Hans Florine

Who is Hans Florine?

Hans Florine is an American rock climber, who together with Alex Honnold holds the Speed Climb World Record for climbing The Nose of Yosemite’s El Capitan in 2:23:46, set on June 17, 2012 which broke the previous record of 2:36.45 set by Dean Potter and Sean Leary. Hans also previously held the same record with Yuji Hirayama for El Capitan in 2:37:05, set on October 12, 2008. This broke their record of 2:43:33 set on July 2, 2008, which had broken the record that was set by the German "Huberbuam", Alexander Huber and Thomas Huber. The two brothers climbed The Nose on October 8, 2007 in 2:45:45, breaking Hans' and Yuji's prior speed record. El Capitan is traditionally climbed in three to five days.The Nose route is 2,900 ft long and features over 31 pitches of strenuous, exposed climbing. Florine thus climbed The Nose at roughly 6 minutes per pitch. On July 30, 2005, Florine also completed a solo ascent of The Nose in just 11 hours and 41 minutes. Solo ascents are characterized by climbing by yourself and require one person to do all the work.

Florine has been climbing since 1983, and competitively since 1988. He has been undefeated in speed competition for 5 years and has won 3 gold medals in X-Game speed climbing.