Leah Pappajohn climbed El Capitan naked, but the hardest part was finding a partner. She even asked Alex Honnold
When you’re a nudist climber it’s hard to find a partner to take to the cliffs with you, and Leah Pappajohn looked high and low for a fellow naked pioneer to tackle El Capitan
Chafe, sunburn and the cold are some of the challenges you would expect to face if you chose to climb Yosemite’s famous big wall naked. But for Leah Pappajohn, who braved the ‘exposure’, looking for a partner was as hard as the ascent.
Pappajohn and Jonathan Fleury became the first people to climb El Capitan naked on June 6, following a route called The Nose.
The El Capitan wall is an imposing 900 metres of granite that rises vertically out of the Yosemite National Park valley in California.
Pappajohn was the instigator of the idea, and is an experienced nude climber. But her original partner dropped out when the reality of the task dawned on her. Then, when she asked climbers in Yosemite to join her, she was faced with a lot of ‘nos’.
“I even asked Alex Honnold,” Pappajohn said. “I teased Alex that he wasn’t a real climber until he’d climbed naked.”
Honnold, one of the world’s best climbers, who is famous for setting records for ropeless ascents, said: “It isn’t a record I want to set.”