Hannes Puman climbs The Nose free via Schnaz Variation

On his first-ever visit to Yosemite valley, 26-year-old Hannes Puman from Sweden made a remarkable free ascent of The Nose on El Capitan via what is known as the Schnaz Variation. This section avoids the famous Changing Corners pitch, regarded by many as the crux of the entire climb, and, instead, trends off leftwards past a series of tiny, reachy crimps before returning to the rest of the line.

According to initial research, this section was bolted by Brooke Sandahl and Dave Schultz in their efforts to free the Nose in 1992, a year before Lynn Hill's historic first free ascent and discarded by the American for being too reachy. It is likely to be the first time this boulder section, also known as Brooke's variation, has been freed despite attempts by some of the best Yosemite climbers.

Climbing this winter with Jamie Lowther from Scotland, Puman spent 6 days on the wall for his free ascent, which came after one Dolt run and one session on both the Schnaz and Changing Corners. It is worth noting that prior to the push, Puman spent 5 days making a free ascent of Freerider with fellow countryman Jakob Östman, and rested only 2 days in between.

Talking to planetmountain briefly from the airport on his way home, Puman explained that he had both the Changing Corners and Schnaz Variation in mind. "I wanted to do both, but the Great Roof was wet and took a while so I didn’t have the time. It was appealing to do the first ascent of an old project, even Lynn Hill writes about trying it in her book. I want to come back and do the Corners. It's amazing!" As to the grade, he stated "it's difficult to say, I was so tired up there, and grades differ so much depending on where you are. But if you are able to do big moves on small and sharp crimps, it’s not so bad."

This is a running story and further details will follow in due course.

 

 

 

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