RunOut 149: Jordan Cannon and Mark Hudon, live from El Cap

Jordan Cannon is a professional climber, known for his free and speed-climbing feats on El Capitan. Mark Hudon is one of the fathers of big-wall free climbing, best known for making a very early and audacious free attempt of the Salathé Wall in 1979 with Max Jones, nearly a decade before El Cap was officially first free climbed by Todd Skinner and Paul Piana. Jordan and Mark’s partnership is legendary, best encapsulated in the film “Free As Can Be,” which documents Jordan’s ascent of Freerider in a day and Mark’s attempt to finally complete a free ascent of El Capitan by the same route, more than four decades later.  On today’s episode, we make podcasting history by recording our episode live from halfway up the side of El Capitan, as Jordan attempts to free the Salathé Wall via the rarely repeated, and arguably official crux pitch—the infamous pitch 19—with Mark supporting him on belay.  This is a two-part episode. To hear the second half of our conversation, you’ll need to join us at Patreon.com But first, your over-stoker podcast hosts run into the latest climbing headlines and cover the biggest downgrades to the most impressive ascents, while wondering whether it’s all just one big Tommy Caldwell sandbag. Today’s final bit features the return of the Seattle post punk power trio rock band Dragontail Peak, with the song Three Rules–as in three rules of big-wall climbing. Show Notes Mandatory listening: “Bonus: The Free Salathé Wall’s Strange Revisionist History”  “Bonus: Pitch 19, Part Deux” Enormocast: Episode 152: Mark Hudon and Max Jones – As Free as Can Be. Follow Jordan Cannon on Instagram Follow Mark Hudon on Instagram Mark Hudon website Bill Ramsey, 64, does Wrongdoer (8b+) Tommy Caldwell, 46, does Empath 9a (+) calling it 8c From V16 to Big Walls: Pietro Vidi Makes the Second Ascent of ‘Lurking Fear’ UNCUT: “No one Mourns The Wicked” – V17/9A – Hamish McArthur Follow DragonTail Peak on Instagram DragonTail Peak on Bandcamp Become a RunOut Rope Gun! Support our podcast and increase your RunOut runtime. Bonus episodes, AMA, and more will be available to our Rope Guns. Thank you for your support! Contact us Send ideas, voicemail, feedback and more. andrew@runoutpodcast.com // chris@runoutpodcast.com

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RunOut 149: Jordan Cannon and Mark Hudon, live from El Cap is an episode from The RunOut Podcast by Andrew Bisharat & Chris Kalous.

This episode is 1:33:05 long.

This episode was published on May 22, 2025.

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