Alex Waterhouse and Billy Rydal have successfully free climbed The Nose (5.14), El Capitan - arguably the most famous route in the world - and in doing so have become the first British pair to do so.

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Congratulations to Billy and Alex, I’ve been following their efforts on Instagram, impressive!!

Not only the first British Pair but I'm presuming they're the 11th and 12th people to ever free it?

I refrained from quoting an exact number, as I didn’t want to miss anyone out (or get it wrong), but I think you’re in the right ballpark - it certainly hasn’t had many ascents considering its classic status.

It goes, boys ! brilliant.

Really love the excitement from both of them. 

It is quite astonishing that such an iconic route has only just reached double figures worth of free ascents. That really shows just what an achievement it is!

Amazing achievement, great combination of skills and stress management.

Personally, the squealing put me off. Still, I would probably squeak from fear rather than pride… so who am I to say anything!

I watched the vids twice and couldn't find the squealing?

Big news this. Awesome job!

E

Awesome.

Was it ground up out of interest?

Now that's what I call 'news'!!!

Pete.

No, they rapped in from the top to work the Great Roof and Changing Corners pitches. They then went for a push from the ground for the successful ascent.

I wonder if the first downclimb is still up for grabs

Slightly confusing terminology but a single push (with prior practice) is sometimes also referred to as ground up when talking about bigwall ascents.

Awesome stuff. Really very cool. Do we know how many days it took on the push?

Really? That seems incredibly misleading.

Ummn... No. Ground up means that you start from the bottom and eventually top out. But you have not been on the route before.

Single push is the often used method for big wall free-climbs. In that option you're free to practice key pitches how ever you want (like rap down from the top to practice them). And once you are sure you can climb 'em, you start the single push from the bottom and climb all pitches free until you top out (albeit this is where things get interesting... "easier" pitches you can also second cleanly, and only the hard/crux pitches you need to actually lead... this is only a case when both climbers of the team want to free climb said route though... ).


Note, if the term "ground up" is still confusing, have a look at the editors note on this article:
https://www.commonclimber.com/sebastien-berthe.html

On the harder pitches where protagonists know they are going to have to redpoint, I wonder how often the first burn is just a dogging exercise solely for the purposes of gear placing and chalking holds, after which the real send attempts start sport style. Nothing wrong with doing that per se but I suspect some of the tactics considered normal on big walls don't come with the same puritan ethics of a regular Stanage VS climber.  

Well... a lot of times the hard pitches are actually aided first... to sort out the gear, holds chalked and so on...

that being said, from what I have understood... a lot of the harder freeclimbs especially on El Cap rely pretty much all the way to fixed gear (bolts, pins or rivets). After all, those cracks big enough for gear aren't hard enough. That being said, I'm sure the easy stuff can still be proper hard like E5 (so, like f7a or so) or harder. But of course that feels easy, if the hard stuff gets like f8a or harder (e.g. Changing Corners is 5.14A, so about 8b+... and pretty much all fixed gear).

I think this is broadly true, but F7a is a bit of a mean lower end cut off. Great Roof can be gear protected, Salathe Headwall is gear protected and about 8a+/b, Enduro Corner is 7b and gear protected. I'm sure there's more I can't name.

Free climbers can actually be a bit of a menace to aid climbers, removing fixed gear like copperheads to free up holds and then the weak aid climbers get stuck

Indeed, there are also harder pitches that are not solely relying on fixed gear.... And from time to time, ranger or more likely some keen climbers strip/clean fixed gear (e.g. I recall Zodiak was stripped of a lot of fixed manky heads).

But from what I have seen and also heard, while Great roof on Nose can indeed be protected with gear... it seems to be pretty much completely fixed. It might be true though, that free climbers need to remove some of it to free holds.

The cut-off of ~7a was just a ballpark figure, just to give a rough idea. And certainly not valid for every pitch on the Captain.... And indeed Enduro Corner (I've heard 7c guestimates btw.) is predominantly gear proteted (clean, big crack, after all... similarly with Salathe headwall.... again a clean crack, albeit I seem to recall that there is indeed some fixed gear here and there). And yeah, especially the slab pitches even if easier can be predominantly fixed gear (bolts, rivets and heads). 

Anybody remember Simon Nadin's attempt with Lynn Hill.....I think it was his first big wall.

Voila.

https://lynnhillclimbing.com/media/climbs-travels/the-nose/

Thanks...30 years ago...crikey.I jus about remember aricles from the mags on their attempt

Proper groundup! LOL.

Either way both very ascents very  impressive.

Sometimes you forget how good both LH and SN were.

Changing corners and the great roof were not fixed when I did it a decade ago.

yet, these days they seem to be....

Albeit, as I have said from time to time, fixed gear is cleaned from routes.

But the Google vertical trek from like 5 years ago give perhaps a more modern view. As can bee seen from the great roof pitch, Lynn is at the start of the roof and only has one cam on her harness (and by the looks of it, has clipped two wires or perhaps heads not to far behind). So from what I have understood, there is still a lot of climbing ahead of her, and still only one cam/gear. Sure, she might run it out... but it was pretty laced with gear on the pictures of her climbing it... and others as well.

https://www.google.com/maps/about/behind-the-scenes/streetview/treks/yosemi...

This is not the state, that they should be considered as sport pitches. But like I mentioned, they do or have relied heavily on fixed gear.

This old Supertopo thread is also good one to read:
http://www.supertopo.com/climbers-forum/251146/Bolts-on-El-cap

And it now only mentiones bolts. Other fixed gear like pins, rivets, heads, or (micro) nuts and stuck cams is not being discussed at all. And the amount of those, can be considerable (depending on route, naturally)... Here's an article from 2020 about Zodiac:
https://www.climbingyosemite.com/portfolio/zodiac-november-2020/

I do recall reading something about that at the time, and recall the amount of cleaned/removed fixed gear being quite considerable.

As a last point, free routes often do take variations from the aid lines, and they seem to include fixed gear (bolts) as protection. Perhaps due to the fact that those variations might not follow cracks and be more of face climbs.

Anyway, the amount of fixed gear does not take anything away, not from a physical aspect nor even from the mental one (I recall changing corners pitch being quoted to be quite long 40+m, and it some references for 3 bolts... but there might be some other manky fixed gear).

When I did the Nose last year it didn't have that much fixed gear, certainly not enough to consider bringing any less of your own. The Great Roof had some equalised nuts to lower out from at the start of the traverse, but none else. I spoke to a guy this year who ripped one of those nuts when he clipped it and fell ~15m. Changing Corners is bolt protected at its crux, so it wouldn't be hard to strip the rest of the pitch whilst lowering off if you fell. Someone this year also thought it would be funny to tie off some rubber ducks and slot them into some of the cracks on various pitches, with just the tat sticking out. I didn't hear of anyone falling for it, but my mate got one out. 

I think fixed gear is a really interesting ethical debate. The Nose (and many other routes) wouldn't go free without the pin scars from aid climbers, but these pin scars can also often be filled with pins or heads, making free climbing impossible again. It was really interesting to see whilst climbing The Wall of Early Morning Light this year what Tommy Caldwell did to protect some of the pitches on the free Dawn Wall. I think he got tired of aid climbers cleaning and taking the beaks he placed for pro between his attempts at the wall. Given that he couldn't bolt an existing aid route, he chose to absolutely welly a few into the cracks on certain pitches with no cleaning loops, effectively permanently fixing them. They are in a corner and flush with the rock, so once the wire/thread breaks they will turn into useless lumps of metal clogging good placements for aid and free climbers. Not the most sustainable solution in my opinion. To be fair they might not have been him, but I can't think of who else would have done it.

I personally really dislike fixed gear on aid routes, as it takes away all the challenge and turns routes into sometimes scary clip ups.

I remember you doing it. I think I was there at the same time. But I remember there being a bolt right by the Changing Corners crux.

E

Edit - Scroll down. http://camerasandcarabiners.com/lynn-hill/

Thanks for clarifying.  It wasn't clear to me from the article.