[Tommy]

That's really really impressive. There's in fact not that many ascents free of Salathe in what I would consider fair style (I.e. not climbing part, then going off the wall for X-number of days and coming back to finish off / splitting the headwall pitch) so it's very cool that our favourite British psycho trad man has done it. Doing it GU is adds even more to it. Very inspiring.

[Johnny Brown]

Agreed, very impressive. Not to be confused with Freerider, which is a 'lite' version of the Salathe avoiding the headwall. Remember that old footage of Pete Takeda on the headwall in Masters of Stone, amazing!

[slackline]

Well done to #team bmc member James Mchafie for sending the #Salathe free ground up!!

Climbed (at least in part) with Dan McManus.

James & Dan On Long Ledge...

[abarro81]

http://danmcmanus.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/salathe-wall.html

Write up of Dan and Caff's time on the route. Sounds like headwall was in 2 pitches not the uber-pitch version.

[Tommy]

Ah... not ground up or headwall in a oner.... Oh well Caff, do a few more 9a's and you'll probably have the fitness base ;-)

Good effort anyway and does sound annoying with those fixed ropes. I didn't know that anyone did that kind of crap any more. Dan is clearly destined to return with Reeve. Reeve, you know it if you're reading this! 

[Stubbs]

On an EL Cap note from his instagram Ethan Pringle missed out on the flash of Freerider with one fall on pitch 23 http://instagram.com/p/oKGurunQpx/ Not sure how significant this is, remember Yuji getting close to doing Golden Gate first go, has anyone every flashed El Cap?!

[abarro81]

I believe Cedric lachat flashed all the pitches on free rider, but they abandoned their 1st attempt part way up due to screwing up logistics and came back a dew days later better prepared.. Grey area I guess on whether it 'counts'

[reeve]

Dan is clearly destined to return with Reeve. Reeve, you know it if you're reading this! 

What, me getting dragged up another route beyond my ability at the hands of Dan McCool?
Arrrgggggghhhhhhhhhh!! 

[iain]

has anyone every flashed El Cap?!

No idea, but I had a vague, and accurate as it turns out, memory of Leo Houlding being one fall away from an onsight of Freerider. Also 2 falls trying to onsight El Nino.

http://www.ukclimbing.com/news/item.php?id=57665
Interview near the bottom.

These modern wads need to try harder 

Good effort James and Dan.

[duncan]

... has anyone every flashed El Cap?!

Not yet!

In addition to the above, Uli Steck also got very close on Golden Gate: one fall on the 5.11 pitch off El Cap Spire (it was wet) but onsighting all the hard pitches.

[slackline]

What stubbs said. 

[Palomides]

It's flipping Wallstreet!!

I had the poster!! Great effort.

Another photo (and a bit of an interview) from Kairn.com

[Doylo]

I struggle to understand how a 9a in 1.5hrs is really meaningful to Megos?

9a+! 

[Doylo]

It ll be interesting how he finds 9b when the time comes....

[Jaspersharpe]

Stop hating on the geez!!

Sent from my HTC One_M8 using Tapatalk

[petejh]

Personally I'm loving the Hubble sub-plot developing. The way it's going, it's going to be big news who out of Ondra or Megos does it first - I bet we won't hear much about timescales then: multiple days, pah!

[Doylo]

It's great that Hubbles so fookin ard

[Jaspersharpe]

Has McColl done it yet?

Sent from my HTC One_M8 using Tapatalk

[Stu Littlefair]

He posted on twitter saying how hard it was. You could read that either way...

[kelvin]

Maybe the question should be - will McColl do it?

[ianto9]

when one of them onsights LA  Hubble or quarryman or AD then we should start thinking about regrading all the e1's in the world

[Jaspersharpe]

He posted on twitter saying how hard it was. You could read that either way...

https://twitter.com/mccollsean/status/469182150080606209

[Doylo]

Ben Moon in 1990, total wad!

[slackline]

According to Björn on the other channel, Alex Megos needed 1,5 hour to repeat "The man that follows Hell" 9a+ at Grüne Hölle.

Not just The Man That Follows Hell (9a+) (five attempts over the 1 ¹/₂ hours but also....

...Black Label (9a) in 1.5 hours, Matador (9a) in 2.5 hours, The Essential (9a) in 9 attempts and in 3.5 hours

    Great effort and very impressive.

[shark]

Who cares about how long he took?

In a fucking day???
 

I knew that someone was going to quote that post. I will try to be more precise. Mods, feel free to split/log.
In my opinion, some things are newsworthy, others are not. "In a day" has always been a benchmark for special ascents, for various reasons. But now we are down to "in x hours", and in bouldering to "in x minutes".....

Split topic for this discussion: Who cares how long he took?