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

A Note from the Editor

This week, we have news of even more speed climbing, a death on the Royal Arches, and a GoFundMe for a climber undergoing an amputation.

On June 26, Aidin Vaziri at the San Francisco Chronicle reported:

An 18-year-old seasonal employee who died in a climbing accident this month in Yosemite National Park has been identified by his family as Grant Jeffrey Cline of Frisco, Texas.

Though details remain sparse, Cline is believed to have died while climbing Royal Arches, a popular but technically challenging granite formation in Yosemite Valley.

Search and rescue crews were involved in the recovery effort.

A celebration of life was held Thursday at Canyons Rock Climbing Gym in Frisco.

Instead of flowers, the family has asked for donations to Friends of Yosemite Search and Rescue.

A GoFundMe campaign to assist the family had raised more than $19,000 as of Friday.

Speaking of GoFundMe, on June 20, Jens Holsten underwent amputation surgery to remove his right leg below the knee. Click here to donate to his GoFundMe. Holsten worked and lived in Yosemite in the early 2000s and has many stories published in Alpinist. Read them here.

I remember one day while bouldering with him in Curry Village back in the day when he missed a two-handed dyno on Zorro and slammed directly onto two stacked mondo pads but still ended up with a broken foot. I carried him out.

Learn more about Jens and his late climbing partner, Chad Kellogg, here.

In speed climbing news, Oliver (Olly) Tippett has set more El Cap speed records. “Holy sh*t, four records in under a month,” wrote RJ Franklin on Tippett’s Instagram page. His most recent records are Kaos — to mark the route’s first one-day ascent – in 18:12 with Anton Korsun and, later, Virginia in 9:24 with Brant Hysell. We previously reported that Tippett and his partners set the speed record for Reticent Wall (21:57) and Sea of Dreams (21:33).

As far as El Cap history, the Nose was first climbed in a day 50 years ago, on June 21, 1975, by Jim Bridwell, John Long, and Billy Westbay. Their ascent required 17 hours 45 minutes, reported YCA on Facebook.

June also marks the 68th anniversary of the first ascent of the RNWF of Half Dome by YCA board member Jerry Gallwas and his partners, Royal Robbins and Mike Sherrik. Learn more about the first ascent here. This past week, Gallwas, board member Jim Thomsen, YCA founder Ken Yager, and I met in Mariposa to talk climbing. Over a salmon and brie platter at The Alley, Gallwas shared his story of his early ascent of Lost Arrow Chimney. We also talked about the late Bob Swift, who pulled Gallwas up the last pitch and gave him a ride in his Austin Healey. I spoke with Swift shortly before his passing. Learn more about him here, and be sure to check out his iconic images on display at the YCA museum in Mariposa.

For this week’s feature, we spoke with Laura Pineau, who, with Kate Kelleghan, became the first female team to climb El Cap, Half Dome, and Mt. Watkins (The Triple Crown) in a day. Read the feature below. We also plan to interview Kelleghan.

Chris Van Leuven

Editor, Yosemite Climbing Association News Brief

YosemiteClimbing.Org

May 30: Laura Pineau and Kate Kelleghan on top of Mt. Watkins after a practice run ahead of their link-up. “That was our final training lap on Watkins,” Pineau says. *Photo: Thibaut Marot*

Yosemite Triple Crown Interview: Laura Pineau

When Laura Pineau and Kate Kelleghan combined three iconic big walls in a day on June 7 and finished on June 8, it blew up climbing headlines. They did the South Face of Watkins in 4 hours 11 minutes – and thunderheads grew over the summit as they climbed—the Nose in 7:25, and the RNWF of Half Dome in 5:50.

It also reminded me of the first time El Cap and Half Dome had been climbed in under 24 hours by a female team back in 2012. I was there when those ascents took place by Mayan Smith-Gobat and Chantel Astorga and reported on the climbs for Adidas Outdoor. “It’s gonna take a little while until someone takes it,” says my article. After their link-up, as we’re sitting in El Cap meadow looking up at the great stone in the sky, Gobat looks over at Astorga and says, “I may even be back for the triple next year. Are you keen?” referring to adding, the 2,200 feet Mt. Watkins in 24 hours as well.

Back in 2001, Dean Potter and Timmy O’Neill did the triple for the first time, clocking in at 23:15. In 2012, Tommy Caldwell and Alex Honnold cut the time down to 21:45, and that same year, Honnold soloed the triple in 18:55. In 2024 Tanner Wanish and Michael Vaill set the new record at 17: 55.

Fast forward to 2025, where, supported by 20 friends and family members, Pineau and Kelleghan complete the feat in 23 hours and 36 minutes. “We planned hour by hour—every water bottle, every piece of food,” Pineau says.

When I spoke with Pineau, she said it took running laps on their objectives and an army to accomplish it. “All the months of training we did together really helped us bond over this project,” she says. And “We had 15 to 20 family and friends who came all the way there to help and support us on that day. We even had friends who hiked all of our gear from one mountain to another.”

“We both had a very strong mental game throughout the whole day. We had different skill sets that, when combined, allowed us to do the Triple in less than 24 hours.”

Kelleghan relied on her fast French-free technique and Pineau did more free climbing as she is 5.13+/5.14 crack climber. I interviewed Kelleghan in 2024, where I wrote:

Kelleghan’s sponsors include Ocun and Arctery’x Colorado, and she’s an AMGA apprentice rock guide… [and works on] Yosemite Search and Rescue (YOSAR). Kelleghan joined the rescue team in August of last year, and this was her first full summer in Yosemite. Speed climbing is in her blood, where she holds the women’s Naked Edge speed record in Eldorado Canyon, with Becca Droz, at 37:40 [in 2025 she and Pineau lowered it to 37:08]. “The speed record is measured “bridge-to-bridge,” meaning the clock starts at the bridge leading toward Redgarden Wall over South Boulder Creek, and then ends when you tag the bridge again after descending the East Slabs,” wrote James Lucas in Climbing. She also climbed the Casual Route on the Diamond on Longs Peak, Colorado, car-to-car, super fast. “My partner and I did it in just under seven hours, trailhead to trailhead,” she says. “The record is about 3.5 hours.” The Casual Route is a seven-pitch 5.10a at 14,000 feet guarded with a grueling five-mile approach.

Pineau from France wrote on LinkedIn: “Over the past year of becoming a professional climbing instructor, I realized that ‘climbing is all about the ascent and not the summit.’ Once I took the time to reflect on it, I not only applied it to my climbing experiences but also to my evolution as a leader in the professional world. Focusing on putting one foot in front of the other toward achieving my goals was key to me, as well as sticking to my core values.”

She says, regarding the triple, that logistics were “insane.” This included reducing inflammation in their feet by placing them in a cooler filled with cold water and ice cubes between routes, taking Advil or ibuprofen every few hours to alleviate the pain in their hands, and climbing as quickly as possible. “I knew I was taking the biggest risk of my whole life—and I was very aware of it.”

But there were setbacks. Storm clouds built over Watkins as they neared the top of their first big wall that day. “It rained on our friends when they hiked towards us, but it didn’t rain on us,” Pineau says. Sometimes they would simul climb with only two pieces between them.

On the last climb of the day, Half Dome, Pineau started falling asleep at the anchor while belaying Kelleghan, “which is pretty dangerous,” she says. “I mean, that’s not something you really want to happen, and that’s one moment where I was a little worried for how the rest of Half Dome would go because we still had 12 pitches to go, including the chimneys and I had to lead the Zig Zags and Thank God Ledge all the way to the top.

“So I was a little worried then because I felt extremely tired. But then, as soon as I was in the chimneys and I was simul-climbing behind Kate, I had kind of a second breath of life and found energy in me that I probably didn’t know I had. I wasn’t tired anymore, just moving, you know, and always putting one foot in front of the other, one hand in front of the other.

But the top of Half Dome brought a new storm. “We could see the clouds, and what surprised us when we arrived on top of Half Dome is that we had no videographers hanging on static ropes, and we couldn’t hear anyone cheering for us.

“And so that’s the moment where both of us knew something was wrong and that the weather was probably horrible in the back of Half Dome. And at this point, I was leading the top block, and I still had two hours to go. I was like, rain or no rain, I’m gonna finish this, and I’m gonna keep climbing. Like nothing was gonna stop us, you know, even a huge rainstorm.

“When we arrived on top our friends let us celebrate for 30 seconds, and they were like, ‘Okay, electricity is out of control here. We could be struck by lightning at any moment.’ So they told us, ‘drop all your metal gear. Let’s stash it. Let’s leave the rope.’ We left everything behind and ran down the cables. I think none of us, including Kate, really realized how dangerous it was because we were in such shock and exhausted from everything. So I’m grateful to our four friends who went up the cables to wait for us and help us.”

Reflecting on her experience on the triple, Pineau says, “It was definitely a team project between the videographers, our support crew and us, that’s what we wanted.”

She says the movie of their climb, sponsored by Coros, is in the works.