Connor Herson and Fan Yang: 5.13+ on Mt. Whitney

The Cutting Edge

In late September, Connor Herson and Fan Yang free climbed Hairline on the east face of Mt. Whitney, the highest peak in the Lower 48. Hairline is a very steep, 13-pitch route originally climbed in 1987. The 55-meter crux pitch went at 5.13+ or 8b, at over 13,000 feet in elevation. The two other hard pitches go at 5.12 and 5.13-. Connor climbed 5.14c/8c+ at age 14 and became famous at 15 for free climbing the Nose of El Cap. He’s now 20 and a student at Stanford University. At age 36, Fan is also a 5.14 climber, and he’s an M.D., an engineer, and a researcher in the field of artificial intelligence applied to medicine. He first tried Hairline in 2019 (and freed the crux pitch), but COVID and then difficulty finding partners kept him off the route for several years. Connor and Fan had never really climbed together when they teamed up for Hairline, but their partnership clicked. After a couple of days of preparation on the route, they sent all the key pitches in one day with no falls. From their high point, they downclimbed the East Face Route to camp, then scrambled back up the next morning to finish the easy final pitches to the summit of Mt. Whitney. AAJ assistant editor Michael Levy interviewed the two about their climb.