El Cap Rhinoplasty: The Nose Gets Straightened

This December, 26-year-old Swedish climber Hannes Puman snagged the first ascent of the pitch known as The Schnoz on The Nose of El Capitan in Yosemite National Park. This V10 boulder problem has been an unsent alternative to the notoriously tricky Changing Corners (5.14a/8c) pitch. As the first to send this variation, navigating past a pin-scarred corner, Puman has made the route a bit more accessible and made a step towards a more free and pure El Capitan.

Freeing the Nose

The Nose, which climbs up the prow of El Cap, splitting the southeast from the southwest portions of the wall, has a history dating back to 1958. That year, Warren Harding, Wayne Merry, Rich Calderwood, and George Whitmore became the first to climb the route over 47 days, drilling a bolt ladder to the summit. In the ensuing years, the route became the crucible for free climbing.

The route’s path to a free ascent required significant work. In the late `60s, Jim Bridwell and Jim Stanton freed the classic Stoveleg Crack pitches at 5.10+/6b+. In 1975, Ron Kauk, John Bachar, and Dale Bard freed more of the route, eliminating the aid except for a handful of pitches on the upper section at 5.11+/7a. Five years later, Ray Jardine made a significant push on The Nose, fixing lines and working large sections. He manufactured holds to create a traverse that bypassed the King Swing. However, his chipping was not well-received and Yosemite climbers drove him out of the park. For the next decade, climbers invested their energy into freeing other parts of El Cap.

Then in 1990, Brooke Sandhal tackled the route. His tactic was to rappel in from the top to work the crux. He rebolted many of the belays and added lead bolts for free climbing where necessary. Then he quickly accessed the four pitches that hadn’t been free climbed yet: The Great Roof, the pitch above Camp V, the Changing Corners, and the Harding Bolt Ladder. The latter is the final pitch to the summit. Sandhal made the first free ascent of the final pitch, then sorted the beta and sent the pitch above Camp V. Only two cruxes remained: the Great Roof and the Changing Corners.

History of the Changing Corners

In 1990, water streaked down the Great Roof, so Sandhal and Dave Schultz looked at the Changing Corners. Scouring the face, they found a variation 12 feet to the left. “It was more straightforward climbing and less worming around in that corner,” Sandhal says. The pair powered through most of the moves, climbing up to a small stance, then launching into a boulder problem.

“You do a big span move and get a tiny flat edge and then you’d have to match it,” Sandhal remembers. “Then you’d piano, getting your left hand where your right hand was.” This allowed Sandhal to reach over into the Changing Corners and finish up the 5.10/6b climbing on that pitch. The high temps made it too hard for Sandhal to link the climbing though.

The following year, Sandhal returned with Lynn Hill, who made quick work of the Great Roof. But as a short-statured climber, she lacked the reach to send the variation pitch, so she tackled the original aid line. By performing a contortionist series of stemming, arm barring, and El Cap disco, she freed the Changing Corners. Hill and Sandhal then attempted the route from the ground over five days. Sandhal was able to do all the moves on the Great Roof but ran out of time.

In the end, Hill ended up redpointing the two crux pitches, making the first free ascent of El Capitan via The Nose. A year later, she returned to climb it in a single day in one of the most significant climbing accomplishments in history. Despite attempts by some of the world’s strongest climbers, the route has only seen a dozen free ascents in the past 21 years.

Why so few? The answer usually boils down to the Changing Corners (5.14a/8b+) pitch. The cryptic style makes it hard to repeat. While working the route in 2004, Matt Wilder scoped Sandhal and Schultz’s variation. Supposedly a hold had broken, making it impossible to traverse into the Changing Corners.

In the early 2000s, Alex and Thomas Huber and Ivo Ninov had bolted a belay at the small stance, making it more accessible. This allowed Wilder to stand and stare at a sequence of holds that lead more directly to the Changing Corners anchor. “It’s hard and technical,” Wilder says of the variation. Though he was nearing a ground up attempt, on the day he sent the variation on toprope, he tore his rotator cuff lower down on a 12d/7c pitch, thus ending his bid.

The Nose Gets Straightened

Earlier this season, Alex Honnold added a lead bolt to The Schnoz to make climbing the variation safer, and to direct the line to the anchors of the Changing Corners. “It’s the way it should be,” Honnold says. “You wind up at a nice stance, you skip the other hanging belay on The Nose, and you do the crux right off the belay. It’s kind of a better thing.”

After dialing the V10 moves, Honnold attempted the route from the ground, sending through the Great Roof in a day with Tommy Caldwell belaying. “I fell on the last move of The Schnoz,” Honnold says.

 

After splitting a tip, he tried to send it with his back three fingers. Then he split another tip. “I was just bleeding everywhere,” says Honnold, whose index and middle fingers were gushing blood. Unable to hold on despite numerous attempts, he tensioned over to the Changing Corners and finished up the route. “Is this middle age and not quite having the fire?” Honnold remembers contemplating when he left the Valley.

Hannes Puman frees The Schnoz

Honnold may have lacked the fire this year, but it was alive and well inside Swedish climber Hannes Puman. On his two-month trip from October through early December, he worked his way through the Yosemite classics. He bouldered in the Valley, flashing the technically demanding Kauk Slab (V8), as well as the iconic Midnight Lightning (V8) and the highball King Air (V10).

Puman headed to Tuolumne, where he fired off Peace (5.13c/8a+) on Medlicott Dome. He stemmed up Book of Hate (5.13d/8b) at the Elephant’s Graveyard and crushed his fingers in the vice grip of Cosmic Debris (5.13b/8a). He also explored longer routes, including an ascent of Lost Arrow Chimney, a 10-pitch 5.10a route that navigates a series of wide climbing on the Yosemite Falls Wall. And he made quick work of Wet Lycra Nightmare (5.13d/8b A0) on Leaning Tower and Final Frontier (5.13b/8a) on Fifi Buttress.

Toward the end of this send spree, Puman turned his attention to El Capitan, where he and his partner Jacob Östman, free-climbed Free Rider* (5.13a/7c+). “It was my first big wall,” Puman says. 

They began the route the day after a storm, so many of the cracks were wet or damp. They expected the climb to take three days, but it took five. Without a #7 camalot, Puman climbed The Hollow Flake without protection. Mice ate their water tank and their haul line got a core shot. “We didn’t really expect it to be such an extreme experience,” Puman says. Despite the challenges, they made easy work of the climbing. Puman fell once on Freeblast and once on the Enduro Corner pitch, while Ostman only fell on the Boulder Problem pitch. They redpointed the pitches and walked away with a free ascent.

After just two rest days, Puman went on to tackle The Nose. “I was really exhausted,” he recalls. But he decided to just try his best and “see what happens.” That attitude helped carry him up the wall.

With support from 22-year-old Scottish climber Jamie Lowther, Puman made it to the Great Roof. But when he got there, he discovered water dripping from the pitch. He attempted to dry the holds, but each time he dried it and started climbing, different holds became wet. He fought through the water, sending the hard underclinging traverse of the Great Roof.

Finally, Puman reached the Changing Corners. He had rappelled into the pitch before, working the moves. While he had hoped to send both the Changing Corners and the variation, he reached the crux tired. “At that point, I just wanted to do it,” Puman says of taking on The Schnoz. “It’s a lot more basic and Changing Corners is super technical,” he adds. So he crimped his way through the hard moves and made the first ascent of the pitch. Then he continued to the summit, becoming one of the elite few to have free-climbed Yosemite’s classic route.

 

So why did it take so long to free The Schnoz? Many free climbers on The Nose may have not even known about this alternative route, and weren’t looking for the beta. The path of least resistance was to stick to the aid line, and until December 2024, that’s what everyone had done. Since Honnold had been working the line and chalked it shortly before Puman’s ascent, he in effect paved the way for the variation to be freed.

Ultimately, Sandhal, Wilder, Honnold, Puman, and other climbers’ attempts on The Schnoz mark an evolution in Yosemite’s big wall free climbing evolution. Instead of following the exact aid line, climbers have moved along the wall, searching for better alternatives to the chipped and pin-scarred terrain. While much of El Cap free climbing depends on freeing existing aid lines, sending The Schnoz shows that not every hard pitch needs to be pinned out first, a concept that may preserve the rock of other formations.

*Although the route is today most commonly formatted as Freerider, Alexander Huber has noted that the route was actually meant to be formatted as two words (Free Rider). This is a reference to the 1969 film Easy Rider. 

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