A new Nose speed climbing record has been set by Alex Honnold and Hans Florine today, Sunday, June 17, 2012. Honnold and Florine climbed Yosemite’s Nose in 2 hours, 23 minutes, and 51 seconds! This is almost 13 minutes faster than Dean Potter and Sean Leary’s record back in November 2010.
Honnold and Florine did a few warm-up laps on the route a few days prior to the speed attempt. Just a week before their first warm-up on the Nose, Honnold completed a free solo climb on El Capitan, Mt. Watkins and Half Dome (Yosemite’s Triple Crown) in less than 19 hours.
Florine’s kids asked him if he was going to return to break the speed climbing record after Potter and Leary broke it back in 2010. Now that he and Honnold hold the new record, it’ll be a great way for Hans Florine to bring in his birthday tomorrow as he turns 48. Florine has held the Nose speed climbing record eight times over the past 22 years.
Will Dean Potter and Sean Leary start training to continue this race for the Nose? Many are most likely wondering how long it’ll be before they decide to take another stab at the record. But for now, Hans Florine can enjoy his birthday and according to Alex Honnold, “the ice cream afterward might have been the best part.” Congratulations to this incredible speed climbing team!
Source: examiner.com
Potter must be eating some humble pie right about now after mounthing off in the Real Rock Tour 2011 after breaking the record by 20 seconds about Hans being too slow!!
Who’s the b!#$ch now!
Its increasingly clear to me that the way I climb compared to these guys is the same as a guy who rides his bike every other weekend and riding the tour de france – I used to think the gap was less but alas I fear it is not!
Have to agree with you Kyle! Speed climbing at this level is basically soloing with a rope – check out these images of Hans and Alex (and huge amounts of slack) –> http://www.elcapreport.com/content/elcap-report-61712
Thanks for that Justin. Its just insane how fast things have progressed. I wonder what a fall would look like with 15 meters of slack draped over your shoulder? Surely at this stage aside from the King Swing and the odd bit of pulling on gear it is basically a solo and the rope is a mental prop? I wonder if it would be ethical to leave a rope in place for the swing and just to solo it?
The 15m of slack over the shoulder is not even the bad part – if the second comes off on the simulclimbing then the leader is toast. Basically the leader gets yanked hard into his last piece with zero rope stretch = broken back at best. Talk about having faith in your buddy!
What Hector said is exactly my problem with simul climbing. Maybe on very steep terrain or on traverses you’ll have some rope to fall on. Short fixing is the only way I see around it.
I had the opportunity to sit in the El Capitan Meadow with my two sons and watch Hans and Alex break the speed record. We recorded two short videos of the climb using a telescope attached to a dSLR camera body connected to my MacBook Pro. These two videos have been posted to YouTube… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYtdiFeucYA – enjoy!! What Hans and Alex did was nothing short of Amazing!!