Your window into the stories, history, and ongoing work to preserve Yosemite’s climbing legacy.

A Note from the Editor

The speed-climbing season is in full swing in Yosemite, with several teams ticking huge link ups in rapid times.

El Cap Triple Linkup – Second Ascent

Jordan Cannon and Mike Vaill repeated the Sean Leary/Alex Honnold “El Cap Triple” (Salathé Wall, Lurking Fear, and the Nose in a single day). Vaill wrote on Instagram:

“Last week, Jordan Cannon and I completed the second ascent of one of the largest linkups in Yosemite… three of the most classic and beautiful Grade VI routes on El Cap, all in one day.”

Vaill notes the day rivals anything he has climbed, calling it harder pitch-for-pitch than his and his partner's 2023 “Yosemite Quad” (Watkins, El Cap, Half Dome, and Washington Column).

Watkins-El Cap-Half Dome in 22 Hours

On May 29, Jacob Cook and Brant Hysell completed the standard Yosemite Triple—South Face of Mount Watkins, the Nose, and the Regular Northwest Face of Half Dome—in 22 hours (4 p.m. start to 2 p.m. finish).

Jacob Cook wrote on Instagram:

The Yosemite Triple is a link-up that climbs arguably three of the best rock climbs in the world, around 70 guidebook pitches and ~7000 feet of vertical terrain.

First Women’s Yosemite Triple Crown

As reported by Sam MacIlwaine in Climbing (June 8), Kate Kelleghan and Laura Pineau became the first women to complete a Triple Crown link up. Their itinerary—Regular NW Face of Half Dome, the Nose on El Cap, and Mount Watkins—matches the variant used by many modern speed teams.

Macllwaine wrote: “Pineau, a 5.14a/5.13d crack climber, has never done more than one of those formations in a day, but Kelleghan, a former YOSAR member and speed veteran, has linked the other two: the Regular Northwest Face (5.9 C1; 2,200ft) of Half Dome and the Nose (5.9 C2; 3,000ft) on El Cap.”

To learn more about Kelleghan, check out this story I wrote in Gripped in August 2024: “Female Team Climbs El Cap Twice in a Day, Marking Second Time in History.”

One-Day Ascent of Sea of Dreams

Brandon Adams, Miles Fullman, and Oliver Tippett climbed El Cap’s Sea of Dreams in 21 h 33 m, likely the first one-day ascent of the A4 classic. Tippett wrote on Instagram:

I thought it wouldn’t be as hard as the Reticent, but I was wrong. The climbing on the Sea is much more sustained and tricky to work out. The rock is also a lot less solid, which makes climbing quickly particularly difficult. Falls on the Sea would also probably have higher consequences in a lot of places too.

Brandon led an absolute hero block from the ground to Big Sur Ledge, about halfway up, in just over 9 hours. This included the crux ‘Hook or Book’ pitch.

I then took over for the Diorite block. Very quickly I became fully engrossed in the climbing and blocked out everything else. I was in a constant state of mild fear for my whole 11 hour block.

Miles then led the El Niño free pitches to the top in rapid time. He was also key to us moving quickly by helping clean the complex traversing pitches and keeping the psyche high.

Profile Preview: Third-Generation El Cap Ascent

This week, we’re profiling Tommy Herbert, who climbed Lurking Fear in a day with his father, Tom Herbert—likely the first documented third-generation El Cap top-out. Tommy’s grandfather, Golden-Age legend TM Herbert, established the Muir Wall on El Cap (with Yvon Chouinard), the West Face of El Cap (with Royal Robbins), and the Chouinard-Herbert on Sentinel. TM’s son Tom holds the Muir Wall speed record. Read my story in Gripped here.

See below for the feature story on Tommy and Tom’s ascent of Lurking Fear.

Chris Van Leuven

Editor, Yosemite Climbing Association News Brief

YosemiteClimbing.Org

Mark Hudon and Jordan Cannon on top of El Cap. Photo: Jordan Cannon

Tommy Herbert and Father Tom Make First Third-Generation El Cap Ascent

“I might be the only third-generation El Cap climber—Grandpa, Dad, and now me.”

High-profile second-generation pairings on El Cap are rare enough—think Jim Herson climbing the Nose and Half Dome with his kids Kara and Connor (they first topped Half Dome’s NW Face at ages 12 and 13, then the Nose a year later, as I noted in Men’s Journal in 2019).

Last week, I also spoke with Peter and Braden Mayfield; they’ve done the Nose in a day together and repeated Zenyatta Mondatta for the route’s 20th anniversary (Peter made the first ascent with Jim Bridwell and Charlie Row in 1981). Learn more about Braden here.

An AAJ story from 2004 adds another generational note: [The late] “Ammon McNeely, with his brother Gabriel and his son Austin, linked Shortest Straw to Surgeon General to the Zodiac, including two new pitches. They named the route Jose Memorial Variation in honor of Jose Pereyra and Joe Crowe, who both perished in climbing accidents. Austin, at 13 years of age, becomes the youngest person involved in a first ascent on El Capitan.”

None of those teams, however, spans three generations. When I interviewed Tommy Herbert this week, he couldn’t think of another family where grandfather, father, and now grandson had all topped out on El Cap. His May 22 one-day ascent of Lurking Fear, plus fixing the day before with his father, Tom Herbert, likely marks the first.

A quick primer on Tom Herbert
I profiled Tom in Men’s Journal in 2020:

In his younger years, Herbert dirtbagged out of the back of his truck so he could save his money, have few responsibilities, and climb hard (5.14). In 1998, Climbing Magazine called him one of the sport’s up-and-comers. He spent his late teens and early 20s guiding for the Yosemite Mountaineering School, where he met his wife of 30 years, Sondra. After guiding, he entered medical school and has been practicing for the last 16 years. As a hospitalist physician, the primary doctor on staff, he treats heart attacks, strokes, and all of the life-threatening or severe cases that come in the door.

At age 50, he climbed 3,000-foot El Capitan twice in a single day for a total of 50 pitches to celebrate 50 years.

Also in 2020, I wrote in Gripped about Tom setting the Muir Wall speed record.

Though Lurking Fear marks Tommy’s first VI El Cap route, he’s done the South Face of Washington Column, the West Face of El Cap with his dad (a grade V) and the Chouinard-Herbert on Sentinel, also a grade V.

Tommy’s push

“This was my first Grade VI, so both Dad and I took it very seriously,” Tommy says.
Tom has done Lurking Fear about 20 times, “but he still prepped as if it was brand-new.”
They fixed the first five pitches, started at 5:35 a.m. on 22 May 2025, and topped out in 12 hours and 24 minutes, climbing light with a single 80-meter rope, a few bars, and electrolyte mix.
The only slowdown came on the tricky aid of Pitches 11–12, where Tommy bonked a bit, wolfed down a bar, and rallied.
Jordan Cannon and Mike Vaill—training for their El Cap Triple—passed them at midway and snapped a few photos that Tommy sent over for this story.

Highlights, in Tommy’s words

“Early-morning jugging, valley lights below—that’s when it hit me we’re really doing this.”
“Thanksgiving Ledge felt like breaking the finish-line tape, and someone had left extra water—morale boost!”
“Walking off the top via East Ledges closed the circle; rapping didn’t seem right.”
“What made it most special was being able to do it with my dad, and being able to share this experience with him.”

What’s next
Tommy has just finished medical school and will start a three-year family medicine residency at the University of Nevada, Reno, in two weeks. “Big walls will be scarce,” he says, adding that UNR’s wilderness-medicine fellowship might “finally merge climbing and medicine for me.”