When Michael Vaill and Tanner Wanish nabbed the Yosemite Triple Crown speed record on October 20, the climbing world was taken by surprise. The 32-year-old Utahns were nobodies. Neither had been climbing for very long (Wanish first roped up in 2020), and now they’d nabbed a record that, for over two decades, had been hot potato’d between figures of Yosemite myth and lore: Potter and O’Neill, Honnold and Caldwell, Gobright and Reynolds. But Wanish and Vaill had blitzed them all out, climbing the three biggest formations in Yosemite—El Capitan, Mount Watkins, Half Dome—in 17 hours and 55 minutes.
It was immediately evident that these two dark horses had something special, but it wasn’t clear what. Perhaps they didn’t even know themselves. “We were just trying to go sub-24 hours,” Wanish remarked to us at the time, rather laconically. “It was kind of amazing to learn we’d broken the record.”
As a climbing journalist, it was one of those bits of news you read and think, “Nice, I’ll probably be hearing about these guys again in the future.”
It wasn’t even a week.
On October 26, the pair upped the ante, climbing the three routes of the Triple Crown (El Cap’s Nose, Watkins’ South Face, and Half Dome’s Regular Northwest Face), and then adding the South Face on Washington Column—nearly 9,000 vertical feet of climbing and 86 pitches—all in 21 hours and 50 minutes. The linkup wasn’t just fast. It had never been performed before in Yosemite Valley history, certainly not under 24 hours. They dubbed their effort the “Yosemite Quadruple.”
All of this represents a meteoric rise for Wanish and Vaill. They aren’t Valley newcomers; both have spent seasons in Yosemite for several years now. But they hadn’t even climbed the Nose in a day until 2023—and before they did the Quad last month, they’d only climbed Washington Column once, and Mount Watkins twice. “We’re like 5.12 climbers, we’re not doing any cutting edge stuff,” Vaill joked. “On a good day, I can send a V5 boulder.”
Wanish and Vaill aren’t typical dirtbags, either. Neither even started climbing until their mid-to-late 20s. Both own homes and have had serious, established professional careers. Wanish is an ex-Navy SEAL, Vaill a scientist with a Ph.D. in cell biology. “People might think, ‘Oh you must have a trust fund or something,’” Vaill said, “but nah, I just worked like 60 or 70 hours a week until I was 29 years old.”
“I’m glad I discovered climbing when I did, after I’d already gotten my shit together,” he added. “If I found climbing as a kid, I probably would be living in a shitty Subaru with no job right now.”
Early this fall, the pair climbed the Nose in five hours, and began to realize they were in shape to try something big and fresh. They had always wanted to attempt the Triple, but they also wanted to up the ante. “We wanted to be creative, to add something,” Vaill said. But if they were to add a fourth route onto the hallowed linkup, it had to be worth it. They considered the Lost Arrow Spire Direct, but the long approach made it unfeasible as a linkup. They eventually settled on Washington Column’s South Face (IV 5.8 C1 1,200ft), often the first big face that new Yosemite climbers attempt.
Bragging about having a speed record on the Triple is like showing up at a neighborhood fun run and doing a 15-minute 5K,” Vaill said. “It’s like, ‘Dude, you’re the only one racing here.’ We’re just having fun.
When he and Wanish fired the Triple on October 20, Vaill admitted it was actually just as training for the Quadruple. “We weren’t trying to break a speed record. We just wanted to see how fast we could do it, so we could add something on top. We wanted dessert.” They came down, hung out with friends, and ate pizza. They knew they could do the Triple in under a day, so their “Quad” goals were within reach. They initially planned to go for the Quadruple next year, in 2025.
But the morning after they did the Triple, at five a.m., Vaill was lying in his van, texting Wanish. “‘We’ve done the prep, we’re in shape, we know the routes,’ I told him. I was like, ‘Dude, if we wanna do the Quad, we should do it now.’”
Wanish responded with a bug-eyed emoji.
They met up later that same day and began planning. At first, they were worried that they’d be asking a lot of their support crew to come out for a second weekend in a row, but almost every person who assisted them with the Triple was stoked to help push the bar higher. “Basically everyone who helped us the first weekend came out again,” Vaill said. “Even more people showed up, actually.”
On that note, Vaill said he isn’t keen on the accolades and frills that surround records. It was a personal achievement more than anything else. “The whole thing with the speed record on the Triple has been blown out of proportion,” he said. “We have friends who had tons of spare time doing it in under 24 hours, between routes they were hanging out at camp, drinking wine. It’s never been a race. Bragging about having a speed record on the Triple is like showing up at a neighborhood fun run and doing a 15-minute 5K,” Vaill said. “It’s like, ‘Dude, you’re the only one racing here.’ We’re just having fun.”
In practice, the Quad was not much different than the Triple. It was longer, and instead of doing the linkup in the same order (Watkins-El Cap-Half Dome) and then tacking Washington Column onto the end, they climbed Washington Column after El Capitan, and finished on Half Dome, to make the approaches and descents as efficient as possible.
On the wall, the climbing techniques were the same. Wanish and Vaill primarily climbed by short-fixing, a tactic that allows a team of two to act as two roped soloists. Unlike simul-climbing, where both climbers move simultaneously, short-fixing involves “fixing” (knotting) the rope to an anchor between the climbers so the leader can lead rope solo while the follower jugs (or top rope solos) below them. On Half Dome, the climbing was easy enough that Wanish and Vaill simul-climbed most of it.
Vaill explained their keys to success. “It’s a combination of the right technique—usually short-fixing—and being efficient, knowing the route really well so you can conserve your gear and keep moving fast,” he said. “On most of these routes, we’d take a double rack to #1, and make that last for as many pitches as possible, maybe just leaving two cams per pitch or something. Nutrition was also big. It’s 22 hours, so remembering to consume calories non-stop is make-or-break.”
But the biggest factor in their success on the Quad, Vaill said, was keeping each other’s spirits up. “You have to see when one person is getting down, the other person has to be building the stoke, keeping that fire burning.” Vaill and Wanish listened to music constantly during their climb. Sometimes they cranked The Rolling Stones and Creedence Clearwater Revival, other times dance and house music. “Whoever is belaying and jugging, it’s your time to refuel, but it’s also your time to be the hype man,” Vaill said. “The leader is pushing the wall forward physically, the follower is keeping things going for the team mentally.”
Another crucial factor was the support network off the wall. “The friends who supported us, that was the biggest takeaway,” said Vaill. “That was the real magic. Even if you support each other on the wall, you get to the top of the wall, you’re both tired, you have to do a big hike, then you have to do another wall. Basically, you can’t do this as a team of two.”
Vaill said there were close to 20 friends who helped make this project possible. They had buddies meet them at the top of every wall, with boomboxes, drinks, and snacks. Some friends helped them carry rack and rope on the descent and sort gear. Some grilled up hot meals—pancakes, bacon, eggs—to recharge them en-route to their next wall. Others just dropped in to lend some cheer and positivity.
“Yeah, we could’ve sorted our own gear, we could’ve eaten peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, we could’ve hung out by ourselves,” Vaill said. “The practical difference may not seem huge, but the psychological difference is night and day.”
One of Vaill’s favorite moments from the Quad was on the approach to Half Dome, their final climb. He and Wanish were around 18 hours into their mission, and they had to tackle several thousand feet of vertical gain just to get to the base. “We’re just trudging up this thing, hardly talking, our friends are trying to keep the conversation going, keep the energy up, but we’re exhausted,” Vaill said. Feeling grim, he washed down four Ibuprofen pills with a gel packet, and dove into the first pitch. But as soon as he got off the horizontal and back on the vertical, he was in the zone again.
“It’s this awesome 5.9 hand-finger crack,” Vaill said, audibly stoked even at the recollection. “I was barely able to walk on the trail, but as soon as I started climbing, dance music playing in my back pocket, I’m like ‘Ohhhhhhhh man, this pitch is so good!’ It’s hard to explain, but we both just love climbing so much. It felt like I had just slept and refueled myself, just by getting onto the wall again.”
A few hours later, on the last pitches, Vaill was in the lead. He and Wanish had been blazing for nearly 24 hours, through the night, humping between four different faces to scale over 80 pitches on 9,000 feet of granite.
But he was still having a really good time, in spite of it all.
“I didn’t expect it,” he said. “But I was loving it. I’m busting a layback, 2,000 feet up. I’m on this beautiful granite, I’m hitting this great fingerlock, I’m with my best friend, I’m enjoying every movement. We can hear all our friends on the summit hootin’ and hollerin’… and man, it’s just another awesome day on the rock.”
Although it was the fourth face they’d climbed in less than 22 hours, Wanish and Vaill finished the Regular Northwest Face on Half Dome in a mere three hours and 15 minutes. It was their all-time personal speed record on the route.
“The best way to close the door to the pain cave is with the joy of climbing,” Vaill said. “Really, we never even got into that pain cave on the Quad. We just had a good day out climbing.”
The post Forget the Yosemite Triple… These Guys Just Did the Quad appeared first on Climbing.
