“It Was the Hardest Thing I Could Think Of”: Inside a Badass Ascent of the “El Cap Triple”
Jordan Cannon and Michael Vaill had an absolutely marathon day of Yosemite climbing earlier this month, when they linked up three routes on El Capitan—the Salathé, Lurking Fear, and the Nose—in just 23 hours and 19 minutes. In total, the pair climbed over 8,000 feet of steep granite (roughly 80 guidebook pitches) while free climbing up to 5.13 and aiding A2.
Cannon first encountered the “El Cap Triple” in 2016. He had just staggered down from his very first El Cap route and met Brad Gobright, who’d made the second ascent of the link up with Scott Bennett. “Our route took six days and felt hard and epic,” Cannon tells Climbing. “So to meet Brad in the meadow afterward and hear his stories really left an impression on me. The El Cap Triple became the link up that I aspired to do one day. It was the biggest, hardest thing I could think of in Yosemite.”
History
Hans Florine and Steve Schnieder were the first to race up three El Cap routes in a day in 1994, via the Nose, Lurking Fear, and the West Face. But for those unfamiliar with the topography of El Cap, there is a distinction to be made between routes like the Nose and the West Face; the former is “big wall” route—graded VI for its high commitment while nearly 3,000 feet off the deck—while the latter is considered a “multi-pitch” and receives the tamer V grade due to its more modest 1,800 feet. As a result, Cannon says the 1994 link up is often considered “the birth of the idea” of the El Cap Triple. The West Face team cracked the door open for Alex Honnold and Sean Leary to burst through in 2010 and bag three VI routes—the Nose, Lurking Fear, and the Salathé in a day.
Building up to the El Cap Triple
Cannon was inspired by his meeting with Gobright nine years ago, but he was a long way from climbing like him. He had plenty of “firsts” to complete—first Nose in a day, first Half Dome in a day—and along the way Cannon began to grow comfortable with the idea of climbing nonstop for 24 hours. “It takes a long time to build all-day fitness,” he explains, “and seeing how your body responds to going without sleep.” After completing the Yosemite Triple Crown in 2021, which ticks El Capitan, Half Dome, and Mount Watkins, Cannon turned his attention almost exclusively to El Cap. His first “El Cap Double” was in 2024. That same season he met Michael Vaill.
Vaill made waves last year when he and Tanner Wanish set a blistering speed record on the Yosemite Triple Crown before upping the ante six days later with their invention of the Yosemite Quadruple: the Triple plus the South Face of Washington Column. Cannon watched all this from a distance and took note. “I was really impressed with Mike’s ability [to move quickly] on steep C1 pitches, which was the type of partner I needed to complement my free climbing background,” he says. Cannon had spent the start of his 2025 season making the fourth free ascent of the Salathé Wall (VI 5.13b/c) before turning his attention to the El Cap Triple with Vaill. “My strategy to climb the Salathé fast was to free large portions of the harder pitches because of my familiarity with the route right now,” he explains. The strategy worked well, and included some impressive nocturnal free climbing at the very top of the Salathé Headwall, where Cannon busted out a 5.13 sequence of “tips laybacking” instead of standing on some tedious micro-nut placements.
Sending the El Cap Triple
Cannon and Vaill started their day at 8 p.m. on June 2 and blasted up the Salathé in 6:47. The ascent went smoothly, more or less, save for a short aid fall Cannon took at the start of the Salathé Headwall, while simul climbing, in the middle of the night. Aside from brief, strategic moments of simul climbing, the duo planned to mainly short-fix (a tactic where both climbers move simultaneously as rope soloists, with a knot fixed to an anchor between them), enabling the second to jumar wearing approach shoes. “When you’re linking multiple routes in a day, limiting the time spent in climbing shoes is really important,” Cannon says. “Foot pain really builds throughout the day.” Due to the team’s varied strengths, Cannon could quickly dispatch lead blocks with free sections up to 5.12, while Vaill raced up blocks of sustained aid. Cannon says Vaill taught him a lot about how to aid climb quickly. “When you’re in full aid climbing mode, it’s easy to trick yourself into thinking it’s too hard to free climb—that you need to aid climb it,” Cannon says. But Vaill intentionally practiced his lead blocks as a free climber first, to dispel any assumptions of which pitches would actually be faster to aid. “[Vaill] remembers when the first half of a C1 pitch is just 5.9 … and develops an aid sequence around that, including which cams and hooks go where, much like a free climber,” Cannon says.
At the top of the Salathé, Cannon and Vaill hiked over to the top of Lurking Fear and rappelled back to the valley floor. They had discussed walking off the East Ledges descent after each route, but figured saving their energy by rappelling would keep the day as fun as possible. They got to the base of the wall at 4:30 a.m. and spent a stressful hour and a half waiting for their friend who had promised to resupply them with food and water. The friend never arrived—they’d slept in—but another scrambled to find the team’s supplies and hike up to them. The unscheduled rest may have been a blessing in hindsight because Cannon and Vaill set their PR on Lurking Fear: 4:41.
Another rappel descent teed them up for what ultimately became the low point of their day: climbing the Nose in the full June sun. “In some ways the crux of the El Cap Triple is climbing three big routes on the same sunny aspect,” Cannon says. “At some point you’re going to have to climb in the full sun, no matter what time you start, or which order you start the routes.” Knowing they had an hour-long buffer to finish within 24 hours, the pair slowed their pace on the Nose and tried to savor the day.
How the El Cap Triple compares to the Yosemite Triple Crown
When Cannon began preparing for the El Cap Triple after doing the Yosemite Triple, he thought the former would actually be easier since there was less hiking to do. “But I quickly realized that I was totally wrong,” he says, laughing. One benefit of the Yosemite Triple is that all of its walls are facing different directions, allowing climbers to spend all day in the shade. Another benefit is that its climbing is simply easier. “Even though, on paper, the El Cap Triple is only 1,000 feet more of climbing, the climbing you have to do is much steeper and harder,” Cannon explains.
On both objectives, Cannon says he tried to operate with a wide margin of safety. “When I was younger I was more willing to accept greater risk, but now from personal experience and seeing other people take big falls my personal risk is now much lower,” he says. “But we also weren’t fooling ourselves into thinking that, since we were climbing well, we’re invincible.” He cites a pitch of the Nose called the Stove Legs, a 5.8 hand crack which he essentially free soloed—he had one quickdraw clipped to the anchor and placed no cams. It would have been a horrendous 200-foot fall if he slipped. “But the likelihood of me falling was so small it felt like an acceptable risk to me,” Cannon says. “Thanks to our preparation and familiarity of all the routes, we could really choose when to take added risks, and why.”
What’s next after the El Cap Triple?
For climbers who dream about the El Cap Triple, it’s hard to imagine going even bigger in 24 hours. For Cannon, who has focused on speed climbing and in-a-day free ascents throughout his climbing career, he’s excited to turn towards all-free speed link ups next. “I’d like to try freeing more routes in one day. The El Cap Triple is as big as it gets for speed climbing at the moment. But there’s more free link ups to be had!
The post “It Was the Hardest Thing I Could Think Of”: Inside a Badass Ascent of the “El Cap Triple” appeared first on Climbing.