Cobra Crack at Squamish climbed by Mason Earle

In 2006 Cobra Crack at the Cirque of the Uncrackables above Squamish, Canada, was hailed as the hardest pure crack climb in the world. The overhanging, 30m high finger crack had originally been ascended with A2 aid by Squamish local Peter Croft in the 1980’s and after Swiss ace Didier Berthod had got excruciatingly close to the first free ascent in 2005, in June 2006 27-year-old Sonnie Trotter freed the line after about 40 attempts.

Cobra Crack immediately struck a cord, in part due the heinous finger-locks required to power through the crux, in part due to its innate beauty. Over the years some of the best crack specialists in the world have been drawn to the line and while it may have lost some of its original fearsome reputation, the climb is just as beautiful as ever. As America’s Mason Earle testaments after his June 2017 repeat.

Cobra Crack, Cirque of the Uncrackables, Squamish
First ascent: Peter Croft A2 aid
2006 Sonnie Trotter, Canada
2008 Nicolas Favresse, Belgium
2008 Ethan Pringle, USA
2008 Matt Segal, USA
2009 Will Stanhope, Canada
2009 Yuji Hirayama, Japan
2011 Alex Honnold, USA
2013 Pete Whittaker, UK
2013 Tom Randall, UK
2016 Ben Harnden, Canada
2017 Mason Earle, USA