Alumni Profile
Overcoming Doubts to Achieve Greatness WMI grads set speed climbing record By Larkin Flora, NOLS Alumni & Development Communications Coordinator
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Fear of failure is the one thing that will make a dream impossible to achieve. This was at the forefront of Jes Meiris’ mind last winter as she sent out over 200 emails asking friends and family to support her and her climbing partner, Quinn Brett. She felt vulnerable sharing their objective to break the women’s speed record on the legendary big wall in Yosemite Valley. El Capitan’s The Nose is a 3,000-foot, 31-pitch route that takes most teams four days to ascend. They were aiming to climb it in under 11 hours. “The hardest part about the whole thing, more than the climbing, was exposing ourselves at the beginning, risking failure with all those eyes on us,” explained Meiris, a Wilderness First Responder graduate. “They were expecting us to do what needed to be done to make this happen. We had no idea if we actually could.” Through the winter and spring, the two women trained separately, building endurance and core strength. Brett, who is a Wilderness EMT graduate, trained in Seattle, Wash. Meiris did her work in Colorado Springs, Colo. They set regimented training programs and stuck to them as best they could. But the best way to train for climbing is to climb—a lot. As the date for their attempt neared, the two women met to practice speed-climbing techniques in Colorado’s El Dorado Canyon before heading to Yosemite Valley. In the early morning of June 10, Brett and Meiris headed to the base of El Capitan. The team had spent nearly two weeks in the valley, learning the wall and rehearsing the big climb. Both women had doubts. “You can’t have any hesitation,” Brett said. “You have to know that when you’re standing at the bottom you’re going to be at the top, there’s no in between.” Brett and Meiris are a strong team
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with complimentary climbing skills, and they split up the pitches accordingly. The Nose demands proficiency in aid and free climbing, along with French free climbing techniques where climbers pull on gear but also use a free climbing move here and there. Speed climbing requires switching between each of those techniques quickly and efficiently. Each led the sections that suited her strengths, with Brett taking the lead with free climbing and Meiris heading up the aid climbing. The doubts never went away, even as they climbed. On one of the middle pitches, Meiris came to Brett unsure if she could complete the climb. “That was a big blow: we’d been training for this for six months, to be on the wall doing it and hear her doubt,” Brett recalled. “How we pushed through was to say, ‘No, we’ve been training for this together, we can do this.’” “We chose to let go of [the doubts] on a moment-to-moment basis and take the plunge anyway. ‘Thanks for sharing, doubts, but I’m standing for something bigger than you,’” Meiris chuckled. “‘And I’m going to do this anyway.’” And they did, reaching the top in 10 hours 19 minutes, a full 20 minutes faster than the previous record holders, Libby Sauter and Chantel Astorga. In September, Astorga took the record back with new partner Mayan SmithGobat, climbing the 3,000 feet in an incredible seven hours and 19 minutes. “We suspected that it would get broken,” responded Meiris in an email. “I felt slightly disappointed, excited that one of our goals of inspiring others to push their limits was met, and also very motivated to train my ass off!” Brett added, “It [feels] good to be part of a trend of ladies motivated to push themselves and the limits of climbing. Records are meant to be broken, I just hope that it is more about the pushing limits and boundaries than competing
Jes Meiris (left) and Quinn Brett held the women’s speed record on El Capitan’s The Nose this summer and may again soon. Steve Bumgardner
against one another.” Having overcome doubts and gained confidence from their record-breaking ascent, Brett and Meiris already have a return trip to the valley in the works. From there, they plan to climb all America’s big walls in single-day pushes. After that? Perhaps they’ll go on to tackle all the big walls in the world, and maybe one day even become NOLS instructors.
Climbing for a Cause Brett and Meiris dedicated their climb to SOS Outreach International, a nonprofit based in Avon, Colo. committed to empowering youth through outdoor adventure and education. To learn more about the organization’s connection to courage, visit http://www. sosoutreach.org/video/a-poem-aboutcourage-summit