My Adventure: by Kate Kelleghan and Laura Pineau
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 the course of 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 when our 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.
Advice to Others:
Follow your fears:
When a project scares you at first, that’s often a sign it’s the right one. Fear usually means it will push you out of your comfort zone, and with that comes growth and valuable lessons. When you find a project that both scares and excites you, the best thing you can do is break it down into micro-goals that will prepare you step by step.
For example, before attempting the Triple Crown, Kate and I built up with smaller objectives: two weeks in France doing long days on big routes, a month in Colorado where we managed to set the Naked Edge speed record, and two months of training in Yosemite leading up to our final attempt. Each of these milestones gave us endurance, confidence, and trust in one another. Little by little, day after day, we transformed that overwhelming, intimidating goal into something we were truly ready to take on. And we did!
