Rope-Solo of El Cap and Half Dome in a Day by Pete Whittaker

Pete Whittaker rope-soloed El Cap and Half Dome in 20 hours and 19 minutes, joining a short list of climbers to have accomplish the fast feat.

The first time this link was done was in 1986 by John Bachar and Peter Croft. They climbed The Nose followed by the Regular Route on Half Dome in a puth. They put up a time of 10 hours for The Nose and then passed seven parties, climbed through the rain, and set the Half Dome record in just over four hours.

Whittaker left the base of the Regular Northwest Face of Half Dome at 6:30 am and topped The Nose at 2:49 a.m. the following night.

I know you soloed it @alexhonnold but I think you'll find the real challenge to be, walking Thank God ledge with a full rack, water bottle, camera and approach shoes on the back of your harness ? . #halfdome #yosemite #getthisrackoffme

A post shared by PETE WHITTAKER (@petewhittaker01) on Nov 3, 2018 at 11:05am PDT

The first, and most famous, of these is the 1986 John Bachar and Peter Croft climb of the Nose followed by the Reg Route on Half Dome in the same day. They put up a time of 10 hours for the Nose and then, amazingly, passed 7 parties, climbed through the rain, and set the Half Dome record in just over 4 hours, which lasted until 1996. In 1999, Dean Potter soloed the Nose and Half Dome in the same day. Two days later, Hans Florine did this as well!

Whittaker told ukclmibing.com, “I climbed solidly and had good rope work on Half Dome, although I could have done with a shorter rope. However, I did get lost part way up the first half when I went right in the middle of a pitch too early.

“I ended up a bit stranded on a slab, and I faffed about going up and down trying to find the right way, until I realised it was completely the wrong way. I’d only followed this part of the route once before (and its a bit rambly). It’s easy to not concentrate so much when you’re following, which is probably why I went the wrong way when it came to leading it.”

On The Nose, Whittaker’s rope was sliding off the ledges which led to some unplanned rappels to clean stuck ropes.

“I’d have much better solo logistics if I were to do it again and I think I could erase all my small errors and make better time,” Whittaker told ukclimbing.com.

Cheeky little mission the other day. I managed to solo both Half Dome and El Cap in under 24hrs. Pretty pleased as I'd only done The Nose twice, Half Dome once and not soloed either route before, so the solo logistics felt kind of 'onsight'. There were definitely a few rope tangles and glitches to sort through, especially when I got lost on the first part of Half Dome (but that's standard behaviour really). Obviously apart from @alexhonnold doing the Triple, maybe this is the first time this has been done since Dean Potter and @hansflorine ? Who knows! What I do know is that is was a bloody good day out! From the bottom of the first wall to the top of the second was 20hrs 19mins. . @patagonia_climb @fiveten_official @wildcountry_official @sterlingrope @hard.bar

A post shared by PETE WHITTAKER (@petewhittaker01) on Nov 11, 2018 at 5:32pm PST