New El Capitan Speed Record Attempt Today? Huber Brothers’ Record In Jeopardy

The Huber Brothers made headlines last year for breaking the speed-ascent record up The Nose of El Capitan. Their record may be in jeopardy of being broken when former record holder, Hans Florine, attempts to recapture his title of having the fastest ascent of one of the world’s hardest rock walls. Most climbers take 3-4 days to ascend the massive wall. The Hubers’ took a mere 2 hours, 25 minutes, breaking Hans Florine’s previous record by a mere three minutes.

Hans Florine has teamed back up with his former climbing partner, the one who originally helped him set his world mark, Yuji Hirayama. Yuji happens to be a man of celebrity in the world of rock climbing, especially in his native land of Japan where he has put up some amazing first ascent free-soloes on some of Japan’s largest cliffs.

The team is planning on making a run of the record at some point today. Don’t be surprised if you see some headlines in the coming days. Suffering from jet lag, a bandaged and sore finger, and barely any sleep, Yuji and Hans put up a time of 2 hours and 48 minutes–for practice.

By the way, the cool video in the corner is of the Hubers’ record breaking run up El Cap last year which will be featured in a soon-to-be-released movie “To The Limit.” Pretty incredible that this can now be done, under the right circumstances, in under 3 hours. Maybe we should have a nationally televised climb-off between the two–that would be sweet!