The two Americans Jim Reynolds and Brad Gobright undercut one week ago the previous speed record of Alex Honnold and Hans Florine. So the race for the fastest ascent is reopened.
There is probably no better known big wall than El Capitan in Yosemite Valley with the route "The Nose". The over 1 meter high wall was first climbed in 000 by Warren Harding, Georg Whitmore and Rich Calderwood after weeks of climbing the wall.
17 hours at the first speed try on the nose
John Long, Jim Bridwell and Billy Westbay set 1975 a first speed record on the Nose and needed 17 hours and 45 minutes for the tour. It followed nearly twenty new speed records in the coming decades. In the year 2012, Alex Honnold and Hans Florine set a speed record on the nose: they only needed 2 hours 23 minutes for the Yosemite classic. The record was long considered unbeatable. On Saturday, 21. October 2017, Jim and Brad proved the opposite. They cut the time of Alex and Hans by four minutes.
Jim Reynolds and Brad Gobright broke the speed record on the nose in a solid time of 2:19:44. I'm super excited to start speed climbing again. I'm glad they relit the fire a little.
- Alex Honnold on the new record time
Brad Gobright and Jim Reynolds: 2016 first tried
As Brad and Jim told National Geographic, they made a trial on the Nose for the first time a year ago. In the fall of 2016, they managed to get through in less than three hours. Ultimately, the decisive factor was certainly the combination of the different skills of the two climbers. Jim took the lead in the techno-climbing passages, while Brad took over the harder passages in the lead. Decisive for the new record time were according to the two small details: Tickmarks at important handles, proper placements of Friends and wedges and the study of bad runouts.
The two lucky record holders
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Credits: picture Drew Smith