In Yosemite, Barbara Zangerl has just achieved an exceptional feat that no-one else has managed before. She completed thirty pitches of Freerider on El Capitan (7c+ or 5.13a), without a single fall. Thirty-one years after Lynn Hill’s first free Nose on the same El Capitan wall, it’s once again a woman who is making free climbing history on The Captain, by setting the coveted first “flash” on the big stone.
Those who follow Barbara Zangerl’s career will not be surprised. Familiar with Yosemite, the Austrian climber is in great shape, having just repeated one of Yosemite’s most difficult trad climbing routes, Magic Line, at the end of October. Nevertheless, the “flash” ascent of Freerider, on El Capitan, is without doubt one of the most sought-after objectives for the best climbers – by which I mean men – in… years.
Freerider is the slightly easier, or slightly softer, version of