Freerider

Having just recovered from a palm sweating gmail chat session with NZ's dynamic climbing duo Max and Mayan (who are in California) we can report the following:

They have just completed the route Freerider on El Capitan.

It was hard.

They attempted to climb it all free in a single push and did extremely well, coming close to achieving this goal.

It was really hard.

They climbed all free up to the Monster Offwidth pitch, here Mayan struggled with the difficult friction dependant climbing leading into the offwidth and this was where their free attempt ended. Despite the fact that a massive storm was on it's way, the pair made the decision to continue to the top, they climbed mostly onsight and free, pulling on gear through some crux sections where necessary and topped out after three days on the wall.

It was a collossal effort, that we're all very inspired by here at the NZAC office. Now if only they could smuggle the big stone back to NZ so we can all have a go ... (you'd need a big suitcase)

For more info and some cool pics, visit Mayan's blog: http://mayangobat.wordpress.com/