Big wall climber Mayan Smith-Gobat is returning to the Mecca of rock climbing, Yosemite Valley in California.
Mayan Smith-Gobat
What: 1) Free climb the Nose on El Capitan (2307m), 2) free climb a link-up of El Capitan and Half Dome (1444m), and 3) break the speed record on the Nose
Where: Yosemite Valley, California, USA
When: May 2013
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Christchurch’s Mayan Smith-Gobat has already notched up a number of world firsts. In the rock-climbing world, she’s unstoppable.
Known as one of the world’s best female rock climbers, Mayan proved this once again last year when she hit the headlines for her free climb of the Salathe on El Capitan, a famous rockface in California’s Yosemite Valley. It was the was the first time a New Zealander had free-climbed this wall and a week later she did the whole 1,000m face in a single 14-hour push.
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Challenge one: Free climbing the Nose
In free climbing, rope is used as a safety link to prevent falling only. Climbers use their hands, feet and other parts of the body to ascend.
Free climb ascents are rarely attempted by a one woman team, but Mayan plans to use this method up one of the most famous routes in the world, the Nose, a 1000m buttress on El Capitan. There have been only three free ascents of the Nose before.
Challenge two: Free climbing a link between El Capitan and Half Dome
Mayan’s second goal is to free climb a link-up of El Capitan and Half Dome. If successful, she’ll be the first woman to do it.
“In rock climbing women are close to men, if you look solely at pure difficulty, but rarely do they compete on the same level as the guys,” says Mayan.
“I want to show that we women are just as capable, on any terrain.”
Half Dome. Photo: Rainer Hübenthal
Challenge three: speed climbing the Nose
Arguably her toughest challenge will be breaking the speed climbing record of the Nose. Mayan holds the female record for this already, at a time of around 4.5 hours. She hopes to break the overall speed record, at a time of 2 hours, 26 minutes. This is a notoriously difficult time to crack, in a speed race that is increasingly becoming stuff of legend.
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Mayan is already well known in the climbing scene, having spent more than 10 years climbing fulltime. Mayan first began dabbling in alpine and rock climbing as a 16 year old.
After finishing high school, Mayan devoted herself to skiing and spent the next few years chasing winters around the world. She began competing in Big Mountain Extreme skiing competitions and was soon a semi-professional skier, at the top of her field in New Zealand. Consequently, she barely touched rock during that time.
It wasn’t until 2001, when a skiing accident forced her to spend the next six months on crutches, that Mayan focused on training her upper body. During this time she rediscovered her love for climbing. This was the true beginning of Mayan’s climbing career, since then she has dedicated her life to rock climbing.
Several injuries have forced Mayan to move away from climbing for long periods of time, but these absences have only strengthened Mayan’s addiction to rock. Mayan lives on the road most of the time, traveling around the world in search of new challenges and inspiring lines to climb.
Source: www.mayanclimbs.com
