climbers, see their posts below.
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