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Free Climbing America’s Most Iconic Big Wall

From Lynn Hill to the Schnoz, here's over 30 years of free climbing history on The Nose

The Nose on El Cap in Yosemite Valley is America’s most iconic big wall rock climb. The first ascent was in 1958 after 47 days of effort by Wayne Merry, Warren Harding and George Whitmore, with over various partner. It’s since been aid climbed by thousands of rock climbers, but only a few have free climbed it.

History was made in 1993 when Lynn Hill became the first person to climb The Nose from the bottom to the top without falling off, thus making the first free ascent. She spent four days completing the feat. She then returned not long after and made the second free ascent, but did so in only 23 hours. Then in 1998, Scott Burke reached the top after 261 days of effort, leading all but the Great Roof, which he toproped free.

The Nose is 31 pitches long, nearly 1,000 metres, and it includes several difficult free-climbing sections. The Great Roof has complex 5.13 undercling crack climbing, and the Changing Corners requires delicate stem and layback moves.

On Oct. 14 2005, Tommy Caldwell and Beth Rodden spent four days swapping leads to complete the first team free ascent. And two days later, Caldwell returned and climbed it all free in less than 12 hours. Two weeks later, Caldwell climbed The Nose and Freerider, another El Capitan route, in 23 hours and 23 minutes, leading every pitch without falling off.

The next free ascent of The Nose didn’t come until 2014 when Jorg Verhoeven, who spent three days completing it. Then in 2018, Keita Kurakami became the first climber to rope-solo free-climb The Nose. After his climb, he said, “I sent almost all the pitches on the first try. But I took a fall on the Great Roof and Changing Corners. In total, I fell about 10 times before redpointing the pitches cleanly. But I knew the route well because I took three years, maybe more than 100 days to climb it free.”

Shortly after Kurakami’s ascent, 15-year-old Connor Herson became the youngest climber to redpoint The Nose. His dad, Jim, became the eighth person to free the Salathe in 2003. Herson did a jumarless ascent of Half Dome with his dad at age 11 and a jumarless ascent of The Nose in a day at 13. He’d also sent 5.14c sport routes. His mom, elite climber Anne Smith, said, “On a couple weekend days late last spring they checked out the Changing Corners pitch, it was to investigate long-term project potential. But everything Connor has done his whole climbing life has helped prepare him for this, so the multi-year schedule, also, was cut short.”

Then, less than a year later, three more climbers free-climbed The Nose with Seb Berthe, Babsi Zangerl and Jacopo Larcher. Belgian climber Berthe freed The Nose after an eight-day push, but he was the first climber to do so ground-up. Climbing with partner Loic Debry, he led every pitch and reached the Great Roof on the second day. On day three, he sent the Great Roof on his third attempt and then climbed Changing Corners a few days later. Debry had to leave and Babsi Zangerl took over as support. Berthe has a lot of experience on El Cap, as he sent Freerider 5.13 in a day in 2017 and the Heart Route 5.13 in 2016.

Zangerl and Larcher freed it a few days later. They power couple swung leads on the easy pitches, but both led the cruxes, including the Changing Corners and Great Roof. The Corners pitch was putting up a fight. “It got wet after a storm hit the valley,” Zangerl said.

“Mainly the pin-scares right in the corner were wet. So, we didn’t even try to use them. Our beta was to stay on the arête and lay-back all the way up to a good foothold, where we got into the corner and after another insecure move, we were able to grab the saving jug. On our first tries this beta wasn’t promising at all. It was hard to even connect some moves. After some more effort and figuring out the perfect foot positions, we were able to sort out the crux sequence. I think it is mega cool that there are some different ways how to climb that pitch, from stemming to the scissor-beta of Lynn Hill or lay-backing. Every beta is hard in his own way and takes time to feel good on it and it doesn’t matter if you are very tall or short.”

In fall 2023, top competition climbers Alex Waterhouse and Billy Ridal freed The Nose 5.14a on Yosemite’s El Capitan, becoming the first British team to do so. Both led and freed the Great Roof and Changing Corners pitches. The first British climbers to climb The Nose were Rob Wood and Mick Burke in 1968. A new trailer just dropped for a film about their ascent, watch below.

“After retiring from comps at the beginning of the year, we set this goal and knew it was audacious,” Waterhouse and Ridal said. “With no big-walling experience and honestly no idea what it would take, we (and I’m sure many others) weren’t sure it was possible. But we planned, trained, learnt and grafted every day for 5 weeks here in the Valley with that single mission in mind. We left for the push having not linked the crux pitches, sat in a puddle for 2 days through a storm and somehow left with the fairytale ending.”

In December 2024, a new free variation was climbed on The Nose called the Schnoz by Scottish climber Jamie Lowther and Swedish climber Hannes Puman. The Schnoz variation avoids the famous Changing Corners pitch and thus the 5.14 crux of the original Nose route. It follows a technical section to a dyno. The variation pitch was established by Brooke Sandahl and Dave Schultz in the early 1990s, prior to Lynn Hill’s first free ascent. It had been tried by several climbers over the years.

Reflecting on the climb, Puman said, “It’s pretty incredible that I managed to free all pitches. I didn’t climb Changing Corners; I did the Schnoz/boulder [problem] instead. As far as I know, it has never been [freed], and this was the first ascent. We spent six days on the wall, and I had two days of rest between freeing Freerider, which took five days. I am tired and happy. I can’t thank Jamie enough for being a great partner.” Read more about the Schnoz here.

With free climbing in Yosemite more popular than ever, it will be interesting to see how many climbers will attempt The Nose in 2025, by both the Changing Corners pitch and by the Schnoz.

The Nose Speed Record

From Warren Harding, Wayne Merry, and George Whitmore’s original 45-day ascent, speed and efficiency on The Nose have come a long way. In fact, speed climbing The Nose has become a discipline of its own. When climbers speed climb on The Nose, they use an anything-goes style, mixing free and aid climbing techniques – basically whatever will get them up the wall as fast as possible. In 1975, Jim Bridwell, John Long and Billy Westbay made the first speed record, climbing the wall in 16 hours.

This original single-day ascent sparked years of competition, rivalries and relentless efforts to climb the route in jaw-dropping speeds. Over the following decades the speed record worked its way from 15 hours down. The current record is held by Alex Honnold and Tommy Caldwell who climbed the route in only one hour and 58 minutes in 2018.

43 Years of The Nose Records

2018-6-6: Tommy Caldwell, Alex Honnold in 1:58:07
2018-6-4: Tommy Caldwell, Alex Honnold in 2:01:50
2018-5-30: Tommy Caldwell, Alex Honnold in 2:10:15
2017-10-21: Jim Reynolds, Brad Gobright in 2:19:44
2012-6-17: Hans Florine, Alex Honnold in 2:23:46
2017-10-10: Jim Reynolds, Brad Gobright in 2:34:30
2010-11-6: Dean Potter, Sean Leary in 2:36:45
2008-10-12: Hans Florine, Yuji Hirayama in 2:37:05
2008-7-2: Hans Florine, Yuji Hirayama in 2:43:33
2007-10-8: Alexander and Thomas Huber in 2:45:45
2007-10-4: Alexander and Thomas Huber in 2:48:30
2002-9-29: Hans Florine, Yuji Hirayama in 2:48:55
2001-11: Dean Potter, Timmy O’Neill in 3:24:20
2001-10: Hans Florine, Jim Herson in 3:57:27
2001-10: Dean Potter, Timmy O’Neill in 3:59:35
1992: Hans Florine, Peter Croft in 4:22:0
1991:Peter Croft, Dave Schultz in 4:48:0
1991: Hans Florine, Andres Puhvel in 6:01:0
1990: Peter Croft, Dave Schultz in 6:40:0
1990: Hans Florine, Steve Schneider in 8:06:0
1986: John Bachar, Peter Croft in 10:05:0
1984: Duncan Critchley, Romain Vogler in 9:30:0 (approximate)
1975: Jim Bridwell, John Long, Billy Westbay in 17:45:0

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