Babsi Zangerl & Jacopo Larcher vs Zodiac

Ten minutes, released years after it was shot, and it holds up because the climbing does not need dressing. Babsi Zangerl and Jacopo Larcher free the Zodiac on El Capitan in the autumn of 2016, sixteen pitches with six at 5.13, in five days, and Louder Than Eleven covers the fight.

This is for climbers who know the wall and want the record of the third free ascent of one of its hardest lines. Zodiac had seen only two free ascents when they arrived, the Hubers in 2003 and Caldwell that November, and each of Zangerl and Larcher led every pitch harder than 5.12+. Skip it if you want to understand the route. Ten minutes is not enough to show which pitches decide it or why a wall this blank went free at all.

What works is the camerawork. LT11 has been shooting El Cap since 2008 and the angles show it. The original score is restrained. What it gets wrong is the compression. A five-day battle in ten minutes reads as highlights, and the film's own title promises a fight it only sketches.

FREE ASCENT of El Capitan's 2nd Hardest Route is the same pair on Magic Mushroom a year later, cut even shorter. Watch them together. Two of the hardest free routes on the formation, same team, fifteen minutes total. That says something about how much this partnership does not need to explain.