Perian for el capitan8/26/2023 ![]() Multiple filmmakers, most notably REEL Rock founders Peter Mortimer and Josh Lowell, documented the drama for the big screen. Over the next decade, some of the world’s best climbers, including Potter, Sean Leary, and German brothers Alexander and Thomas Huber, would try and win back the record from Florine. In 2002, Florine partnered with Yuji Hirayama of Japan, one of the greatest free climbers of his time, to take the record under three hours, catalyzing what’s become known as the Race for the Nose. You could hear them cheering from 2,000 feet up the climb. “For the first time, crowds were showing up in El Capitan meadow to watch. “It was a significant turning point,” says Florine. Potter and O’Neill returned the favor three days later, logging 3:24:20. Two weeks later, Florine partnered with Jim Herson to reclaim it, making to the top in 3:57:27. In October 2001, Potter, along with climbing partner Timmy O’Neill, went after the record and took it under four hours, to 3:59:35. At that time, the record had stood for nine years, set by Florine and Peter Croft at 4:22. Speed climbing on the Nose didn’t really capture the general public’s attention until the early 2000s, when one of climbing’s most influential characters, Dean Potter, took an interest. It’s the biggest, the most prominent, the most intimidating.” “By the 1970s, all the other big formations had been climbed in a day. “Hard core climbers in Yosemite, like Royal Robbins, had been doing projects to reduce the time of climbs from days to hours since the 1960s,” says Long. Their ascent became the first entry in the Nose’s unofficial record book. ![]() While the climbers didn’t precisely clock their time, Long estimates it took them just under 15 hours. Prior to that, the route was always considered a multi-day undertaking, even by the best. The speed record on the Nose can be traced back to 1975, when a team of three climbers-Jim Bridwell, John Long, and Billy Westbay-set out to climb it in less than 24 hours. “It didn’t feel that fast,” Honnold says of their latest record attempt, “but when I popped over the top I saw 1:57 and was like go, go, go, go!” For Honnold and Caldwell, the route is their morning workout. For elite climbers, the time to beat is NIAD, or Nose-in-a-Day, climbing it all without an overnight. Most take three to five days to scale the challenging terrain, “camping” on the wall in portaledges anchored to the stone. Every spring, it draws the world’s most adventurous climbers to test their mettle. It runs straight up the prow of the massive granite formation known as El Capitan and is the monolith’s most recognizable feature. The Nose is widely considered the greatest big-wall climbing route on Earth. “It’s like breaking the two-hour marathon barrier, but vertically,” says Hans Florine, who, with his climbing partner Yuji Hirayama in 2002, was the first to take the speed record on the Nose under three hours. On June 6, 2018, in California’s Yosemite National Park, Alex Honnold and Tommy Caldwell accomplished the seemingly impossible-climbing the 3,000-foot Nose route of El Capitan in 1 hour 58 minutes and 7 seconds.
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