BIG ROUTES
THE LURE OF THE CHALLENGE
One of the main reasons why I’ll try and do something in the first place is ‘The Challenge’ itself. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a climbing challenge either, it can be something in any aspect of life. At the moment, I’m challenging myself by writing a book on crack climbing techniques, and I’m also turning WideBoyz into a company – two things I’d never have seen myself doing a few years ago.
R Climbing the Monster Offwidth. Although only given 5.11a it’s a notoriously tricky piece to the puzzle of freeing Freerider.
PETE WHITTAKER: VALLEY YOYO
I’d never climbed any big walls before my first trip to The Valley in 2014, so I was essentially learning the ropes. We freed three big walls and I was totally toasted at the end of the trip! I went back in 2015 and made the second ascent of The Secret
Passage (5.13c/8a+), a free climb on El Cap. It was a nine-day battle of loose rock, scary climbing, and winter storms. I topped out with my partner and, although psychologically battered by that tough wall, I knew I could give more or do something more challenging. But I didn’t want to go and work harder and harder routes though, and then I suddenly thought: “Maybe I’ll just climb these walls by myself. I’ll have to learn new techniques and be completely self- sufficient – that’d be a massive challenge.” I always like to do new things; first Ascents, the first to do a
particular ‘something’. Yosemite has such a massive history and so many top climbers have left their mark that it’s difficult to find unique, difficult trials and tests there, things that haven’t been done before. And when I started looking into the history of solo climbing in
Yosemite, I realised that nobody had yet freed El Cap solo in under 24hrs. Suddenly there was something yet undone, a way I could leave my mark – and a test that was potentially possible for me. After I came to that realisation, the next challenge was obvious, and I was after it straight away.”
If I wasn’t challenging myself in something, I’d probably get bored
and grumpy. It’s the same with climbing; it keeps you motivated and gives you something to aspire to. And the thing I like about 24-hour challenges is how they’re both physically and mentally demanding. It’s all about pushing on when it gets really tough – I like that feeling. I wanted to be the first, but I admit I was total crap at the start – I had no idea how rope soloing even worked and the end goal seemed like a huge step away. Fortunately, I already had a few pieces of the puzzle in place, so I didn’t have massive amounts to do. It turned out the only things I really needed to learn was how to rope solo a pitch of climbing, all free, and doing quick changeovers at belays. The rest is just cleaning gear, abseiling and jumaring – using a device to ascend a rope – which I already know how to do. That’s rope soloing in a nutshell: lead, clean, jumar. When you look at it like that, it doesn’t seem like such a huge task. So I had belief from the beginning that I could do it, the thought of sacking it off to try something else never even crossed my mind, not even when things went wrong! But I analysed these moments and corrected them for the next practice run.
“THIS IS HOPEFULLY THE DAWN OF A NEW STYLE OF BIG-WALL SOLO CLIMBING. BIG WALL SOLO CLIMBING ON EL CAPITAN FOR MANY YEARS WAS JUST AID CLIMBING. NOW PETE HAS PROVEN THAT IT’S POSSIBLE TO DO THAT FREE AND RELATIVELY FAST”
TOM RANDALL
R The big stone. 48 | CLIMB. WALK. JOIN.
PHOTO: PETE WHITTAKER.
PHOTO: PETE WHITTAKER.
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