BURSTTangerine Trip, which was first climbed by Charlie Porter and Jean-Paul de St. Croix in 1973, was done in record time last fall by Brant Hysell and Dan Gosselin in a time of 7 hours and 57 minutes. The previous record was by Alex Honnold and David Allfrey in 9 hours and 28 minutes back in 2014.
“The route that became the Tangerine Trip was Royal Robbins’ attempt to do the first solo of a new route on El Capitan,” Porter said in a 1993 Rock & Ice interview. “Robbins only got a few pitches up.” Porter was one of the world’s leading big-wall climbers in the 1970s, known for his bold solos and new routes in Yosemite, on Baffin Island, and elsewhere.
“I went up there in April 1973 with Jean-Paul de St. Croix, who at that time hadn’t had much climbing experience,” Porter said. “We got along quite well and had a good time. We encountered mist, snow, and chunks of ice falling from the rim, but the route was so overhanging that it was completely safe.”
Yosemite big-wall climbing has been in vogue since the 1990s, but in the early 1970s, Porter noted that most climbers weren’t focused on long Valley routes. “In 1969, the emphasis had been on big walls and being a well-rounded climber, but by ’72 the focus had switched to one- or two-pitch free climbs, mostly cracks,” he said. “For me, it was quite nice because there was an open field with lots of great wall routes to do, and not many people willing to go out and put in the work.”
Despite spending only a few years in Yosemite, Porter racked up an impressive list of first ascents: Zodiac (1972), The Shield (1972), Mescalito (1973), Tangerine Trip (1973), and Excalibur (1975). Unlike most climbers today, who document their ascents with phones, Porter said he “never took a camera with me, and I never wrote up what I did. For me, climbing was a very personal thing, and it still is. When I first came to Yosemite, that was the general attitude.”
Tangerine Trip was one of several routes on El Capitan that got a new speed record last year, the others being: Lurking Fear, Squeeze Play, Shortest Straw, Sea of Dreams, Virginia, Reticent Wall, KAOS, and Zodiac. You can who set the records and where they sit here.
The stoke for Yosemite big walls seems to be at an all-time high, echoing the era when climbers like Porter and Robbins were in their prime; a time defined by going bigger and faster than your buddies. “It was a neat game with no written rules, a game of one-upmanship,” said Porter. “It had a bit of a mystical aura about it. You could say we were romantics.”
Tangerine Trip Record
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