6th Ascent Of Jade

6th Ascent Of Jade

Posted May 28, 2010 at 6:25 am · Comments { 10 } · Photo: Carlo Traversi

On the heels of a spring that has seen him repeat classic V13s Black Lung, Circadian Rhythm and Suspension of Disbelief, Carlo Traversi did the 6th ascent of Jade yesterday in RMNP.  Given the grade of V15 by Daniel Woods after its FA in 2007, Jade has been repeated by a who’s who of the world’s strongest boulderers (Robinson, Landman, Hukkataival, Schaal) all of whom more or less confirmed the V15 grade.

Jade is Traversi’s first boulder harder than V13 and he is admittedly not strong on crimps which has led him to register the problem as V14 on his 8a scorecard:

The culmination of a tumultuous year as a 21 year old, filled with the highest of highs and the lowest of lows, I must say I am very grateful for the life that I am able to live. Life has never been better. As for the grade: I see this as the next level for me, so 8B+ (V14) seems appropriate. I normally avoid crimps like it’s my job, so how could I skip a grade in the style that I’m worst at? I certainly don’t believe that I am a V15 climber…

Update: Video of Traversi’s ascent is now up at DPM

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  • Dylan

    Ah, the ever-awaited and possibly dreaded Jade downgrade.

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  • 6th ascent?

    Who cares about the coveted 6th ascent?

    AND if it has seen 6 then it is def. not v15.

    Everyone is talking about the major grade inflation problems we have in climbing. I say its all because of Colorado.

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  • colin

    congrats to carlo on sending this. super good guy ran across him in boone some years back. he certainly has nothing to gain from downgrading it and if he says its v14 theres no reason not to trust his judgement.

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  • http://palatinski.blogspot.com Isaac

    Come on folks, don’t be haters. Great job on the ascent, Carlo. 1st, 6th, or 50th, it’s still an ascent of a HARD boulder problem that has spat off plenty of strong and talented climbers. If Carlo felt like it was V14 for him, it’s good that he’s honest about it. Afterall, grades are decided by consensus. Only time will tell.

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  • Arcane

    Now Dave can go back and climb it..

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  • Douglas

    I feel like grade deflation is egoism

    It may be just me, but after years of consistent media attention to grades, and difficulty, along with some great climbing films and 8a.nu, I have noticed that bouldering is back tracking while sport climbing is going sky high, what’s with that? After reading some write ups, watching some films, seeing some of the problems first hand, there seems to a big distinction between 8b+ and 8c, a bigger distinction between one 8c and the next 8c, and so much confusion that 8c+ can’t be readily defined. . .

    This really doesn’t make sense, neither does downgrading something because you are caught upon the self limiting notion that you “aren’t strong enough” (rock warrior’s way taught me that).

    It seems that bouldering had a lot of strong climbers in the earlier part of the decade that were somewhat hesitant on claiming a high/new grade for anything because our community can (sadly) be incredibly volatile towards such things, this persisted so thoroughly that some problems which in all likelihood were the first 8c+’s were called the benchmark 8c’s, which causes a great deal of confusion for other proposed 8c’s which are noticeably harder than 8b+ but not as hard as the benchmark 8c.
    And can one of the strong climber in Europe please repeat akira? Seriously, I’ve seen the footage of ali hulk, someone needs to repeat akira, no more excuses. Tim Kemple and Pete Ward both have found validity in the send.

    Maybe its time we remember our grades are subjective and allow them to have more fluidity than rigid definitions imposed on subjective concepts. I mean, we should theoretically be at v16 and approaching 17, if we are indeed progressing as a sport/artform/abstraction, or bouldering limits cannot equal sport climbing limits? go figure. . .

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  • Jon

    The whole never ending grade discussion has become pretty tiring to read about. Maybe partly because I’m 6’6″ and it barely applies to me at my size, but it just seems like it’s too important for a lot of people when accurately quantifying it is impossible. Let it go. The existence of grades is only justified for multi-pitch stuff, since you don’t want to get owned half way up a big wall.

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  • http://thelifeandclimbs.blogspot.com Mark

    His rant in his video was really well reasoned for being so off the cuff. I hardly climb hard enough to make a statement on this, but I’ve definitely thought that some hard stuff feels more doable than easier stuff. Its all in the moment of actually sending.

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  • Mic

    Here’s a video of the sent: http://www.deadpointmag.com/videos/watch/carlo-traversi-sending-jade

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  • http://thelifeandclimbs.blogspot.com Mark

    Could this rant be as classic years down the line as this one is?:
    http://vimeo.com/6048642

    Oh Dave Graham. You wizard you.

    I love hearing information about peoples opinions on difficulty, sequence, or the progression of the sport in such… freeflow as those two rants/interviews. Its really cool to see the mindset of people who are really pushing climbing.

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