Honnold solos U-Wall?

[squamish climber]

Word out on Instagram and the Instanet is that Alex Honnold soloed University Wall 5.12, 900 feet and 8 pitches yesterday (Aug 26/14). This is unconfirmed so far but if verified must be one of the boldest Squamish solos...ever. Recall in 2011 Honnold soloed Northern Lights 5.12a, 12 pitches, which is considered harder than Astroman but easier than U-Wall.

The first two pitches contain all the nightmarish elements that give aspiring climbers sweaty palms - wet, slimy fingerlocks, barndoor lieback, flying armbar, bomb bay chimmney, wild uncling and an overhanging flared chimmney.

I wonder if this included the Shadow pitch 5.12.d+?

Last week Honnold soloed 290 pitches in Squamish for his birthday, see the RV Project : Alex Honnold’s Birthday Challenge: A Year’s Supply of Climbing

Anybody able to add to this?

[jstod]

pretty incredible stuff!

[Brendan]

.

[jstod]

Supposedly he recently retook the speed record on Grand Wall as well - 38 minutes…!

[tsouth]

He couldn't have done it on that day, August 26th, as he left squamish the day after his birthday as far as I know to do the North Face speaker series tour. http://www.thenorthface.com/en_CA/get-o ... er-series/ Could have done it before his birthday I guess.

[relic]

uhhh, I saw his van in the grand wall lot on the 25th and 26th, which was after the speaking series was done(check the dates in your link). So he probably did do it on the 26th as said on James Lucas's instagram.

[Peter]

from his 8a card: "Solo!! Long time dream, finally done. Maybe 2 hours car to car, including the Roman Chimneys and the barefoot stroll down. So psyched! ***"

[squamish climber]

Great article/interview here at Alpinist where he talks about his ascent.

This is what he says about the hardest part:

One of the best parts for me was the crux of the second pitch, a sloppy and insecure undercling traverse that I'd always thought would be the scariest part. I knew how I planned to do it, but when I got there I felt so tight and strong under the roof that I wound up almost skipping the crux. I didn't even have to do the moves I expected to, I just sort of brute-strengthed my way across, and it was over before I knew it. It was a pleasant surprise for me.