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Pete Whittaker Rope-Solos Three Squamish Routes in 18-Hour Push

U.K. climber Pete Whittaker has rope-soloed University Wall (via The Shadow) 5.13, the Grand Wall 5.11 A0 and Freeway 5.11+ in Squamish. He freed everything except the bolt ladder on the Grand Wall 5.11 A0. He completed all three climbs in 18 hours and 21 minutes. After his send, he wrote the following on his Facebook page, “Smashing Squamish trip, such a good time. Learned loads, climbing, swinging about, jugging, falling off, getting lost, getting gripped, being knackered and generally fudging my way up these walls by myself. I didn’t really know what I was doing when I got here, as I’d not actually climbed more than a couple of pitches solo before.

“I’d just bodged together some ideas in my head back in the U.K. and thought it’ll be alright. However, I set myself a challenge (because challenges are always good) of trying to do the three classic routes on the front of The Chief solo and free in 24 hours. I wanted a challenge that had hard enough climbing to warrant using rope soloing techniques and couldn’t all be free soloed. Few days ago I managed to solo University Wall (via The Shadow), Freeway and Grand Wall, all mega classic and all free apart from A0 bolt ladder on Grand Wall.”

In 2014, Alex Honnold free-soloed University Wall and the Roman Chimneys in a two-hour push car-to-car. He also holds the speed record for the Grand Wall including the Roman Chimneys at 38 minutes. With Will Stanhope, Honnold linked Free Grand 5.13b, Northern Lights 5.12a, Freeway 5.11 and University Wall 5.12b in 13.5 hours. Whittaker’s solo link-up is the first of the kind reported this year.

Whittaker sent Cobra Crack 5.14 in Squamish in 2013. Watch a short clip of him on The Grand Wall by clicking on the clip below.

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