Yeah Woman! Nina Caprez repeats Yeah Man (8b+, 300m) in Gastlosen, Switzerland

A year after becoming a mother, Nina Caprez is back climbing as well as ever before. The Swiss climber has a penchant for hard multi pitches and in the past the 36-year-old has ticked classics such as Silbergeier and Unendliche Geschichte in the Rätikon massif, Delicatessen in Corsica and Hotel Supramonte in Sardinia. Now she has added another high-end testpiece to her name, namely Yeah Man in the Gastlosen massif in Switzerland.

The route in question is located on the north face of Grand Pfad and was originally established in 1999 by the Swiss mountain guides Francoise Studemann and Guy Scherrer. The pair only freed up to the fourth pitch, and five years later the Basque duo Josune Bereziartu and Rikar Otegi stepped in and made the first free ascent. The 300m line sports 9 pitches with increasing difficulties, and the crux 8b+ pitch is located just one rope length shy of the summit.

Earlier this June Caprez checked the route out with Pauline Maheo, a talented 19-year-old who must figure as one of the strongest aupairs around. On their fifth day Caprez managed to send the crux pitch. "This really motivated me to give it a proper try" she told planetmountain, adding "Pauline was also making good progress and that's why we decided to try a team free ascent." The pair returned and Caprez managed to climb every pitch free, needing two goes on only the 7c pitch 4. Unfortunately Maheo fell twice on the 8b+ and the pair then pushed on to the summit.

Caprez dedicated her redpoint to Giovanni Quirici, her close friend who perished in 2011 and whose own ascent of Yeah Man inspired her to give it her all. Sunday's redpoint weighs in as the first female ascent since Bereziartu freed all pitches (remarkably the 8a flash) but did not make a single-push ascent due to the terrible weather that summer. Commenting after her successful ascent, Caprez explained "If I'm honest, progress on the route went far faster than expected. Having said that, for me personally I had to dig deep to try a route as hard as this just a year after my daughter's birth. It was an unbelievable and somewhat surreal feeling to be on the summit. Down in the valley I could hear my partner Jeremy cheering, and he then raced up to the start of the route with my daughter Lia and I cried when I met her there. Being a mom is such a beautiful thing and it certainly puts so many things in perspective."

For the record, Caprez and Maheo returned for a second redpoint attempt but Maheo failed again at the top crux. Given that she's only 19, after this week-long crash course in multi-pitch climbing there's certainly far more in store in the future.

YEAH MAN
P1: 7a, P2: 7b+, P3: 7b+, P4: 7c, P5: 8a+, P6: 8a/8a+, P7: 8a, P8: 8b+, P9: 7a

Links: IG Nina Caprez, www.ninacaprez.ch Petzl, SCARPA, Arc'teryx