Ondra climbs 5.15c

Once again, all those comparison with how recreational climbers experience gradings and difficulty are not possible. Simply because most climbers never push to their limit and do not know how far from max they are. High end athletes keep on crash in to their limit day by day, and will get to know it.

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. /frustration.

Adam Ondra has also downgraded numerous problems, including when he flashed Gecko Assis a confirmed 8B+/V14 and downrated it to 8B/V13. If he was just glory-hunting he would have accepted the consensus grade and taken the second 8B+ flash tick ever. He also downgraded Chilam Bilam from 9b+ to soft 9b, again if all he wanted was attention from the grade he'd have left it as is and claimed the first repeat of a 9b+. He was also one of the first climbers to call La Novena Enmienda 9a instead of 9a+. All his top grades and upgrades are on brutally hard problems and routes that took him a long time to complete, and he explains them clearly. For instance with Gioia (which Christian Core said he thought about giving 8C+ to but decided to be conservative and left future ascents determine, and which took Ondra 11 days), he claimed that "if you leave the grade at 8C then you have to downgrade all the 8B+ boulders and most of the 8Cs as well". He's being honest with his grading and always has a large bank of problems at a prior level to compare to before he claims a new one. What more could people ask for?

JulianB wrote: Adam Ondra has also downgraded numerous problems, including when he flashed Gecko Assis a confirmed 8B+/V14 and downrated it to 8B/V13. If he was just glory-hunting he would have accepted the consensus grade and taken the second 8B+ flash tick ever. He also downgraded Chilam Bilam from 9b+ to soft 9b, again if all he wanted was attention from the grade he'd have left it as is and claimed the first repeat of a 9b+. He was also one of the first climbers to call La Novena Enmienda 9a instead of 9a+. All his top grades and upgrades are on brutally hard problems and routes that took him a long time to complete, and he explains them clearly. For instance with Gioia (which Christian Core said he thought about giving 8C+ to but decided to be conservative and left future ascents determine, and which took Ondra 11 days), he claimed that "if you leave the grade at 8C then you have to downgrade all the 8B+ boulders and most of the 8Cs as well". He's being honest with his grading and always has a large bank of problems at a prior level to compare to before he claims a new one. What more could people ask for?

obviously they know more than some gumby like alex huber who is on the record as saying that ondra is actually very important for the grading on harder climbs ... simply put if theres anyone who is "qualified" to grade a hard climb right now, that would be the teenage screamer ... he probably climbed more 9a and above than anyone else ...

when some MPer can redpoint 9a, we can all celebrates that at least someone here knows enough about climbing at such a high level to even come close to telling ondra what a grade inflating screaming bolt weenie he is ;)

ok ok I got it..if we want to verify we will need the following:
-one vertically challenged individual with short arms
-one tall boy
-one 5.9 climber
-one hard man
-one boulderer in briefs and one in boxers (with and without beenie to boot bc you know that could change everything..)
-one tradass (cred given to the MPer who made this up) so he can tell us how Ondra shouldn't be promoting sport climbing
-one sporto to tell us how weak trad climbers are
-one panel of judges comprised of MP'ers bc if we didn't see it then it didn't happen and if it did then it didn't happen right..

this thread is comedy gold. keep'em coming

oh yeah..and one spacemonkey bc you weigh less at altitude

seriously- props to Ondra on a legit send. Going with the easiest answer and say the kid knows what he is talking about

Camhead wrote:
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.

The local newspaper in Flatanger, Norway, says he will go climbing in the US this autumn, that could explain why.

Who gives a shit for crying out loud? Debating over grades makes all of you the biggest weenies of all!

-the best climber is the one having the most fun.

Ben Botelho wrote: -the best climber is the one having the most fun.

Coincidentally, I tend to have the most fun in sport climbing when I am progressing in grades and achieving goals that at one point seemed impossible. I am pretty sure that this is the reason why most sport climbers love their sport. This is also another good example of why people who don't really love sport climbing really don't understand it and should probably refrain from inane comments about it.

Tom Fralich wrote: See, now this is interesting. I disagree that hanging on the rope is "aid." In my opinion, "aid" implies using gear or the rope to advance and thereby avoiding moves that could potentially be free climbed at a higher grade. When someone hangs on the rope and rests, the route may become "easier," and it is certainly poorer "style," but why does this change the grade? I agree that it is better style and as you say "noteworthy" to climb a route with no rests, or to take that even further, to eliminate hanging belays. But the grade should not change just because someone climbed it in a different style. If I climb a 5.8 with a 60 lb backpack, does that make it a 5.10? It sure would be harder.

Um, if you hang on the rope, you DID NOT climb the route....

So, are you saying if Adam straightend, bleached his hair, plucked his eyebrows and got contacts, he would be hawt?

M Sprague wrote:So, are you saying if Adam straightend, bleached his hair, plucked his eyebrows and got contacts, he would be hawt?

No. There is nothing Adam Ondra can do that will make him hot.

Jake Jones wrote: Give her a fro and some spectacles and they really don't look that different.

Why Jake, WHYYYY???

Sadly, Ondra still can't get laid.

S.P.L.T. Image wrote:Sadly, Ondra still can't get laid.

probably for the best. if he discovered sex, he'd probably forget about climbing.

camhead wrote: probably for the best. if he discovered sex, he'd probably forget about climbing.

Although it might help him release some tension, and cut down on the tantrums.

A very interesting discussion with the expected baiters ("grades don't matter", "hardest move", "It's all subjective"...). Despite the difficulty in pinning down objective route grades, they are a significant consensus measure of progression in our sport. (I'll add: Just one of several possible, and equally valid directions, before all the tradsters and alpinists lynch me).

What makes Ondra's claim of 15c both serious and thought-provoking (as opposed to the quickly-dismissed and oft-forgotten claims of Fred Rouhling and Bernabe Fernandez to mid-15's in the past), is that (as some have said in previous pages) Ondra has demonstrated a willingness to take the grading of routes more seriously than ego, performance, or sponsorship. He's downgraded routes, but that's nothing new in today's ego-driven world. It takes even more guts to upgrade routes, which he has also done.

One of the major driving forces in the current climbing scene's effort to consolidate and solidify the grading scale is a class of elite (and near-elite) climbers who travel between areas, and help to normalize the grades on a global scale. Adam Ondra has climbed (according to 8a.nu):

Five 15b's (2 repats)
Thirteen 15a's (5 repeats)
44 14d's.

Furthermore, his 15's span 12 crags in at least 5 different countries. Ondra's claim of 15c comes with an authority that few other climbers can hope to match. I for one have no intention of dismissing this as a "personal best" or "just a really difficult route." This is potentially a historic route that will move the sport forward (for those of us who consider sport climbing our sport).

Peter Adamson wrote: Looks like more of a gneiss (without close inspection). A lot of the banded formations aren't really typical of granite.

the Gneiss in this situation was most likely a granitic rock prior to being metamorphosed, this is why most gneiss formations tend to look and climb like granite sometimes, it is because they were once a granitic type of rock. Also when people refer to "Granite" the majority of the time they are referring to a rock that is not actual the rock granite but rather a granitic type of rock that is rich in silica and oxygen. This is why anorthosite of the Adirondacks is commonly referred to as climbing on granite when in actuality anorthosite is a mineral that makes up the particular rock.

and as far as the hardest move thing goes. Several of the hardest boulderers such as dave graham have been documented as stating that there is no harder move than V13...idk where that fits into the arguments going on right now but i felt like i should contribute some bit of useless knowledge that will get me no where outside of MP

Dylan Colon wrote:Are there routes out there that have moves harder than the hardest move on The Change? Almost certainly. Does this make them harder than The Change? Definitely not. If the grading system does not reflect this than it is not very useful, in my opinion. The concept of grading based on the hardest move is a relic from the days when most routes were slabby and almost every stance afforded some kind of rest where you could allow lactic acid to drain from your muscles. I've done 5.11- routes that had single moves harder than the hardest move on some 5.12 routes I've tried. That does not mean that the 5.12 routes in question (mostly at the Red) should be downgraded. In summary, it seems pretty likely that The Change is now the hardest route in the world. Any sensible grading system should reflect that.

I think this is a spot on reply.

Congrats to Adam, I'll never be able to climb that hard and it's entertaining to see someone else dominate the wall like that. I don't bother getting into these arguments over grading systems or pre-hung draws because I'm just a schmuck who climbs because i like climbing rocks, I know i'll never be a "great" climber, and that's ok.

I'm not really bothered by what the masses may think of this, or why/why not it's 5.15c, it's fun to watch other people climb, some of you need to relax and get back to basics, like having fun