Climber Breaks El Capitan Record In Yosemite

By over an hour, a new solo record was set for climbing a route called the Nose of El Capitan, a well-known rock formation in California's Yosemite Park. The climber is Nick Amon, a search-and-rescue member of Yosemite Valley. Amon climbed the Nose in 4 hours and 39 minutes, beating the previous record of 5 hours and 50 minutes. To understand the record's significance, NTD asked professional climber Mason Deschamps, who has experience with El Capitan, to get his take. He said that speed climbing is the most dangerous form of climbing and a lot can go wrong. To me, the fact that he was able to take the record from Alex Honnold, the most sponsored climber in the world, just shows you how good of a climber this guy is. The standard way of speed climbing the Nose is with two people. Deschamps says when someone does it solo, it's not only more risky, but also twice the work. So you have to do every pitch of climbing, every rope length of climbing, twice. It's double the work, and the fact that he got a 4-hour, 39-minute time blows my mind. The Nose of El Capitan was previously considered an impossible climb until the 1950s. The first one-day completion of the Nose was in 1989 by Steve Schneider, who did it in 21 hours and 22 minutes. Reporting in California, Jason Blair, NTD News.