Our visit to Yosemite Park coincided with a significant rock climbing event. We saw the team of Hans Florine and Yuji Hirayama up on "The Nose", in the middle of their practice run for their record-breaking climb up El Capitan. The rock face is so big, it took us a while to find them, even with binoculars. El Capitan is one of the most iconic rock-climbing routes in the world. It rises 3000 feet above the valley floor, and normally takes experienced climbers 4-5 days to climb its 31 pitches, which range in difficulty between 5.9 -5.13.
The first successful climb, in 1958, took 47 days. Since then, people have been challenging themselves and the rock to get ever-faster ascent times. Hans and Yuji have set a few records on El Cap, but their previous record was broken by some German climbers, who climbed in less than 3 hours.
This article discusses their quest, and their technique.
Yesterday, they
reclaimed the title after coming close on their two previous attempts.
1 comment:
wow - i would've loved to have been there to watch....
P.
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