There have been a lot of videos made about climbing the Nose on El Cap in a day, most notably Tommy Caldwell in Dosage IV and the insane speed record of Hans Florine and Yuji Hirayama shown in the latest Masters Of Stone movie. However, watching the very best at any sport do something doesn’t really give us common folk a real sense for how difficult something like climbing El Cap in a day can be.
Earlier this summer Midwestnerers Ben Ingman and Travis Melin were out in Yosemite plying their trade when they got the idea of trying to climb the Nose of El Capitan in a day. Actually, they had only planned on climbing part way up The Nose but decided to push to the top after the first pitches went quickly.
In any event, they brought along a camera and recorded a few brief updates as they made their way up. I thought the videos provided a nice insight into the emotional and physical toll it takes on you when on the wall for 24 hours (especially when you weren’t exactly planning for it) so here they are:
Feeling pretty good about things so far…
Starting to feel not so good about things…
24 hours later…
And while we’re talking about aid climbing this is a great time to share the always classic Aid Climbing Rant:
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=boQHYBhlOcs
I saw these videos a few weeks ago. Funny shit!
And the aid climbing rant is hilarious.
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I fucking love Melin’s videos. Going from moderately psyched to just broken men. Really brilliant. And that semi rant video was pretty funny too. i wish Melin would have taken more videos on the route though, really can’t get enough of that.
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These guys are my heroes. They make me want to climb the NIAD myself. Good work Ben and Melin! Thanks for the post Narc.
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the aid rant never gets old!
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Awesome post(as per usual). Those guys are hilarious, and quite even tempered. “I sat in the meadow and sprayed”!!! I’m still laughing. Thanks Narc.
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that rant was awesome (first time i’d seen it)! i’m also psyched to know i’m not the only one who thinks “I’m gonna die!” when I’m ten feet above a bolt on a 5.10!
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Great rant. Congrats to Melin and Ingman. Stout work. The rest of us can only imagine… ce
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