Yosemite’s El Corazon for Sam Stroh in a Day
In 2022, he became the youngest climber to free an El Capitan route in a day
Earlier this week, Texan Sam Stroh redpointed Yosemite’s El Corazon in just under 22 hours. He climbed the 35-pitch 5.13b a few days before turning 23 years old.
It’s been a big week of sends on El Capitan, possibly the most we’ve ever seen in such a short period of time. In a story that we published yesterday by Babsi Zangerl and her and Lara Neumeier’s send of Muir Blast into El Corazon, she said, “We woke up because we heard some noises from below. Another team was coming closer and obviously pretty fast. It was Sam Stroh and his friend Will. Sam’s goal was to free El Corazon in a day after three weeks of working it. It was impressive to see Sam crushing it. Felt like a real Cinema rest-day program for us.” Read Zangerl’s story here.
El Corazon was first climbed in 2001 by Alex Huber and Max Reichel over six days of aid climbing. Huber and Reichel returned and Huber made the first free ascent at 5.13b. The second free ascent was by Tommy Caldwell and Beth Rodden in 2007, and it’s since been freed by many others including Will Stanhope, Brad Gobright and Brette Harrington.
Last year, Stroh became the youngest climber to date to free El Capitan in a day with a send of Freerider – read the story about how he went from being a pro skateboarder in 2017 to big wall climber by Chris Van Leuven here. Earlier this summer, Stroh visited Squamish and repeated Stanhope’s Heavy Fuel 5.13dR. Also in Yosemite, Stroh has redpointed the 36-pitch Golden Gate 5.13 and the nine-pitch Wet Lycra Nightmare 5.13d.
Wet Lycra Nightmare
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