Continue with onX Maps
Sign in with Facebook
Naked Edge record broken!
|
This evening Stefan Griebel and Joe Kennedy broke the bridge-to-bridge record on the Naked Edge, setting a new time of 22:44. The previous FKT was set on 5/22/20 by John Ebers and Ben Wilbur at 24:14 (which Stefan and Joe tied within half a second last week!). Really impressive to watch from start to finish. The pair was exactly on record pace until Stefan gained 30s on P4 alone and then an additional 45s on P5. Joe ran the East Slabs in 3:30, which is almost certainly the record on the descent itself. |
|
Anybody have a GPX track for the non locals |
|
Tracks are not great due to the nature of Eldo, but here they are: |
|
Watched the show while climbing Outer Space. Incredible! |
|
Video? Sounds sick to watch |
|
The elevation profile on that second strava link is very satisfying. It looks like you can see the approach, the crux and the walk off all very clearly. Thanks for posting |
|
Absolutely insane how quickly they were moving! My partner and I got to witness (and join in on hollering some support) from the Whale’s Tail |
|
Speed climbing is a dangerous game, I hope this is the last record on The Naked Edge. |
Alex Fletcherwrote: I don’t understand the loop on that one. |
|
Sick details Jack, thanks!! |
Tradibanwrote: True, you have to wonder how fast a person could go before slipping, even given perfect beta and hand/foot placement. If anyone would care to enlighten me, the uninitiated, are there any smears on the edge that could blow if you went too fast? |
John Clarkwrote: Maybe a couple before the corner pull on P2 (although those are more just small edges). There are some small feet on P4 but you've got so much counter pressure that I doubt it matters if you hit them directly (vs just smearing on an adjacent part of the wall). P5 I'd think your feet could grease off the ramp before the ear if you were truly hucking it. That being said, from the ground a ~12 minute lead of the Edge looks a lot more like normal climbing than autobelay-and-red-holds speed climbing. The speed comes from the fact that they never really stop moving (Joe even cleans the first micro with one hand while he's still climbing). They're still sighting their footholds, climbing intentionally, etc. Though I'm sure it feels like chaos to the climbers. Stefan also has 280+ laps on the Edge, which helps a lot. |
John Clarkwrote: It's not even just the route itself. I'm not trying to toot my own horn here, but I'm pretty sure I could hurt myself somewhat seriously trying to come down the slabs that fast. |
Dave Aliewrote: This is where I'm at too. The climbing, sort of meh. They're doing it fairly safely (at least from a speed perspective). To me, it's the slab descent. I do so much of the slabs "backwards" (ie facing the wall, essentially downclimbing), I can't imagine how fast they're going, just praying the rubber sticks on each step... |
Chris Johnsonwrote: Idk, if you do it enough it starts to feel pretty reasonable (not that this is a great defense). The upper bit of the slabs are almost entirely runnable. After you cut skiier's left into the trough it's a lot of triceps and crab walking and other funkness (like doing a sideways lache off the Dr. Seuss tree). Though when Joe and I were going for the Yellow Spur last year I did slide the length of the trough on one of our attempts (turns out that's just as fast). I found a video of Joe running the slabs on Saturday: strava.com/activities/80046… |
Jack Neuswrote: Where is the video at that link? I don't see it. |
Marc801 Cwrote:  |
|
If you're on a desktop browser and don't have a Strava account, this is all you see:  |
Jack Neuswrote: Thanks for the video! That looks way less sketchy than I had imagined. |
|
At the end of the day, who really cares? |
|
An outstanding athletic and technical performance. Impressive by any standard. I followed their progress on Strava all summer and they truly earned this one. They put in so much work on the new speed record. I've never worked so much for any climbing goal. I've climbed the Naked Edge 7-8 times and just the amount of beta you have to memorize to climb that efficiently is a feat unto itself. Not to the mention the level of cardio they're at. It was a world class performance by two "amateurs." I would argue it was no more dangerous than most other ascents given the level of preparation they put in. As well as the level of focus they were bringing to the table. I recently took a massive whip off the top of the last pitch and I was climbing slow and careful. I also got gripped on the 5.8 pitch! A fall there would have been bad. I for one applaud this performance. It's worthy. |
