Two remarkable repeats of Free Rider

Stephanie Bodet from France redpointed  Free Rider (VI 5.12d) on El Cap in Yosemite. It was second female free ascent of the 37-pitch line, considered the “easiest free route on the face”. It's author, Alex Huber, described it as “very typical granite climbing with 60 meters of chimneys, 100 meters of off width, 100 meters of layback, 100 meters of no-feature slabs and more than 100 meters of finger-, hand- and first-sized cracks”. This ascent makes Stephanie only third woman to lead every pitch of a free route on El Cap (after Lynn Hill and Steph Davis). She spent 4 days practicing the route. The final push took her 5 days of climbing and half of it in a hot weather. She took only two falls.

Also a Canadian Stéphane Perron made all-free rope solo ascent of Free Rider. Perron spent six nights on the route, leading all but three of the pitches without any falls. After falling on those three pitches, he reached the anchors, cleaned the gear on rappel, and climbed the pitch free on his second go. Perron knew the lower half of the route, but from the top of the Ear he climbed all the pitches on-sight.

Photo: www.kairn.com