Honnold, Florine Poised to Break Nose Speed Record

6/12/12 – Alex Honnold and Hans Florine plan to attempt a new Nose speed record on El Capitan in Yosemite Valley on Sunday, June 17. The current record, held by Sean Leary and Dean Potter and set in November 2010, sits at 2 hours, 36 minutes, 45 seconds. (That’s only 20 seconds faster than the previous record set by Florine and Yuji Hirayama in October 2008.)

Florine and Honnold will take two warm-up runs on the Nose today and tomorrow.

Florine, a renowned speed climber, is no stranger to Nose records—he’s held speed or solo records on and off since 1990. Recently, he partnered with Bill Wright—his co-author of Speed Climbing! How to Climb Faster and Better—to climb 100 pitches in a day in Eldorado Canyon, Colorado, ascending about 10,000 vertical feet overall.

And Honnold, as evidenced by countless media outles, including national TV, is a permanent fixture in recent Yosemite climbing news. In mid-May, Honnold and Tommy Caldwell climbed the “Yosemite Triple Crown”—a link-up of Mt. Watkins’ south face, Free Rider on El Capitan, and the Regular Northwest Face of Half Dome—in 21 hours, 15 minutes. A couple weeks later, Honnold blazed up the Regular Northwest Face in a mere 1 hour, 22 minutes, breaking his own record of 2 hours, 50 minutes. And just last week, he re-climbed the Triple link-up in 18 hours, 50 minutes, finally admitting, “OK, that was a big deal.” He free climbed most of the route, using only a bit of aid.

Check out Florine’s website speedclimb.com for detailed information on the Nose records.

Sources: Hans Florine, climbing.com

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