Soline Kentzel & Seb Berthe repeat Golden Gate on El Capitan, Yosemite

21-year-old Soline Kentzel from France and 28-year-old Sébastien Berthe have repeated Golden Gate, the 5.13a 36-pitch big wall located on the SW Face of El Capitan in Yosemite established by Germany's Thomas and Alexander Huber in summer 2000.

The repeat was completed ground-up over a nine-day period and while Berthe is a hardened big waller (read Heart Route, Freerider, The Nose and a recent dogged 23-day attempt on Dawn Wall), Kentzel is totally new to huge multi-pitches and trad climbing. Although she has redpointed up to 8b+ in the past (China Crisis at Oliana, April 2021), before entering Yosemite she had not trad climbed before and was initially stumped, like so many others, by the valley's 5.8 trad cracks.

The pair pre-hauled gear up the first 10 pitches via what is known as Freeblast, then set off the next morning, swinging leads on the easier pitches up to 5.11, and both leading all pitches 5.12 or harder. Kentzel was forced to redpoint some of the easier pitches second go and, notably, she also led the infamous Monster Offwidth pitch. After the first two days they reached the downclimb pitch 17, then rested the next day as it was snowing. Days 4 and 5 were spent attempting the Move pitch, and after another rest day due to rain Kentzel finally sent this on her third attempt. They quickly moved up to the Tower to the People ledge, and before the evening was up dispatched the Golden Desert Pitch. Rain the next morning resulted in another enforced rest day. On day 9 Kentzel worked the crux A5 traverse, sent it after two attempts and the pair then raced to the summit that afternoon.

Commenting after the climb, Berthe explained "We went through some epic snow storms and rain showers which made surviving on this wall a true challenge. During these forced rest days we had to squeeze in the really small portaledge we brought, constantly trying to avoid being wet first and frozen after... One of our sleeping bags even became totally stiff and icy. But we could keep the motivation really high and got back to climbing as soon as the wall was dry! During the sunnier climbing days, the ice was melting from the top of the wall throwing impressive ice chunks on us. Every 5 minutes, the lottery was on: we had to stop climbing, stick ourselves against the wall waiting for these pieces of ice to fall all around us. The level of dedication, commitment and perseverance Kentzel brought into the whole process of discovering trad and crack climbing is huge and it has been truly inspiring to witness her evolve."

The successful ascent certainly deserves style points. As mentioned, it was completed ground-up and, as far as Kentzel is concerned, after practically no big wall or trad climbing experience. Furthermore, Kentzel is part of the crew of climbers who sailed from Europe to America earlier this year, making the adventure into the unknown even more complete; their ship is set to sail back home in June.

Kentzel herself tried to put her first big wall experience into perspective. She wrote "What is the performance? Is it doing 7c+/8a after spending a day in a 1 m3 tent, hit by a snowstorm? Is it climbing all pitches free, while living suspended above the void, in autonomy, for so many days one after the other? Was it to have crossed the Atlantic in a sailboat, while training so hard that my body was stronger than it has ever been, at just the right time? In my eyes, it is to have believed myself capable of such a feat, to be the horse on which no one would have ever bet."