2010 Golden Piton Awards

Hardest, highest, fastest, best—it’s human nature to submit our “ests” to the test. Is it an ego thing? A crude exercise in nationalism? A magazine scam for commercial interests? You could play it that way. But how boring. And futile. In the end, we appraise others’ achievements and compare them to our own weekend-warrior world for one reason: to be inspired.

So once again, in the name of inspiration, and with no slight intended to the hundreds of other top-flight climbers who busted ass and blew us away on the steeps this year, the editors of Climbing present our annual Golden Piton Awards, for the 2010 performances we found most inspiring in the various vertical disciplines. And the winners are…

Endurance Rock Climbing

Alex Honnold

We had prepared an impressive tick list that clinched this Golden Piton for Alex Honnold, but when we asked him to name his toughest feats of 2010, his No. 2 day wasn’t even on our radar: the 24 Hours of Horseshoe Hell in Arkansas, when Honnold climbed 130 pitches from 5.8 to 5.13, averaging 5.11. This bested Tommy Caldwell’s stunning 2009 performance, “which,” Honnold said, “was the proudest moment of my life.”

At Squamish, British Columbia, swinging leads with Will Stanhope, Honnold linked four full-length free routes in about 14.5 hours, with no falls for either climber. With Sonnie Trotter, Honnold also made a near onsight and the first one-day ascent of Logical Progression, a sustained 28-pitch 5.13a on El Gigante in Mexico.

But it was in Yosemite that Honnold truly endured. With Sean Leary, he linked the Nose, Salathé Wall, and Lurking Fear in just under 24 hours, which he called “pretty crushing—90 pitches or so, 9,000 feet of descent, 15 hours of non-stop simuling/short fixing.” Honnold’s “Triple” followed a record-setting speed solo of the pearl of Grade VI enchainments, the Regular Northwest Face of Half Dome (23 pitches) followed by the Nose (31 pitches). His total time was a little over 11 hours—about nine hours less than the previous record.