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jack splat
climber
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Jun 30, 2008 - 12:15am PT
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hey bendonover - if anything, the stronger climber should go second, because a fall by him would mean he pulls the leader off....
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Jun 30, 2008 - 12:15am PT
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""....Yuji always takes the sharp end...."
Is that true?
If so, that's pretty sad. If Hans is being guided up the wall, it would be difficult to even claim an "ascent", let alone a record. "
Remember, Hans is the guy who had the record for years long before Yuji. The second can't screw up simuling, the leader can sometimes get away with it.
So it's a division of Labor, Hans knows how to make it go fast and is the conductor, Yuji is the virtuoso. It's a good time. Why bag on the guy who's been the fastest for decades?
Remember the Hubers only beat Hans and Yuji's previous record by 3 minutes, so this has been a neck and neck "battle" between titans all along.
Peace
karl
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Karl Baba
Trad climber
Yosemite, Ca
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Jun 30, 2008 - 12:19am PT
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(06-29) 20:26 PDT Yosemite National Park - --
The climb straight up the Nose of El Capitan ended Sunday in dramatic fashion with Lafayette climber Hans Florine scrambling on his hands and feet, exhausted, his gear hanging off of him, as he desperately pushed to beat the world's record.
He came close, but missed by 2 1/2 minutes.
Florine and his climbing partner, Yuji Hirayama, made the ascent up the 2,900-foot wall in 2 hours, 47 minutes and 30 seconds, the second-fastest time ever. "I'm disappointed," said Florine, 44. "I wanted it. I wanted the pressure to be off. ... But I think we showed everybody today that we can break it."
Florine, a former All America pole vaulter who grew up in Moraga, and Hirayama, 39, of Hidaka, Japan, plan to go for it again Wednesday. If they fail again, the record will be safe until September, when Hirayama plans to return for an all-out assault, complete with television crew.
The duo is trying to take back the record on the world famous Nose route from German brothers Thomas and Alexander Huber, who raced up the cliff face in a death-defying two hours and 45 minutes in October, smashing Florine and Hirayama's previous record by three minutes.
"We can cut 15 to 20 minutes if we can take these next two days to recover physically and if we do better technically," said Hirayama, after a confidence-boosting dip in the Merced River. "But that is a big hope. You have to have big goals, big hope, you know."
Florine has been competing for 17 years with other climbers for the fastest time on the Nose, the most prominent and popular climbing route on El Capitan, but the quest for the record has become increasingly difficult and risky.
The Hubers, known as two of the strongest, most technically skilled and daring climbers in the world, accomplished the task after months of practice over two years. Two years ago, they had to suspend operations after Thomas Huber was seriously injured in a fall.
The competition for bragging rights became a spectator sport Sunday, as crowds with binoculars and telescopes gathered in the meadow, among the trees and along the road below the giant cliff.
Climbers on El Capitan look like slow-moving ants in a sea of granite, and movement is usually hard to detect. Hirayama, one of the world's best free climbers, always leads while Florine, the consummate strategist, belays and simultaneously climbs behind him, an extremely difficult and usually dangerous maneuver.
In this scenario, a fall by Florine could be disastrous, as it would pull Hirayama off the wall. It is the ultimate team sport, in which the participants' lives literally depend on each another.
"We are quite good working together," Hirayama said. "I really need Hans. If he wasn't there, I wouldn't go."
The crowd in the valley whooped and hollered after the duo completed the hardest sections of the 32 pitches, or rope lengths, including a maneuver known as the "King Swing," in which climbers propel themselves 80 to 90 feet in the air more than a thousand feet off the ground.
As they neared the top, it became clear to those gathered in the valley, including Florine's wife, Jacqueline, and two children, Marianna, 7, and Pierce, 5, that it was going to be close. Climbers watching below were biting their nails, pacing about, yelling "go, go" as the two men reached the dreaded, difficult patch of granite known as the Glowering Spot.
"He's at the belay," one man yelled as Florine finished climbing a tiny crack in the wall. "It took eight minutes to do that pitch. I think they can do it."
One could see them stepping it up, struggling to go faster near the top, but it was not to be. It was already too late by the time Florine made his scramble to the tree.
"I had a lot of little rope catches today," Florine said later after he had hiked down to the valley to be with his family. "But a personal best is always a good thing. The yells from the crowd were fantastic."
Speed competitions like this one are controversial in the insular world of rock climbing. Purists have criticized Florine's competitiveness, forgetting that record setting has been almost an obsession, especially on the Nose of El Capitan ever since it was first climbed by Warren Harding, Wayne Merry and George Whitmore half a century ago.
One of the greatest records was set in 1993 by Lynn Hill, a 5-foot-1 former gymnast, who became the first person to free-climb the Nose.
In 2005, Tommy Caldwell did her one better, free-climbing the Nose and another route on El Cap in the same day.
The Hubers' quest for the speed record inspired a movie, "To the Limit," which depicts the brothers as transcendent climbers. Their competitiveness - which has driven them to subject themselves to ever more extreme dangers - is presented as a kind of spiritual journey toward a higher plane.
Realists simply call it reckless. After all, 13 climbers have been killed in nine separate accidents on the Nose since 1973 when Michael Blake, 19, of Santa Monica lost his grip on the rock and plummeted 2,800 feet to the ground after a bolt, a tie off and his rope failed.
That's just on the one route. Twenty-four people have died on El Capitan - elevation 7,569 feet - since 1905.
But the record for the fastest time is there, so Florine and Hirayama intend to grab it.
"I don't just want to break the record," Hirayama said. "I want to break it by a lot. I now think it is possible."
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WBraun
climber
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Jun 30, 2008 - 12:20am PT
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Paradox of speed climbing?
It takes a slow long lifetime of hard training and climbing to go fast ......
Only in the end to slow down again .....
hahahaha
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Captain...or Skully
Big Wall climber
Yonder
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Jun 30, 2008 - 12:25am PT
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Hans & Yuji Are BOTH world class.....Never let it be told any differently...Like someone else said...I climb the Nutcracker in the same time...This is The Nose!
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Jaybro
Social climber
wuz real!
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Jun 30, 2008 - 12:38am PT
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"Missed it, by that much!"
Its the effort that goes into the thing, that is germaine. Actual results are immaterial, why is that so hard to get?
I will be happy to buy Beers for all Four of them after we get the Shanti-Lucille celebration under control.
all things in perspective.
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Dogtown Climber
Trad climber
The Idyllwild City dump
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Jun 30, 2008 - 01:18am PT
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Read Tom's report and it will all become clear for you.I think,well it should.
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James
climber
Leavenworthless
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Jun 30, 2008 - 01:40am PT
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the grand prix of the yosemite pissing contest. How rad.
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GDavis
Trad climber
SoCal
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Jun 30, 2008 - 02:04am PT
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Wow Hans is so great, blah blah blah. Anyone can climb the nose sub 3 hours on top rope. And as for Yuji, he had to stand on a bolt? WTF, where's our ethics comittee? This sh#t has to stop.
I'll be at degnans hitting on the hungarian boys and spraying myself with self-tan.
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gfdonc
climber
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Jun 30, 2008 - 02:30am PT
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I always thought when simul-climbing it made sense for the stronger climber to go second .. 'cos if he falls he's going to pull the leader off "as well" which is about the worst possible scenario. So there.
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Fluoride
Trad climber
Hollywood, CA
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Jun 30, 2008 - 02:40am PT
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Hope the boys got the goal the achieved.
I had this in another less read thread and I still want this known:
On a side-note, the "Hollywood Hans" thing, please please please let that nickname die a quick death. For people like me who work, shop, drive, exist in the real Hollywood daily, it's insulting. REALLY f$cking insulting. Cause Hollywood life is NOTHING like the awesome Yosemite West lifestyle he has and having Yosemite/Tuolumne outside your driveway. He's livin' the dream and more power to him.
Actual 2008 HOLLYWOOD life is 5 hours away and not nearly as pretty. Hans, take on a new moniker cause the transgender hookers have moved from Western and Santa Monica all the way to Highland and Santa Monica. It ain't pretty. They cleaned up Hollywood Blvd for the tourists but there's always the wonderfully dirty underbelly that always comes out at night. You deserve a nickname better than what this town has to offer. :)
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Hardman Knott
Gym climber
Muir Woods National Monument, Mill Valley, Ca
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Jun 30, 2008 - 03:54am PT
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Me and Matt haven't always seen eye-to-eye over the years, but that's the best laugh I've had all month!
Yo, Barky™ - so why ARE you wasting time posting about such meaningless bullshít?
Hans and Yuji are rad. Please tell us about the meaningful climbing you've done...
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steelmnkey
climber
Vision man...ya gotta have vision...
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Jun 30, 2008 - 10:13am PT
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Bagging on Hans for being second? Gimme a break.
Yuji gets to run. Hans has to mix climbing, with an ongoing dynamic belaying system, making sure there isn't too much rope out in case Yuji falls, plus he's climbing, jugging, passing gear up, and making sure he never falls or slows Yuji down at the same time.
It's a ton of concentration and work for both. They're a team in the largest sense of the word.
I think they'll nail it on the next go.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Jun 30, 2008 - 10:39am PT
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Peter Haan posted on the [url="http://www.supertopo.com/climbing/thread.html?topic_id=624166"]ElCap Report 6/29/08[/url] page the following:
"Isn’t it wonderful that big wall climbing and climbing is not still all about hauling huge loads and artlessly diddling up rock faces in a mechanistic fashion but rather is becoming more and more about deepest grace, genius and spiritual power! In speedclimbing we aren’t pointlessly rushing, we are finding or defining our strongest way of being there. By developing economy of movement we find the center of each moment in that spot, over and over again going upwards. And of course that’s speed as well."
the point being that speed comes from mastering economy of motion, speed is a result of that mastery.
I will never speed-climb the Nose, but there are a lot of climbs in the Valley and in Tuolumne that I know well and climb quickly. When everything falls into place moving on those routes approaches the state that Peter described as: deepest grace, genius and spiritual power". I can imagine what climbing the Nose is like for Yuji and Hans, and Thomas and Alex, and the others who have the privilege and ability to "find the center of each moment in that spot, over and over again going upwards."
One might question the purity of the act were the actors to benefit more than the momentary notoriety these sorts of events obtain in the "outside world." As Roger also said on that other thread, there are many people who are genuinely interested in understanding what it's all about.
But individual ego has never been an issue in the climbing community when that ego is derived from actual acts. Climbing the Nose, or any climb, in that manner exposes the climbers to risks with substantial personal consequences. As a climber one can have an opinion about choosing to assume those risks, and act accordingly in their personal lives, but it is not our place to judge others' by the risks they assume for themselves and mutually for their team.
I'm the one that has to die
when it's time for me die,
so let me live my life
the way I want to
Jimi Hendrix If Six Were Nine
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the Fet
Knackered climber
A bivy sack in the secret campground
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Jun 30, 2008 - 12:15pm PT
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As I get older and hopefully wiser and I hear the haters spew out their venom, I keep thinking about how they wan't to cut other people down, but really all it does is reflect poorly on themselves and shows their ignorance.
would you say there's a major stylistic difference between how the two teams approach this?
It's interesting that the Hubers have the 2nd mostly jug, while Hans does a lot of simul-climbing as the 2nd, but their times are almost identical.
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the Fet
Knackered climber
A bivy sack in the secret campground
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Jun 30, 2008 - 12:34pm PT
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Hey Jingus, someone left a blue NF down jacket by us, H and J have it.
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maldaly
Trad climber
Boulder, CO
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Jun 30, 2008 - 12:43pm PT
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Congrats Hans and Yugi. Terrific effort! Hold off on your next effort until the morning of the 11th when I'll be in the Valley. I'm dying to spectate this thing.
Mal
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Gunkie
climber
East Coast US
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Jun 30, 2008 - 01:37pm PT
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(it helps me sleep at night to know that people can climb
grade VI in 2+ hours...)
You should be in a coma. We did the Nose in about 103 hours. Definately in the 2+ hours category :)
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climbingbuzz
Trad climber
SF, CA
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Jun 30, 2008 - 07:24pm PT
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Incredible teamwork up on the route. I suspect to appreciate the coordination involved one has to see it in person. AMAZING that Hans can climb and manage the rope as well as he does. AMAZING to see Yugi rocket up the final 10 pitches.
Would be funny to watch any detractors try and climb P1 of the Nose while belaying at the same time-- doubt they could do it -- but like someone wrote, detractors are probably trolling for a reaction and don't believe what they write.
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pyro
Big Wall climber
Calabasas
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Jun 30, 2008 - 08:55pm PT
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Shipoopi called the house last nite and I should have asked him. sorry ksolem don't know.
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