Watch Pete Whittaker’s Historic El Cap Rope-Solo Free

In this exclusive short film, we get an sneak preview at the soon to be released feature film Pete Whittaker, without a partner, a film about climbing alone. On Nov. 11 and 12 of last year, Whittaker became the first person to rope-solo and free El Capitan in under 24 hours. He finished the solo in 20 hours six minutes, making his ascent both the first of its kind and the first solo-free of El Cap in a day. He climbed Freerider 5.12.

Rope-solo free climbing is a sport that few people know about and even less people do. “The problem is if Pete pulled it off, nobody would even get it, nobody would understand how hard it was, and to do it in a day is totally insane,” said big wall specialist Andy Kirkpatrick.

Fellow Wide Boyz cliber Tom Randall said, “The ascent made by Pete on Freerider to me is hopefully the dawn of a new style of big wall solo climbing, big wall solo climbing on El Capitan for many years was just aid climbing. Now Pete has proven that it’s possible to do that free climbing, but relatively fast.”