Pair break speed record climbing El Capitan’s Nose

On long climbs, Brad Gobright usually lets his mind wander — to his favorite television shows, a song stuck on repeat in his head, food, friends and memories.

But on Saturday, as Gobright and his climbing partner, Jim Reynolds, attempted to scale one of the world’s most famous and dangerous verticals in record-breaking time, there was no room for even a second of distraction.

It could have cost him precious time — or, worse, his life.

Gobright and Reynolds set a new speed record on the Nose route of El Capitan in Yosemite National Park on Saturday, climbing the nearly 90-degree 2,900-foot precipice in 2 hours and 19 minutes. That’s four minutes faster than the previous record set five years ago.

“The big thing that Jim and I were worried about was that to some extent you have to kind of put safety behind you when you’re trying to move that fast,” Gobright, 29, said in an interview Sunday. “It requires a lot of focus, much more than a regular climb. Speed climbing requires your full attention.”

Just 10 days earlier, a friend of theirs, Quinn Brett, suffered paralyzing spinal injuries when she fell 100 feet off the Boot Flake feature of the Nose and landed on boulders below. She, too, was attempting to climb the route in a day, though not for a speed record.

Reynolds and Gobright had originally planned to attempt their record-setting climb the next day, but postponed after learning of Brett’s fall.

“I worry about people up there,” said Ken Yager, the president and founder of the Yosemite Climbing Association. “It’s a very dangerous pursuit. Especially when you add speed to the mix.”

More than two dozen people have been killed on El Capitan since 1905. Yager, who used to lead climbs up the Nose, said it typically takes three days to complete the ascent, which tops out at 7,569 feet above sea level.

The conditions Saturday were less than ideal. The air was tinged with smoke, pushed into the Yosemite Valley by winds from the north. The route was crowded with climbers, more than Gobright had ever seen in his nearly 30 times up the Nose.

They weren’t sure they would make it. But they decided they had to try.

To maximize their speed, they ditched camming devices meant to prevent falls and whatever weighty gear they could live without. They didn’t pack food or water.

After two hours of heavy breathing, Gobright said, he could feel the smoke affecting him. His throat was scratchy, his mouth dry. But they were so close. Yager and other rock-climbing experts said what pushed Gobright and Reynolds over the speed record was their strategy in the climb’s final stretch: The two men ascended nearly simultaneously, foregoing the usual practice of having one climber go on ahead of the other.

“If you’ve got two fast people and they can climb together, that’s how you get the fastest time,” Yager said. “With a standard ascent you’ll have a lot more gear, and you’ll use a lot more of that gear. (Gobright and Reynolds) had about one piece of gear between them and the ground.”

When they reached the top, Gobright said, they could hear the cheers of a crowd of friends, family and supporters gathered on the meadow below. Five minutes later, he said, his phone beeped with the receipt of a new message.

It was from Hans Florine, the previous record holder. He was sending his congratulations.

Florine and Alex Honnold climbed the Nose in 2 hours and 23 minutes in June 2012. Florine, now 53, has set eight speed records for his climbs up the Nose since 1990.

Gobright, who has been climbing since he was 7 years old, said the Nose has always held a special appeal for him. But it wasn’t until a year and a half ago, on his first climb with Reynolds, that he thought he might be a contender for the speed record.

“Before Jim and I were trying to go for the record, we’d just do it fast so we’d have time to do more climbs before the sun went down,” he said. “Thinking we could try for the record seemed crazy at first. It was this really big, big goal that seemed kind of out of reach. I think that’s why we wanted to do it.”