Solo Link-up Of Half Dome and El Capitan Alex Honnold experiences serious road rage. "I can't wait until this turns into a real highway. I'm over this two-lane business," he said during an interview with the Touchstone Blog. "I followed some slow poke all the way out of Yosemite."

Alex Honnold is not used to moving slowly. Yesterday, Honnold was speeding, climbing first the Regular Northwest Face of Half Dome in 2 hours and 9 minutes and then the Nose of El Capitan in 5 hours 59 minutes.

Honnold is more used to the fast movement of cruising up giant granite walls than the stop and go of commuter traffic. "I'm losing it, I can't take it anymore. I reached a certain threshold and just can't deal with it anymore." The road to LA, where he was heading to visit his lady friend, was filled with traffic. The routes in Yosemite were far more open. He completed the Nose of El Capitan faster than he was able to drive from Yosemite to LA. Honnold slept at the base of Half Dome, climbed the route, hiked to the Nose, and then topped out El Capitan 11 hours after he started climbing.



Honnold racked up at the bridge of El Capitan. This was his first solo ascent of El Capitan. The night before he had read Hans Florine's Speed Climbing book and was excited to try some of the tricks he had learned.

Honnold bested Touchstone climber's Hans Florine previous solo speed record of the Nose and Half Dome. Florine has an extensive collection of records for all Yosemite Valley speed climbs at his website, Speed Climbing.com



Honnold climbed much of the routes ropeless. Here he is pictured above the Great Roof on the Nose on Pancake Flake's 11c section, a few thousand feet above the valley floor.

There's a forum thread on Supertopo about his climb as well as more images from the El Cap reporter, Tom "Ansel" Evans.

"Dude, I used a brush that I got from Pipeworks the other day. Make sure you put that in the blog. It's boars hair. Also say that I'm incredibly handsome and good looking," Honnold stated in his interview. That's when traffic cleared and Honnold was able to start speeding again. "I'm so excited! I almost up to 65! I got to go!"

Labels: Alex Honnold, Hans Florine, The Nose

  ¶ Wednesday, June 23, 2010 3 Comments

  Hans Florine Crack Clinic Hans Florine, one of the fastest climbers on Earth, has climbed more than one million vertical feet of crack. With more than 68 ascents of El Capitan's The Nose, Hans has set the speed record at a blindingly fast 2 hours 37 minutes and five seconds. Beyond his exploits on El Capitan, Hans wrote Speed Climbing: How to Climb Better and Faster and has worked as a mountain guide across the United States. The Bay area climber will be providing a clinic on how to climb cracks this week at GWPC in Oakland.

During his two hour clinic, Hans will provide a tip or two or ten on how to crack climb. You will learn what kind of pain is 'OK' and what kind to avoid. You may even learn how to chug along the vertical cracks of Yosemite with a bit of a smile.

Hans' Crack Clinic will be at Great Western Pacific Works from 7-9 pm on Wednesday, July 29. The cost is $40.

Learn from a master crack climber and get some practice on the great cracks at the Oakland gym on Wednesday night.

For more information about Han's speed climbing in Yosemite, check out The Speedclimbing Homepage

Labels: Crack Clinic, Hans Florine, The Nose

  ¶ Monday, July 27, 2009 0 Comments

  Climbing Clip of the Week: Nose in A Day Hello and Happy Friday! Here's hoping that your New Year's Day was amazing and that 2009 is already treating you kind! I don't know about you, but personally, I'm ready for a weekend, all of the Holiday action has worn me out and I'm looking forward to a weekend filled with doing as little as humanly possible. That said, I figured a perfect way to kick off that sort of weekend, is by watching someone Else strain themselves to the limit.

For your viewing pleasure this fine Friday, I found a great Climbing Clip of the Week that you might just find interesting. How about "Nose in a Day" in Yosemite? Yeah, thought you might perk up at that. There is some great climbing in this video, and what's more, it just makes you want to do it too, despite how Holiday Exhausted you might be.

That said, we'll be back, energetic and filled with even more great information on Monday. Spend this weekend doing whatever you need to do to recover and recuperate from what was most likely a tiring Holiday week! Enjoy the Climbing Clip of the Week and we'll see you Monday!

Labels: Climbing Clip of the Week, Climbing Movie, The Nose, Yosemite National Park

  ¶ Friday, January 02, 2009 0 Comments

  Hans Destroys Record on El Cap!
Hello and Happy Monday! Congratulations are certainly in order for our very own Hans Florine and his climbing partner Yuji Hirayama as they absolutely decimated their own previous record for fastest climb up the Nose of El Capitan. In June, the two did this spectacular feat in a breathtaking 2 hours, 43 minutes and 33 seconds, but resting on their laurels was not going to happen.

The new record, an even more jaw-dropping 2 hours, 37 minutes and 5 seconds came as the two men battled the cold, gravity and themselves on October 12. The ascent up El Capitan, specifically the nose route, would take normal climbers three full days of climbing, resting and climbing again to complete. Hans and Yuji, two of the best speed-climbers in the entire world, managed to pack all of that climbing with none of that resting and demolish their record by a full 6 minutes.

Check out the video of some of their climb, it's not to be missed and a great indication of just how talented both of these men really are. Congrats Hans, congrats Yuji!
(Image: Michael Maloney/The Chronicle)

Labels: El Capitan, Hans Florine, New Record, The Nose, Yosemite

  ¶ Monday, October 20, 2008 0 Comments

  Hans Florine & Yuji Hirayama Recapture Speed Record
In yet another daring sprint up the formidable El Capitan, Touchstone member/investor Hans Florine teamed up with Yuji Harayama to reclaim the speed record they set together in 2002 that the Huber brothers beat by 3 minutes in June of 2007. You can read all about their 2 hour, 43 minute and 33 second ascent in the Chronicle and see some photos of the amazing duo.

If my calculations are correct, this is the 10th time Hans has set the speed record for climbing the Nose! More information on this story can also be found at speedclimb.com. Congratulations Hans - you've made the Touchstone community proud!

Labels: climbing, El Capitan, Hans Florine, members, New Record, The Nose

  ¶ Friday, July 18, 2008 0 Comments

  The Nose: Really Really Fast

Hans Florine was able to hang out with the Hubers over a beer in June 2006 while they were working on the record. He also chatted with the Hubers, again over a beer, in SF after they got the record this past October 2007. In this webinar, Hans will talk about the way the Hubers tackled the route and go pitch by pitch how his attempts at the record went after talking to them. (Hans got a good go of 5:26 in November.)

Hans is joined by NIAD experts to go over the Huber's ascent and discuss strategies for improvement. Hans will also be inviting some Climbing Manufacturer experts to join in on the session.

Hans will take between 20 to 40 minutes to go over just how the Huber's climbed the route, how Yuji and Hans climbed the route (previous record of 2:48), how Hans just last month climbed it with Mark Melvin, and will discuss tools strategies and more. Then we'll open it up for a panel of experts to suggest things and YOUR input or questions. Maybe you have insight on a strategy on how better to go through the King Swing or you know of a tool we are not using that would help us move more effectively/faster through the route. Just listen or contribute. Recording from the webinar will be available afterwards.

Join Hans for this live Webinar on December 18th at 6pm, sign up now here: http://hansflorine.com/shop/webinar1.html

Labels: climbing, event, Hans Florine, Mark Melvin, The Nose

  ¶ Monday, December 10, 2007 0 Comments

  Getting Outside On September 11 after fixing lines, Touchstone members Humberto Marquez, Paul Hara and Ironworks member Bob Boggs, started climbing the Lurking Fear route on El Capitan. The were armed with lots of pre-climbing beta from Touchstone instructor and world class climber Hans Florine plus logistical support (Sherpa duty!) from gym members Margaret Hara, Leo Bates, Ironworks member Leo Burk, and others.

The trio was hoping to climb the route in 3 days with enough emergency provisions for 4. The climb actually took 6 continuous days, including the rappel down. "Bob got real sick the first day and had to go back down. After that, it was tough going. When Bob went down, so did our engineering brain" said Paul. "During the third day Humberto and I considered going down because we were moving so slowly and the top was so far away, but we decided to see how high we could get with our remaining provisions and energy".

The pair finally reached their goal of Thanksgiving Ledge at sunset of the 5th day. Humberto said "Its a beautiful, big ledge with a small cave with a sandy floor. By far the best bivy of the whole climb."

What's next for the pair? They're setting their sights on The Nose route of El Capitan. According to Humberto, "If we can climb a little bit faster, we just might make it!".

Labels: Berkeley Ironworks, climbing, concord, Diablo Rock Gym, El Capitan, Hans Florine, members, The Nose

  ¶ Thursday, October 18, 2007 0 Comments

  Catching Up with Hans Hans Florine is obsessed with speed. He claims to time virtually everything: “driving distances, widget production, diaper changes, loan closings, newspaper reading.”

And climbing.

He won the first World Speed Climbing Championship back in 1991 and has been the U.S. National Speed Climbing champion nine times in the past 15 years. The 42-year-old Lafayette resident keeps setting speed records for climbing The Nose of El Capitan in Yosemite. (For the full scoop, check out www.hansflorine.com.)

While you can’t quite say that Florine wrote the book on speed, that’s only because he hasn’t finished it yet. The tentative title is “Speed is Power,” and he recently got a New York agent to represent him in finding a publisher.

He goes back to the word’s original Anglo Saxon meaning of “speed,” which meant success and prosperity. Another way of saying it is “effective speed.”

“That is the same sort of speed I teach and talk about in my book,” he says. “The speed I’m talking about, there’s no application where it doesn’t work.”

Florine’s interest in climbing fast started when he realized he was good at it. It’s still something of a novel event at the world championships, he acknowledges, but speed climbing opens up a lot of possibilities. It allows him to fit in some climbing during lunchtime or on a weekend, and lets him do more climbing no matter how much time he has.

That helps explain how he’s been able to climb El Capitan 122 times, including 62 times up The Nose.

What keeps it fresh, he says, is that instead of having a regular climbing partner he seeks out fresh partners for each trip.

“I have done The Nose with over 100 people,” he says. “Just like you might have a walk you like to do around your neighborhood, pointing it out to people. You see them experiencing it for the first time.”

That’s also his approach to Touchstone, where he has been a shareholder since he helped put screws in the wall at Mission Cliffs in 1995. More than a decade later, he still runs a Monday night training class at Touchstone Concord and teaches a few private clients at the gym.

“Introduce somebody who doesn’t know about climbing to the gym,” he suggests. “You’ll get to re-live the excitement you had when you first got interested in climbing. I take lots of people out climbing for the first time, and you see their eyes get really big. It re-excites you about climbing and fitness.”

That attitude also reflects the big change at Touchstone over the years, he says.

“I think we have learned that our business is teaching people who don’t know how to climb and people who are just interested in fitness, instead of ‘let’s find the climbers in the community and make a place for them to play and exercise,’ ” he says.

His wife, Jacki, appreciates speed too. She holds the fastest time for Female Unsupported Solo Hike of the John Muir Trail. And a new generation of Florines is on the way up. At ages 3 and 6, however, the Florine children are mostly just climbing furniture at this point.

Labels: climbing, El Capitan, Hans Florine, The Nose, touchstone, Yosemite

  ¶ Tuesday, January 16, 2007 0 Comments

  New DVD's for Christmas Now in a Touchstone retail area near you are 4 new DVD's, perfect for
stocking stuffers:

"Best of the West" features Boone Speed, Chris Sharma, and Nate Gold making a 2-week side trip to Hueco and sending crazy-hard problems en route to New Zealand. "The Big Game" finds the trio finally making it to New Zealand and has beautiful footage of the boulders with a lot of high adrenaline climbing. "First Ascent" is all about today's top rock climbers as they lay siege to steep faces and soaring alpine walls in pursuit of climbing's pinnacle achievement - the First Ascent.

Dosage Volume IV follows the biggest names in sport climbing, traditional climbing, and bouldering as they make historic ascents at spectacular locations around the world. Highlights include: Tommy Caldwell freeclimbing both The Nose (5.14a) and Freerider (5.12d) in under 24 hours; Chris Sharma's first ascent of Dreamcatcher (5.14d) in Squamish, BC; Lisa Rands on first female ascents of scary grit routes in England's Peak District; Dave Graham doing his beautiful Coup de Grace (5.14d) in Ticino, Switzerland; and Berkeley Ironworks members Randy Puro and Courtney Hemphill pulling down hard on the gorgeous granite boulders of Switzerland.

Labels: Chris Sharma, climbing, retail, The Nose, touchstone

  ¶ Wednesday, December 13, 2006 0 Comments

  Unsung Heros New Area Developers:
The Unsung Heroes of the Climbing Community

Ever wonder where new routes and new climbing areas outside come from? Who finds them? Who does the trail building work? Who bolts them? Who establishes access with land owners?

All over the country there are a handful of dedicated, creative, and hard-working individuals who have invested time, money and energy into establishing routes and climbing areas for the rest of us. And they're largely under-appreciated. Over the years, climbers craving adventure, new routes, and wanting to make their contribution to climbing history, have gone out searching for new rock. Armed with aerial photographs, topo maps, rumors, or a well-seasoned sixth sense about where rocks outcrop, they have taken to the back roads and bushwhacked across unknown territory to find that elusive perfect piece of rock.

One out of a hundred times, they find something good. Even more rarely, they find a gem in the rough like Owen's River Gorge outside of Bishop, or Rifle Canyon in Colorado. Then they set about identifying and climbing the likely lines of ascent. Usually the easier and obvious lines go first. Then as word gets out and others start to check out the new find, more and more lines get filled in or boulder problems get done.

Putting up new routes or new boulder problems requires creativity, courage, perseverance, and stubbornness. Lots of routes, like the Nose on El Cap, defy attempt after attempt until someone with vision manages to top out. Many times the hard, cutting edge routes, like Scott Franklin's Scarface at Smith Rock in Oregon, require a new approach to training and radical innovations in climbing style or equipment. And many of those innovations cause controversy.

When Ron Kauk started putting up bolts on rappel on a few select routes in Yosemite in the 1980s, he was helping to push the whole sport into a new era. He was also alienating lots of more traditionally minded climbers who insist bolts should be set only on the ascent. Others have argued that it doesn’t matter whether the bolts go in on the way up or the way down.

Then there is the impact on the environment to consider. “Cleaning off” routes in order to make them safe and pleasant to climb often means clearing brush and trees where a route starts, breaking off loose rock to get to the solid parts, drilling bolt holes, and more. Sometimes these efforts mean making permanent changes to the rock. Setting a new route means striking a balance between altering the environment and creating new opportunities for climbers.

Chris Sharma's stunning routes all over the world have set the standards for difficulty for years. Since they were as hard or harder than any other routes in the world, he had no one to look to for a precedent or to break the ground. He had to find the resources -- the physical strength and the mental fortitude -- entirely within himself in order to do the route. And for every famous route like Mandala, or Realization, there are a hundred failed projects that remain unclimbed.

So on your next climbing trip, take time to read the first ascent credits in the guidebook, and reflect on the hours of hard work, the trail building, the negotiations with land managers, the expensive bolts, and the other thankless work that someone did to establish those climbs.

Labels: climbing, The Nose, Yosemite

  ¶ Tuesday, December 05, 2006 0 Comments

  Reel Rock Film Tour Hits the Bay Area Big Up Productions and Sender Films have teamed up with Windstopper® to produce the first-ever nationwide rock climbing film tour. On October 3-5, the 2006 REEL ROCK Film Tour comes to Walnut Creek, Berkeley, and San Francisco.

REEL ROCK features two groundbreaking new climbing films by the top producers in the industry: Dosage Volume IV, by Josh Lowell, and First Ascent, by Peter Mortimer. Events are being held in September and October 2006 at roughly 60 venues of all sizes across the United States, with additional tours in Canada and Europe. Reel Rock shows are high-energy events for climbers and mountain enthusiasts to get excited about, incorporating gear give-aways, athlete appearances and signings, fundraising for The Access Fund and local causes, and DVD sales.

This three-day event takes place at:
The Walnut Creek Pyramid Brewery -- October 3rd at 8pm; advanced tickets are available at Ironworks Climbing Gym.
The Berkeley Pyramid Brewery -- October 4th at 8pm; advanced tickets are available at Ironworks Climbing Gym.
San Francisco’s Victoria Theater -- October 5th at 7pm; advanced tickets are available at Mission Cliffs Climbing Gym.

Advanced tickets for all venues are $10, or $12 the day of the show. Climbers Tommy Caldwell, Beth Rodden and Klem Loskot will be in attendance. For movie trailers and tour info visit: www.reelrocktour.com.


About the Films:

First Ascent
The latest and greatest release from Sender Films (www.senderfilms.com) and director/producer Peter Mortimer, creators of the multi-award winning Return2Sender and Front Range Freaks.

First Ascent features today’s top rock climbers as they lay siege to steep faces and soaring alpine walls in pursuit of climbing’s pinnacle achievement – the First Ascent. Mortimer brings us on this globe-trotting journey to capture the hopes, fears, and truly radical feats of men and women on climbing’s cutting edge.

The film takes us from high Himalayan peaks to deep water soloing on the coast of Thailand, and from the sobering heights of the Black Canyon to Timmy “Urban Ape” O’Neill’s monkey business on the buildings of Hollywood. A preview segment from First Ascent premiered in January, 2006 at the Alpinist Film Festival in Jackson, WY to a capacity audience of 900 members and won the festival’s Grand Prize and People’s Choice Award.

Dosage Vol 4
Big Up's Dosage series is the definitive annual portrait of climbing's state-of-the-art. Volume IV follows the biggest names in sport climbing, trad climbing, and bouldering as they make historic ascents at spectacular locations around the world. Highlights include: Tommy Caldwell's marathon El Capitan linkup, free climbing both The Nose (5.14a) and Freerider (5.12d) in under 24 hours; Chris Sharma's first ascent of Dreamcatcher (5.14d) in Squamish, BC; Dave Graham's first ascent of Coup De Grace (5.15a) in Ticino, Switzerland; Lisa Rands’ first female ascents of scary grit routes in England's Peak District; Sharma and Graham opening a new level of hard bouldering in Hueco Tanks, Texas; and much more.

Director Josh Lowell is a leading creator of climbing films. His company, Big Up Productions (www.bigUPproductions.com), has released seven films, including the top-selling titles in the industry. Lowell has worked extensively with the legendary climber Chris Sharma for years. His Dosage Volume II was the winner of six international film festival awards and was featured in Sports Illustrated and National Public Radio.

REEL ROCK TOUR Film Sponsors:
Petzl, Climbing Magazine, Mountain Gear, Montbell, La Sportiva, Prana, Osprey, Nikwax, and Entreprises

Labels: Access Fund, Berkeley Ironworks, Chris Sharma, climbing, Climbing Movie, El Capitan, event, mission cliffs, REEL ROCK TOUR, The Nose

  ¶ Monday, October 02, 2006 0 Comments

  Nose in a Day Congratulations to two MC members who climb the Nose on El Cap in one day. Members, Jonny Kwong and Blair Haffly started the route at 2am and topped out at 6:45pm, which turned out to be 16 hours and 45 minutes of climbing on the famed walled.

Jonny recalls the following highlights of their adventure. “Fixating upon the Vastness above, my mind reels away. Infinite and crisp are her radiant freckles. Her cheekbone highlighted by a milky blush. Her brilliance contrasted only by a neighbor’s imposing darkness. I flick on my headlamp and the Vastness above is lost. Blair and I are at the base of El Cap’s the Nose. It was a mere four weeks ago we conceived the idea to climb this route in a single day. And now we’re here.

Adeptly, we work independently. I flake the rope, tie in, and change my shoes. Blair sets his belay anchor, ties in, and puts me on belay. I check the time. It’s just before 2 a.m. “On belay.” “Belay on.” I lead into a calmly lit world. The jams and holds are mostly familiar. A sense of urgency and calmness flutter within me. Some time later I get up to the first anchor. “Off belay!” The calmness scatters. “Off!” I pull up the rope until it’s taught. A moment later, “Line fixed!” I continue up twenty feet stopping short of the crux of the pitch. I flick off my headlamp and wait. At once, the Vastness reappears. I peer off to the East and see Half Dome accented by a deep blue. I close my eyes for a moment. “Belay’s on!” Blair has jugged up to the first anchor and I go on. We continue the climb in the same manner. Soon, headlamps are no longer needed. I periodically glance down to see El Cap’s shadow continuing to grow over the shrinking trees and the Valley floor.

Across the way, the Cathedral formations transform with the change in light and view. I lead up to the base of the Great Roof. Blair then takes over. He steadily and comfortably seems to climb, while I find myself drifting to sleep at the belays. At last, when I did not think I could stave off sleep any longer, Blair tops out. “Off belay! Rope Fixed!” I soon meet Blair. We look at the time. It’s 6:45 p.m. We both grin. Our goal is realized.”

In addition to accomplishing is goal of the Nose in a day, Jonny just completed the NE ridge of Mt. Williamson, the 2nd highest 14ner in California in 22 hours. Not to mention, posing for a recent Patagonia photo shoot.

Labels: climbing, members, mission cliffs, The Nose

  ¶ Tuesday, August 29, 2006 0 Comments

  Obsessed with The Nose Hans Florine will be speaking at the REI in Berkeley on Tuesday evening at 7pm, August 1st. It is a free show. The title of the show is "Obsessed with The Nose." NO, - it's not about plastic surgery.The presentation will be a few nifty ice breaker stories and then focusing head on into that old un-original, best in the world, route, The Nose. From Hans' failures to ascend it, to his slowest and fastest ascents, his worst time up and his best time up. Yes, lots of pictures and video of the old granite grey.

Hans has a new multi-media product on "how to" climb The Nose. You can find out about the CD set here at Han's website or stop by REI and pick up a copy.

Labels: climbing, Hans Florine, The Nose, touchstone

  ¶ Tuesday, August 01, 2006 0 Comments