One of the more interesting aspects of living in Boulder is that you never know when you might come across someone who is well known in the climbing world. This was the case back in September when I had the opportunity to hang out with Jorg Verhoeven and Katha Saurwein after a Patagonia event here in town1. They were nearing the end of their time in Colorado, a time that had seen Jorg climb most of the hard boulder problems in Chaos Canyon with the quickness2 and that would see Katha climb her first V133 before their trip was up.
As is often the case, our conversation turned to what their plans were when they were done in Colorado which is when Jorg mentioned he was heading to Yosemite. I naively assumed that since he was such a good boulderer he must be heading there to climb the world class boulder problems that litter the Valley floor, but it turns out he had much bigger aspirations than that. Much bigger.
Upon arriving in Yosemite it quickly became clear that Jorg had his sights set on one of the biggest objectives there is in Yosemite: free climbing the Nose on El Cap. At first I was surprised, but then I remembered that Jorg is one of the most well-rounded climbers in the world. In addition to having climbed multiple V14s, he has also sport climbed up to 5.14d and won the Lead World Cup in 2008.
The main hurdles in free climbing the Nose revolve around two very difficult pitches: the 5.13 Great Roof and the 5.14 “Changing Corners” pitch. In mid-October Jorg mentioned on Facebook that he could barely one hang the Changing Corners pitch and that the Great Roof “poses challenges”, but it looks like persistence and better conditions paid off in a big way. After working the route on and off over the course of a month, Jorg became only the 3rd or 4th4 person to free climb the Nose on El Cap since Lynn Hill’s groundbreaking free ascent 21 years ago in 19935.
Louder Than 11‘s Jon Glassberg was out in Yosemite during Jorg’s early attempts where Jon captured media for an upcoming project. Here are a couple of Instagram snaps from that trip:
A photo posted by Jon Glassberg (@jonglassberg) on
Climbing a 5.14 smearing lie-back corner on El Cap in Sportiva Solutions….not the shoe choice I would’ve expected
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They are exceptional for smearing and precision edging.
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Its because the solution excels at crushing. No matter what. On the right foot the solution is capable of anything.
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But what about the LEFT foot?
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Should I be embarrassed that I’ve always assumed the Nose has been freed tons of times? I thought the title was a joke.
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I thought the same.. I get that it’s really long and committing, but it’s also super iconic. If the cruxes are 5.13 and 5.14 I don’t see why it doesn’t have more ascents.
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because 5.14 on el cap (well, on most granite for that matter) tends to be very different than what the ‘average’ 5.14 sport climb looks like
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I suspect the fact that the Nose is so popular with aid climbers makes it sort of annoying to try and spend extended amounts of time working on the free climbing cruxes. But that is just a guess on my part.
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It’s probably more like the fifth ascent after Scott Burke. Even though Scott never sent the great roof on lead, He still basically did the route. I think its interesting that climbers assume big wall climbing to be so much easier than bouldering. there is certainly a reason people haven’t sent the nose that many times.
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Most climbers don’t bother comparing big wall climbing and bouldering, because they are completely different disciplines and either one can be very easy or very hard.
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Scott didn’t free the entire route, so he’s not included in that list. Freeing every single pitch of the Nose is no small feat, which is why there aren’t that many free ascents. “basically did the route” is not the same as freeing the whole route.
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Then by your logic neither did Beth Rodden. She free climbed every pitch but didn’t redpoint all of them. Some followed some of the pitches with no falls, i.e. on top rope just like Scott Burk.
The thing is, freeing big walls historically includes seconding/no falls toproping a pitch. So it probably counts.
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DDDuhh
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Has anyone freed every pitch of The Nose on lead, bottom to top, no falls? That would be nearly incomprehensible. Tommy Caldwell?
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As is no falls the entire push from ground to summit?
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Yup!
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Lynn Hill Redpointed the nose.
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I don’t think she led every pitch.
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The link that Narc posted in the footnotes from Caldwell has details from each ascent. Based on that, no one was ever led with 0 falls.
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1993: Lynn Hill. First free ascent, four days, traded leads but led the hardest pitches.
1994: Lynn Hill. Free ascent in 23 hours, leading every pitch, 3 falls on Changing Corners pitch.
1998: Scott Burke. Led every pitch free over 12 days except for the Great Roof, which he toproped free as storms threatened to end the climb.
2005: Tommy Caldwell and Beth Rodden. Each climber led or followed every pitch free over four days.
2005: Tommy Caldwell. Free ascent in 12 hours, leading every pitch, 1 fall on Changing Corners pitch.
“
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no. I think tommy caldwell nearly did it (i.e. just a couple falls on one pitch), when he entirely led and freed both the nose and the salathe wall in a single day (which is pretty incomprehensible, to be honest!)
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Free climb the Nose is a very proud achievement. Clearly that puts you in a very small list of people who has done it.
Doesn´t matter the shoes you wear. Lynn Hill climb it with old Boreal shoes.
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@matt. Dosage IV, Tommy frees The Nose and then Freerider, which is 2/3’s the same as Salathe, just without the Headwall cruxes (.13+).
@all. Sorta confused here, Super Free wonders if it’s been done with no falls, which hasn’t happened yet, but it has been redpointed, since on a multipitch redpoint you can fall on pitches, you just gotta start the pitch over.
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