Archives for June 2025

On June 8, 2025, Kate Kelleghan hit the anchor as I hit my stopwatch on the summit of Half Dome, completing the first female ascent of the Yosemite Triple Crown, the clock reading 23 hours and 36 minutes. This feat includes climbing Mount Watkins, El Capitan, and Half Dome in a single push. It was type-2 fun, type-1 madness, and master level hydration strategy.

Let’s be real: the main goal wasn’t just to climb the Triple. It was to beat the clock. The 20 men before us had all wrapped it up in under 24 hours. So, of course, we would prefer to pursue the same in-a-day style if possible. Cue the spreadsheets, the training schedules, the absurd number of bars we’d test on our digestive systems. We weren’t just climbing. We were becoming machines—hydrated, sleep-tracked, over-prepared machines.

Ultra-Marathon Strategy but for Vertical Walls
Over six weeks in the Valley, we lived by the data of our Coros activity, health, and recovery tracking. Our training schedule was an endless loop of climb a big wall, try to rest, climb another big wall and then check our Coros watches to see if we were out of the “”excessive training zone” yet.

Electrolytes became our religion. High carb water? The future. Cramps? The past. In our final scheduled week of training, we finally reached our goal times on each wall: The Nose – 7h05 (goal 7hr), Half Dome – 6h05 (goal: 6hr), Watkins – 4h47 (goal:5hr). And just like that, the Triple in 24 hours started looking… possible.

Logistics: 20 Humans, 47 Snack Packs, and a Meteorological Gamble
We took a “rest week,” which in climber-speak means “stress week.” With help from a 20-person support team (yes, we went full Tour de France), we choreographed every snack, swig, and shoe change across three walls. We had all of our water packed for the day, gear transitions smoother than a pit stop at Le Mans, and the mental spreadsheets of Olympic coaches.

The day began smoothly, albeit hot and sweaty with our hike to Mount Watkins—that is until a frightening rumble of thunder accompanied the arrival of some darkening clouds. We both whispered our own prayers to Mother Nature. Rain kissed Kate’s helmet, but surprisingly she never felt more than a few drops as she sped through the 5.9R pitches she knew would end our day if they got wet. Our forecast had gone from 0% chance to an ominous few hours of afternoon thunderstorms. However, fate spared us and the clouds skirted around Watkins as we raged to the top. Back down in the valley, the air was calm and hot as we climbed the Nose through the night. We sweated but at least we knew the climate was stable. Trouble brewed the next day as we tackled the final and the most dangerous wall in thunderstorms: Half Dome. This time, we knew something was wrong. No sign of our film crew. No cheering support team. Had something gone wrong on the summit? Possibilities swirled in our minds as we continued toward the top.

When we hit Big Sandy, where two other climbers sat in anticipation of being passed, we asked them for the time. They told us it was 2:00pm. This was the moment that the sub 24 hour goal became a probability instead of a longshot. In a whirlwind of clipping bolts and freeing some easy slab, we found ourselves on the summit ledge with 24 minutes to spare.

From Terrified Gumby to Triple Threat – by Laura Pineau
I still can’t believe it’s only been two years since I first climbed in Yosemite—back when I was flailing on every 5.10 like it owed me money. That first season was… humbling. My partner, Gabriel Charette, and I bailed just before the Great Roof because a literal waterfall was pouring down Changing Corners.

Back then, I probably told anyone who’d listen that speed climbing was downright reckless and that I’d never do it. Ha. Classic foreshadowing.

Flash-forward a year, and I hear about this badass woman from YOSAR (Yosemite Search and Rescue), Kate Kelleghan, looking for a partner for The Triple. For reasons still unclear (temporary insanity?), I thought: “Why not me?” Kate didn’t know it yet, but the second we talked, I was completely hooked on the idea of taking on this wild, borderline ridiculous challenge with her.

To be fair, Kate had very legitimate doubts, since I had basically zero speed climbing experience. But I knew that once she saw how hard I’d commit to the project, she’d start to believe.

From day one, Kate became my speed climbing sensei. She patiently taught me the secrets of moving fast and efficiently on big walls—without sacrificing safety (or sanity). She gave me room to figure things out on my own, too, always balancing tough love with unshakable support.

Together, we weathered it all—fear, excitement, doubt, a few moments of “What the hell are we doing?”—and learned how to rely on one another truly. Climbing the walls was only half the challenge; the real work was building a partnership that could withstand exhaustion, stress, and too many carbohydrate drinks.

In the end, our successful ascent was about way more than just ropes and rock. It was about trust, growth, and the shared stubbornness that kept us going when everything said to stop.

I’ll forever be grateful for this wild ride with Kate—and for all the friends and family who supported us along the way. You all made this crazy dream a reality.

Dreams of Speed by Kate Kelleghan
The gateway drug for me was the Naked Edge. In a few short years of speeding up the classic 5.11 route in Eldorado Canyon, Boulder, I was hitting faster and faster PRs and eventually set the women’s speed record with Becca Droz (or established one, anyway). And like that, I was hooked on climbing fast. When I laid my eyes on the 3,000-foot walls of Yosemite, I knew it would be the ultimate playground to put these speed skills to the test.

After climbing my first NIAD with Eddie Taylor (also one of my Naked Edge speed partners) in a 20 hour push through wildfire smoke and 90 degree temps, the addiction really sunk its teeth in. The microbeta, the tactics, and the community of people who practiced speed climbing like a religion… all of it captured me in a way climbing had not before. I couldn’t believe these local climbers would scale these insane walls in a morning and be down on the ground for an afternoon swim. I wanted this so badly. It felt like I was made for this.

I climbed with a lot of really rad folks, friends on the YOSAR team, Colorado homies, and Yosemite crushers. Almost all of my speed partners were men. I did some climbing with women, but it was usually wall style, freeclimbing focused, or slower than with the dudes. I ended up climbing the Double (El Capitan and Half Dome linkup) with Miles Fullman in 2022, and the minute we hit the top of Half Dome, the thought of the triple blossomed like a cactus rose in my heart and mind. But to do it with a woman… now THAT would be epic.

Only a few select women were speed climbing at this point, and I didn’t have much of a relationship with them. Several of my women crusher partners could handle a decently fast NIAD, but almost none were pushing as hard as I wanted to. Michelle Pellette was my main female speed partner, and while we were able to pull off the second female double-El-Cap ascent, among some other very speedy things, I feared we as a duo still might not have the capability to make the Triple happen.

For years I searched for a female partner – I reached out to women from years past who had speed climbed in the valley, and pro climbers who I knew could probably make up for lack of aid skills with free skills. But finding a partner who was psyched, strong enough, risky enough, and had the time was impossible. I began to doubt that I would ever find her. It turned out I was just looking in the wrong country.

Laura reached out to me as a stranger and a freeclimber. I had my doubts, but over the fall and winter, we did some Dolt runs, climbed linkups in France, spent time getting to know each other, and she began to win me over.

By Spring of 2025, I dragged her up the Naked Edge to see if she had what it took to learn fast and climb fast. We set a new record, and I knew this was the person I had been searching for. We built a partnership of stoke, trust, and laughter that propelled us into the Valley with great momentum.

Laura and I worked tirelessly to follow a schedule we had devised, strategized as an endurance athlete’s training schedule would be, and threw ourselves into it. With a huge crew of supporters made up of our family, friends, and our Yosemite community, we logistically planned every aspect of the day with painstaking detail. It paid off. There were no question marks. When the day came, the only surprises we had were thunderstorms, but by a stroke of luck, they swirled around us but did not touch us. Before we knew it… we were the first women to ever pull off the Yosemite Triple.