BFCL Episode 4: Drifter's Escape

Imagine climbing V11 moves above an offset Z4 Camalot. Not only that, but you’re five pitches off the deck, with several hundred feet of air beneath your feet. Above? More 5.13 crack climbing separating you from … another V11 boulder problem. Who could pull off such a futuristic ascent?

BD Athlete Connor Herson.

In the summer of 2025, after two seasons and roughly 20 attempts, Connor made the first ascent of Drifter’s Escape, proposed at 5.15a.

Enjoy the final installment of Born from the Climbing Life, featuring Connor’s historic send of what is likely the hardest trad climb in the world.

Though this is the end of our series, for Connor, it’s just the beginning. Check out his essay below, in which he shares his thoughts on the logical progression of climbing.

BACK TO THE FUTURE

What will it take to add a new chapter to Yosemite’s history?

By Connor Herson

I grew up climbing in a museum.There’s no other way to capture just how much history is enshrined in the granite walls of Yosemite. How, upon encountering the decaying metal of a ¼” bolt or rusted piton, could I not be reminded of the pioneers of the Golden Age? How could I pass under El Cap without thinking of Lynn Hill and the Stone Masters, free climbing on walls previously thought unclimbable? These two generations, the Golden Age and the Stone Masters, felt larger than life. How could we possibly be touching the same rock as those giants? 

I didn’t know it at the time, but history was still being written during my childhood. As my family started taking me climbing throughout the Valley, the era of the Stone Monkeys was in its final years. With Dean Potter’s passing in 2015, when I was only twelve, it felt like the chapter of the Monkeys had closed. There was an era of free climbing growth around the same time as the Monkeys, but the first free ascent of the Dawn Wall, also in 2015, and Alex Honnold’s 2017 free solo of El Cap seemed to cap off that era as well. The history book of the Valley was seemingly once again shut and locked behind a glass case for the rest of us to stare at longingly.

In just the last few years, that’s been changing.

The Dawn Wall saw another free ascent. Freerider was flashed. Then flashed in a day. Lurking Fear saw its first free repeat, 25 years after its first free ascent. The number of climbers who’d freed the Nose in a day doubled in a single month. Magic Line and Meltdown have started seeing multiple serious attempts and even successful ascents each year. The Yosemite Triple Crown gets a few repeats each season, and the Quad linkup has now been established. Freeing El Cap in a day isn’t a rarity anymore, and former El Cap testpieces like El Corazón, Golden Gate, the Pre-Muir, and El Niño now play host to regular free attempts. Down on the Valley floor, the V12 barrier has finally been left behind, and the Valley now holds new age testpieces such as the Darkside and Last Line of Defense (both V16). Free climbing achievements of the last generation are being matched quicker, in better style, and more frequently than ever before.

A new wave of free climbers has arrived in the Valley, and they’re here to stay. Soon, there will be new household names alongside Harding, Robbins, Hill, Kauk, Potter, Caldwell, and Honnold: Zangerl, Larcher, Moss, Vidi, Warme, Traversi, Berthe, and a number of others we don’t even know of yet.

Is the history book open once more? Has a new chapter begun? Is this new generation worthy of being held up next to the heroes of the Golden Age, the Stone Masters, and the Stone Monkeys? 

I think we're almost there. Almost.

Is the history book open once more? Has a new chapter begun? Is this new generation worthy of being held up next to the heroes of the Golden Age, the Stone Masters, and the Stone Monkeys? 

I think we’re almost there. Almost. 

Matching the achievements of the last generations is impressive, but what set the climbers of each era above their predecessors wasn’t just repeating the ascents done decades ago. It was dreaming bigger, reaching further, and pushing the limits forward. It was climbing Half Dome—previously thought unclimbable—then El Cap, then El Cap in better style. It was ditching the hammer and free climbing El Cap, then a harder route on El Cap, then free climbing El Cap in a day. It was climbing the Triple Crown, breaking the Nose speed recordtime and time again, freeing El Cap twice in a day, and climbing Meltdown. The achievements in the Valley today are impressive—don’t get me wrong—but what really gets me excited is the prospect of the future. 

It seems each new Valley season brings new faces and mounting excitement. Climbing on Leaning Tower, on a line envisioned but unclimbed by Stone Master Todd Skinner and Stone Monkey Dean Potter, I feel a palpable energy about the prospect of completing it. I’ve tried it with five other climbers this season alone, and it’s the best possible energy between us: instead of a race to a first ascent, it’s a group effort to unlock the crux, a rowdy 45-meter sport pitch with intense bouldery sections of every style imaginable. We all want to see it get climbed, and we all want to climb it at some point, but the order doesn’t matter.