Strong Brits Repeat Hard Yosemite Route El Nino
British climbers Robbie Phillips and Jacob Cook have both sent El Nino 5.13c on El Cap in Yosemite. “This doesn’t just count as another big rock climb for me to tick of the list, it’s a game changer,” wrote Phillips on his Facebook athlete page. “At the beginning of my time here in Yosemite I was finding the hard granite style almost impossible. We had one attempt at El Nino, but due to weather, energy levels and inexperience on my part, we had to bail.”
Phillips goes on to talk about the bad weather and keeping his psyche up with sends of Voyager, Separate Reality and a top-rope onsight of The Phoenix 5.13a. With one week left in his American visit, the weather improved and the two senders went to work.
“El Nino is the biggest rock climb I’ve ever done,” wrote Phillips. “It includes a tonne of climbing, all of it by my standards as pretty darn tough with the technical difficulty rarely dropping below f7b-ish (5.12) or E5/6 and with climbing up to f8a+ (5.13c) or E7-ish? As always the grade doesn’t matter and in this case truly doesn’t do the climb any justice.” Scroll down to watch Jacob Cook take a whipper on El Nino.
El Nino combines hard climbing on Continental Drift, New Jersey Turnpike and North American Wall. It was first freed by Alex and Thomas Huber in 1998 in a continuous three-day ascent. They freed 99 per cent of the route, all but one 10-metre rappel. They added 20 bolts to new variations. The second free ascent was by Leo Houlding and Pat Hammond later in 1998 and they onsighted all but two pitches with only two falls on the route over three days.
The third free ascent was by Michael Mayr and Richard Schipflinger in 1999. Other free ascents include Iker Pou and Eneko Pou in 2003; Steve Schneider, Brian Cork and Heather Baer in 2003; Yuji Hirayama in 2003; Lee Cossey in 2007; Jorg Verhoeven in 2013; Tobias Wolf and Thomas Herring in 2014; and Dan McManus and James McHaffie in 2014. For a topo of the 30-pitch route visit here.
Weekend Whipper: Jacob Cook Rides El Niño (5.13c), El Cap from Rock & Ice on Vimeo.
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