Tuesday, November 1, 2011

Missed It By That Much

Today, Alex Honnold and Hans Florine attempted to break the speed record for climbing the Nose on El Cap. They missed the record by 45 seconds. Doing the last pitch in about 4 minutes! Story here.

“Hans had 4 minutes from the start of the pitch to get the record.  Hans says he is faster climbing that pitch than jugging, so he was soon racing up the 10b crack to the start of the bolts.  He didn’t hit those perfectly and had just a smidge of delay, a few seconds at most, with his aid slings on the bolts.  I had a rough idea of the time line to about one minute accuracy.    It was nail biting time for all the spectators below.  It was going to be really close… really close.  Soon, Hans disappeared over the top heading for the tree.  They were to come to the lip of the top, and wave, if they got the record.  We waited … and waited…and waited… finally the word came down… they missed the record by a mere 45 seconds in recording the third fastest time ever done.”

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