Ondra climbs 5.15c

I bet this thread has a lot of really good responses! I'll save reading them for later when I need inspiration.

The question is, who is going to post the route up on MP so we can tick it off. I don't think that whole region of Norway where it is is listed yet.

for those whinning about sport vs "trad" ... mr ondra has also freed big wall and long multi sport routes in madagascar and sardinia among other places ...

now you can whine about how bolted sport multi wall routes arent the "real thing" ... however i invite you to come to the canadian rockies and try some of the longer "sport" routes here ... i guarantee it aint no easy cragging ...

its typical how 5.9 climbers whine about someone who they can never hope to even come close climbing hard and use the "trad" excuse

He climbed a 9b+, not a 15c, correct?

Josh Olson wrote:He climbed a 9b+, not a 15c, correct?

My understanding is that those things mean exactly the same thing. And yes, I mean the more modern understanding of the YDS that takes into account endurance factors.

Josh Olson wrote:He climbed a 9b+, not a 15c, correct?

Correct, although at the upper grades the French scale and the YDS are have been made to be essenitally parallel; 9b+ and 15c and interchangeable and mean exactly the same thing. This is not neccesarily true at lower grades, where the scales don't line up perfectly.

I wonder bow many routes Adam has climbed since this thread got started? Probably more that all of us combined.

Congrats to Ondra!

Being new to sport climbing I love it but lots of my trad buddies would say just climb it may be harder for me being tall and heavy than for my wife short and light and vice versa.

Don't forget the magazines and sponsors want to generate cash and follow the professional wrestling model of "create controversy" to do
this. It has been going on for more than a decade. I had a climbing magazine with Tommy Caldwell on it with the caption "Worlds first 5.15"
and numerous times routes get down rated after a few ascents--Look up Todd Skinner and Tony Yaniro routes that had this fate.

Everyone understand that grades do not exist outside of climbers minds. But what many people seem to miss is that the top level climbers spend most of the time climbing hard and trying to improve. Just like in any sport that gives them a pretty thourough understanding of what they can and can´t do, their strenght and weaknesses.

Ondra is quite consistent at onsighting 5.14c and has climbed close to 50 5.14d I think its likely that he has to developed a feeling for the consensus of this difficulty. Of course its much trickier at the extreme end. For obvious there´s fewer other routes and climbers to compare with. No one can know what will be called 9b+ in the future, but that does not make the effort today any smaller.

Edit: Congrats to Adam for being able to continue to improve and push his limits.

As the limits are being pushed, consensus is being taken out of the equation it seems. I like what Dave Graham said because it really makes it clear that we simply don't know yet.

I don't like the claims of top level climbers that clearly cannot be founded on anything but one personal experience. Maybe it is .15c, but maybe there's better beta, or more contrived rests that will help a redpoint. For anyone who's seen the new Reel Rock it claims there are two V16's in the world, one a repeat and one an FA by Ondra. Are they really V16 then? What about The Game, or Lucid Dreaming? Both downgraded after being originally V16. Not to mention, Goia(sp?) was originally graded V15 by Christian Core, then Ondra screamed his way up it, and called it V16. That's a tad arrogant, and rather unnecessary. The grades shouldn't matter that much.

Personally I don't like Ondra or the attitude towards the grading system now. A personal best is a personal best, that should be the ultimatum of climbing. Grades should be for guidebooks so you know which routes to look for and attempt. /frustration.

EDITED BECAUSE SOMEHOW THE QUOTES GOT MESSED UP"

(Brendan Blanchard wrote)
"As the limits are being pushed, consensus is being taken out of the equation it seems. I like what Dave Graham said because it really makes it clear that we simply don't know yet.

I don't like the claims of top level climbers that clearly cannot be founded on anything but one personal experience. Maybe it is .15c, but maybe there's better beta, or more contrived rests that will help a redpoint. For anyone who's seen the new Reel Rock it claims there are two V16's in the world, one a repeat and one an FA by Ondra. Are they really V16 then? What about The Game, or Lucid Dreaming? Both downgraded after being originally V16. Not to mention, Goia(sp?) was originally graded V15 by Christian Core, then Ondra screamed his way up it, and called it V16. That's a tad arrogant, and rather unnecessary. The grades shouldn't matter that much.

Personally I don't like Ondra or the attitude towards the grading system now. A personal best is a personal best, that should be the ultimatum of climbing. Grades should be for guidebooks so you know which routes to look for and attempt."

• * * *

Sorry kid, but the thing is, that Graham quote was from several years back, and BEFORE Ondra really exploded. Yeah, when Graham said that, 14d was not quite consolidated. But for some people now (most notably Ondra), it IS consolidated.

If anyone here was solid enough to be able to send several dozen climbs of a given grade, usually with a day or two of work, we would all consider that person to be reasonably comfortable and an "expert" at knowing what that given grade consists of. Ondra knows better than anyone else what 9a (14d), or 9a+ actually is. And for that matter, his 15c climb has more legitimate backing than something like Akira or Chilam Ballam (look those up if you are lacking in sport climbing history).

finally, a cool website for trivia nerds, even though it is a bit out of date now:

escalade9.wifeo.com/grimpeu…

I would say that this list shows the grade of 9a/14+ is reasonably consolidated

while i must admit that i find all of this somewhat interesting/amusing, i am much more interested in what his sister is up to lately. anybody got any pictures?

CJC wrote:i heard his sister is also a screamer.

hawt.

I think we know who got all the attractiveness genes in that family.

And, so as not to be a sexist pig who judges all women by their looks, yeah, she is a badass climber, too.

Tom Fralich wrote: I just found it a bit amusing that a pitch of x and a pitch of y linked together somehow equals more than either x or y and that it's now the "World's Hardest Route" according to Rock and Ice magazine. I'm waiting to see what Wikipedia says.

I'm going to comment on this just for the sake of jumping into the fray, and because I think the bickering in these types of threads is hilarious. Oh and I do only "crush" around a 5.9 trad...

But Lets say you've got a route rated at 5.10 because it has A/ONE/UNO move that is 5.10 and is a 5.6 jug fest the entire rest of the route. Then let's say you've got another 5.10, but it's consistently 5.10 and 5.9 moves throughout. Shouldn't that be reflected in the rating somehow? You take someone who climbs 5.6 onto that first route and he actually has a shot at getting the send if he can just manage to pull one move that's out of his league...which happens. Take that same guy and put him on the second route and he has no shot in hell. So Ondra links two 5.14 pitches ultimately sustaining a 5.14 difficulty rating longer than anyone else can. Calling it a 5.14 is a little bit decieving I think. So you bump the rating up to show that. It makes sense to me. Granted I'm no wizard on grading, and I think the system is only truly good as a guideline and not some end all be all of "THE HARDEST CLIMBS EVAAAAAR".

Boots Ylectric wrote: I'm going to comment on this just for the sake of jumping into the fray, and because I think the bickering in these types of threads is hilarious. Oh and I do only "crush" around a 5.9 trad... But Lets say you've got a route rated at 5.10 because it has A/ONE/UNO move that is 5.10 and is a 5.6 jug fest the entire rest of the route. Then let's say you've got another 5.10, but it's consistently 5.10 and 5.9 moves throughout. Shouldn't that be reflected in the rating somehow?

It is, at least in any modern route. And people who think otherwise haven't been paying attention for the last 20 years. Luckily for all of us, the YDS has been a work in progress. Otherwise we'd all still be stuck at 5.9

csproul wrote: It is, at least in any modern route. And people who think otherwise haven't been paying attention for the last 20 years. Luckily for all of us, the YDS has been a work in progress. Otherwise we'd all still be stuck at 5.9

Claiming the hardest route in the world by grading gets us talking and reading...kind of the goal of the magazine really. But as far as grading goes it's a guideline, and that's it. A couple of guys said it already "I've killed 5.12 and thrashed on 5.11" There is no universal scoring system. It's not like gymnastics where "this move is worth this, and that move is worth that" It's just not that concrete and there are way too many factors. It's a guideline and taking it any more seriously than that is ridiculous. Can anyone say without a doubt exactly what constitutes a 5.12 move? Not really. So how can we really nail down absolute concrete grades? We can't.

At the end of the day, it's about looking at a line and thinking "can I or can't I?" Forget the grade.

chufftard wrote: if you've done 5.10 on trad then that makes you an authority on what the top climbers in the sport do. Solikeas, I ride a bike so I have a qualified opinion on how Lance Armstrong trains! lets just have a grading system like, yo i can do this or i can't. sick!

Totally. Ondra just climbed something hard? Pffft, bolts are lame. Let's put him on a Gunks 5.6 and then we'll see what he's REALLY made of!

Congratulations to a young climber that clearly loves our sport and pushed himself to achieve an amazing personal goal. Way to set a great example!

camhead wrote: Totally. Ondra just climbed something hard? Pffft, bolts are lame. Let's put him on a Gunks 5.6 and then we'll see what he's REALLY made of!

In the Gunks that 5.15c would be 5.17...or would that be in Eldo?

csproul wrote: In the Gunks that 5.15c would be 5.17...or would that be in Eldo?

Eldo, too. I heard that Ondra backed off the start of Bastille Crack a while back, but the lamestream climbing media decided not to report it.