Hans links Half Dome and El Cap for the 4th time

Hans Florine and Rosanno Boscarino climbed Half Dome's Northwest Face and the Nose of El Capitan in a single day on Sept. 17th. It was Hans' 4th time doing the link-up and 2nd time this year. He's also done the link-up solo in a day.

Details:

Started at Mirror lake 3:44 a.m.
Arrive Half Dome base 5:50 a.m.
Start climbing 6:15 a.m.
Top out on Half Dome 11:42 a.m. - Route time 5:27
Leave top 11:56 a.m.
Arrive base of Half Dome route 12:24 p.m.
Arrive Stables parking 13:55 p.m.

Eat pizza, drink cold stuff, gear up in meadow.

Start at base of The Nose 15:22 p.m.
Top out on The Nose day two 2:28 a.m. - Route time 11:06

base of Half Dome to top of El Cap: 20h13m

Leave top of El Cap 2:56 a.m.
Arrive at car 5:10 a.m. Round trip C to C 5:26

Great weather, T-shirts most of the time on Half Dome except the last pitch it was windy so we put on the long sleeve shirts. T-shirts on El Cap until Camp 4 where we put on long sleeves only to sit and wait for partner, else it was t-shirts. Rode bike from Mirror to Stables, and from Manure pile to El Cap meadow.

Rosanno led half the pitches on Half dome and four pitches on El Cap.

Buzz runs Half Dome in FKT!

I'm waiting for details, but Buzz ran the Half Dome trail on Sept. 23rd, roundtrip, in 2h49m. I ran this once and did 3h15m. I went up in 1h50 and Buzz went up in 1h47m - I'm sure that's not a coincidence. He smoked on the descent, though. This is the fastest known time for the roundtrip, beating Mark Spencer's time of 2h51m. Mark went up in 1h38m, though.

This is 14 miles, roundtrip and 5000 vertical feet.

Black Canyon Trifecta Revisited

Inspired by his good friend Mike Pennings' feat, Josh Wharton went to the Black Canyon to try to climb the same three routes in a day. Wharton teamed up with Thad Friday and started from the North Rim on Sept. 25th at 4:30am for Southern Arete. They returned to campground in 6h15m to refuel and then headed for Astrodog, arriving at 12:20pm. They topped out on Astrodog at 5pm, rapped, started up the Scenic Cruise at 7pm. They then "entered a fatigue induced time-warp", and arrived in camp at 1:15 a.m. They completed the link-up in the same order as Pennings and Jeff Hollenbaugh, though the latter party climbed The Cruise instead of the Scenic Cruise. Wharton said he just couldn't stomach another offwidth.

Pennings and Hollenbaugh did the link-up in just over 24 hours and now Wharton and Friday have done it in 20h45m. This is about 6000 feet of technical climbing and both Wharton and Pennings think it is harder than linking the Nose on El Capitan to the Northwest Face of Half Dome.

Huge new route on Great Trango Tower done in 4.5 days

From the AAC Newsletter:

American Alpine Journal Assistant Editor Kelly Cordes and Josh Wharton have made a bold, alpine-style first ascent of the enormous southwest ridge of Great Trango Tower (20,617 feet) in Pakistan. The mostly rock ridge rises more than 7,000 feet to the west summit of Great Trango. Cordes and Wharton started the climb with a single 28-pound pack, two ropes, and no bolt kit, and they succeeded in four and a half days, the last two without water. They descended via the peak’s north glacier just before a storm hit.

The southwest ridge of Great Trango was attempted in 1990 by a Spanish team using fixed ropes and high camps. In 2000, Americans Tim O’Neill and Miles Smart made an alpine-style attempt, reaching a point about 500 vertical feet below the west summit after five days of climbing. Beyond the previous high points, Cordes and Wharton found 17 more pitches of difficult ridge climbing, including the route’s crux.

The route is called the Azeem Ridge, VII 5.11 R/X A2 M6.

Mackey does it again in the Tour de Flatirons

There's a new sheriff patrolling the Flatirons above Boulder and his name is Dave Mackey. With his second victory of the year, he also notched his second course record in blitzing the First Flatiron, trailhead to trailhead, in just 33m19s, breaking the previous record by nearly two minutes. The former record holder, Buzz Burrell, finished second, also breaking his previous record. Buzz later said, "I thought something like that might happen. I've always done that essentially alone, so with Dave there pushing me I went faster ... but not fast enough!"

The race had a record female turnout (four competitors) and also newcomer Luke Parady. Luke might be a SMSC Tour de Flatirons rookie, but he's a famous climber who has redpointed 5.14c and boulder V27 or thereabouts.

More details and photos will be posted in the official results, early next week. Racers send me your time and any splits that you took (base of the First Flatiron, summit, back down on the ground).

Preliminary results are here:

1. Dave Mackey 33:19
2. Buzz Burrell 34:08
3. Stefan Griebel 37:??
4. Christrian Griffith 38:??
5. Jon Sargent 39:13
6. Bill Wright 41:06
7. Willie Mein 42:05
8. Chad Greedy 42:??
9. Luke Parady 4?:??
10. John Christie 48:45
11. Tony Bubb 57:??

In the womens field:

1. ?? - Christian's friend 1:12:??
2. Joseffa Meir 1:14:14
3. Kre Reischel 1:14:33
4. Cheryl Laslo 1:45:?? - fell running down the talus and bashed knee. Hiked out from there.

Wall of the Early Morning Light gets first one-day ascent

Ammon McNeeley and Brian McCray did the first one day ascent of the Wall of Early Morning Light! They sent it in 23:43

Jon Sargent Notches 2nd Victory in Tour de Flatirons

Jon Sargent nabbed his second victory of the series and is the only race with two wins thus far. The full report is located here:

http://www.wwwright.com/climbing/tripreports/2004/StairwayToFifth.htm

The race series main page is here and it lists the two remaining races (one make-up race):

http://www.wwwright.com/climbing/minions/2004RaceSchedule.htm

The standings for the overall series is here, but it hasn't been sorted yet...

Bill