Honnold and Caldwell Smash Devil’s Thumb Traverse
The two top American climbers recently completed a trip where they cycled from Colorado to Alaska. They shaved several days off the fastest known time for the Diablo Traverse
Photo by: John Scurlock
In 2010, Michael Schaefer and Colin Haley made the first ascent of the Diablo Traverse 5.10 A2, a complete traverse of Alaska’s Devil’s Thumb skyline. The route climbs over several peaks in a remote eye-catching range, including the Witches’ Tits, Cat’s Ears Spires and Devil’s Thumb.
The traverse was first imagined by Dieter Klose, who knows more about the areas where the Devil’s Thumb is found, the Stikine Icecaps, than almost any other climber. It was attempted in 2004 by Jon Walsh and Andre Ike, who became the first to traverse all four spires of the Witches’ Tits and Cat’s Ears. They were stopped by a chopped rope before Devil’s Thumb.
Schaefer and Haley took three days to climb the Diablo Traverse, from Aug. 12 to Aug. 15, 2010. It likely hadn’t been repeated until this summer when Alex Honnold and Tommy Caldwell visited. Known for their alpine traverses and bold climbs, they completed the Diablo Traverse in one day. Few other details are known a this time.
Honnold and Caldwell spent most of the summer cycling from Colorado to Alaska to film a film for National Geographic about self-powered adventures. Along the way, they stopped in the Wind River Range in Wyoming, the Bugaboos in B.C. and the Stikine Icecap. We’ll have more details about their Devil’s Thumb traverse once they become available. Read Haley’s account of the first ascent here. And read about the unclimbed and dangerous northwest face of Devil’s Thumb here.
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