Any details on Haley/Honnold traverse attempt?

[Pete04]

I caught this video today and it left me wanting more. Skagit Alpinism hasn't been updated in a while, so does has anyone here have any details/news?

 

 

[jfs1978]

Rolo's synopsis of the push:

 

"On the Torre Group, two other unstoppable climbers, Colin Haley and Alex Honnold came mighty close to doing the second ascent of the Torre Traverse, in a single day! They started at around 5AM from Col Standhardt, climbing Exocet, reaching the summit by 10:30AM, continuing over Punta Herron and Torre Egger, starting up the Directa de la Mentira around 7:30PM. Here they found very bad conditions, with verglas and ice slowing them considerably. At around 3AM they reached the base of the second to last pitch of Cerro Torre, but wind picked up and after waiting two hours for conditions to improve, they decided to give up, rappelling the Via dei Ragni. A very impressive “failure”, climbing incredibly fast and light, with no stove or bivy gear. The fact that now the Torre Traverse is a day-climb is mind-blowing. Not surprisingly it was Alex who conceived it that way, someone quite used to blowing past pre-conceptions and myths."

 

And Colin's:

 

"@alexhonnold came up with the radical idea of trying the Torre Traverse in a day. On Sat. we tried despite marginal weather and conditions, citing @tommycaldwell's motto of "We'll try until we can't continue." It was still misting while approaching the Standhardt Col, the first pitch of Exocet had water streaming down the slab, and the ice chimney was in the worst condition I've encountered in the five times I've climbed it. We tried hard though, and summited Standhardt by 10:30am. We cruised over Punta Herron and Torre Egger, dispatching each in two pitches of simul-climbing, and started up the north face of Cerro Torre at 7:30pm. Alex led an impressive block, largely in the dark (this photo is on Directa de la Mentira, just after putting headlamps on), with plentiful verglas, and with wind and clouds coming back in. I took us up the last pitch of the north face, and two pitches up the Ragni route, until we ran into the limit of Tommy's motto: The wind had quickly built into ballistic gusts that were knocking us around. With only two pitches to finish, we took shelter in a protected nook and waited about two hours, half-sitting half-hanging, hoping the wind would lessen. Finally we conceded that the weather was only getting worse (the storm arrived a full 24 hours earlier than predicted), and that we had to get off the mountain as fast as possible. In such stormy weather I was too scared to rappel the complicated and exposed north face, so we made an emergency decision to rappel the west face instead, committing ourselves to a soul-destroying march through Paso Marconi. When we finally reached civilization yesterday morning we had been going for 53 hours with no stove or bivy gear, and I had 200 calories to consume in the last 36 hours. It's unfortunate that we didn't quite get to finish the goal, but I'm very pleased with our performance, knowing that if the weather had held out we would've easily finished within a cool 24 hours of starting. Despite failing, it is probably the best day of climbing I've ever done in these mountains, and it certainly turned into the most epic experience I've had here."

[Pete04]

Awesome story - thanks!