Climbing an El Cap A4 in Under 14 Hours: Lunar Eclipse
2026 · 25 min · Trad, Big Wall · Oliver Tippett
Oliver Tippett and Taylor Martin go after the speed record on Lunar Eclipse, an A4 aid route on El Capitan with a reputation for wandering, awkward climbing and questionable fixed hardware. Neither of them had been on the route before, which is the whole complication: the record holder, Dave Allfrey, had. They miss the record by a couple of hours. Tippett is frank about why, including friends who had been hurt hitting ledges on this thing and the caution that knowledge buys you. It is a plain, first-person account of onsighting a hard aid line fast, shot by the people doing it, and it is more interesting for the honesty about the near miss than a clean send would have been.
Review
A near miss told honestly, and more interesting than a clean record would have been. Oliver Tippett and Taylor Martin go for the speed record on Lunar Eclipse, an 18-pitch A4 on El Capitan with a reputation for wandering line-finding and questionable fixed hardware. Neither had been on the route. The record holder, Dave Allfrey, had.
This is for aid climbers and for anyone curious about onsighting a hard aid line fast. The film is first-person, shot by the people doing it, and Tippett is frank about why they missed by a couple of hours: friends had been hurt hitting ledges on this route, and the caution that knowledge buys you costs time. Skip it if you need a triumph. This is a good day that fell short, and the film never pretends otherwise.
What works is the A4 pitch. Drilled hooks off the anchor, thin pins, sustained hooking before a real crack, and the film gives you enough of it to understand what A4 means. What it leaves out is Martin. She is a full partner on the wall and the film is Tippett's account, so her decisions stay off camera.
Setting a New El Cap Speed Record is the same pair on the Shortest Straw, and that time they got it, 9 hours 51 minutes. Watch the two in order. The miss on Lunar Eclipse makes the record on Shortest Straw feel earned rather than inevitable.
