New Solo Speed Record on Yosemite’s Salathé
Brant Hysell of Gravity Lab has completed the fastest known rope-solo ascent of Salathé Wall on El Capitan in Yosemite
American big wall climber Brant Hysell, the man behind the Gravity Labs YouTube channel, rope-soloed Salathé Wall on El Capitan on May 11 in 19 hours and 57 minutes. The previous fastest time was by Cheyene Lempe in 2013 at 20 hours and six minutes.
Salathé Wall is a 35-pitch 5.9 C2 that was first climbed in 1961 by Royal Robbins, Chuck Pratt, Tom Frost. It was first free-climbed in 1988 by Todd Skinner and Paul Piana who swung leads over a nine-day period. The overall fastest time is four hours and 55 minutes by Alex Honnold and the late Sean Leary. In 2018, Josie McKee and Diana Wendt set a new women’s speed record at 16 hours and 24 minutes.
Hysell told Avant climbing about what he used to rope-solo, saying “I used a Silent Partner hanging off my belay loop for the Salathe ascent, although I’ve previously utilized an unmodified GriGri for speed soloing El Cap with good results.” Avant climbing is a new company by Brent Barghahn who we recently spoke to about the company’s smart new pieces of gear. Read our conversation with Barghahn here.
“I generally used two Soft-Cinchers per pitch for bare minimum backfeed prevention,” said Hysell. “For cache management, I relied on a Micro-traxion also attached to my belay loop. However, in hindsight, I would opt to place the micro on my right gear loop for easier slack feeding. Additionally, I’d consider backing up the gear loop with a sling in case the blocker knots got sucked into the Micro-traxion during a fall. I’d hate to blow out a gear loop and loose precious cams way up the wall alone.” Read more on Hysell’s solo here.
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