Two days after his 20th birthday and one day after Chris Sharma did the FA of Stoke The Fire (5.15b) at Santa Linya, Adam Ondra has freed the infamous La Dura Dura project at Oliana, Spain. This was the route that was featured in this year’s Reel Rock Film Tour as Sharma and Ondra traded burns going for the FA. In the end the route fell to Ondra, but not without considerable 9 week effort on his part.
As usual, PlanetMountain has the first interview with Ondra after the send, including his thoughts on where this route stacks up compared to his route Change (5.15c):
I reckon it’s 9b+ (5.15c). If I compare it to Change I think La Dura Dura is harder, but still 9b+. Change really suits my style of climbing, the crux has some moves where you need to be really flexible and it seems to have been naturally made specifically for me. I know it might sound strange, but La Dura Dura has more straightforward climbing, but you really need to get everything wired 100%.
[instagram url=’http://instagr.am/p/Vb8Zf0Ozqq/’ size=’large’ addlink=’yes’]
Andrew Bisharat has some good thoughts on what this means as well:
What makes Dura Dura such an important route for climbing—beyond just the 5.15c grade—is how it turned into a uniquely joint effort. From Chris bolting and cleaning the route, to Adam envisioning the moves and first showing Chris that they are possible, to the two of them feeding off of each other’s stoke to achieve something at the razor-sharp edge between incredible and impossible, La Dura Dura has been an amazing collaboration between the two best rock climbers of our time
When are they releasing the footage?!?
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Just wondering what is he going to try next? Reading the interview seems that he has 2 more weeks left, the weather is great, and there are plenty of other hard lines around 🙂
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Unbelievable. Congrats to you, Mr. Ondra
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OK, I’m motivated now!
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Seems to be the perfect senario for Sharma to pass the torch off to Ondra. Even though I’m much more motivated watching Sharma climb instead of Ondra, this is very impressive!
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I have to say that I was a little sad to hear Ondra grabbed the FA, I was really hoping Chris could get it just because it was his home turf and his bolted line, Adam had already established the first 15C. I agree though that this easily could signify the passing of the torch. I can’t wait to see what Big Wall lines Chris puts up now that the 15C mark is definitely established.
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I don’t know that the torch has been passed – just another hand on it.
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Why is everyone sad that Adam snagged the FA? Chris still has his groove, and soon 15c routes will be a norm within them.
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Super stoked for, Adam. I wonder what he will try next. The unrepeated, Jumbo love? Maybe… That would be exciting.
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Hart
I got the impression his main goals are not repeating existing routes anymore. Apparently he repeated Sharmas fight or flight, (9b) today, but that route is also in Oliana as Dura Dura. Desnivel.com have an interview where he says his short time plan is to spend some more time bolting.
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Okay…
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will it one day get down graded to just La Dura?
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Holy shit is your real name Greg Davis? That’s my name… are there two???
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Of course not. One of you is an impostor.
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It is also interesting to think about Ondra sending a few of Sharma’s other unrepeated 9b (5.15B) routes because Sharma labeled them as such since 9b (5.15B) was the next grade (or progression/difficulty) when he sent them at that time. What I’m saying is it would be interesting to see what grades he would suggest for Jumbo Love, Es Pontas, FRFM, and Neanderathal. Maybe these routes are closer to 9B+, I guess we won’t ever know until someone else sends them, and right now there is only one other guy capable of doing so and that is Ondra. I know it’s rare to up-grade climbs, but ya never know I guess!
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Ryan
I agree it would be interesting and iIt`s a good guess that Ondra will give FRFM a serious try at some point because of its location in the epicentre of hard sportclimbing. But I think it is a little hard to expect him to repeat every hard climb in the world, just for the sake of it. Did topclimbers before him do that? Also I think that Sharma would be able to rank his climbs, with so many of them close to home. I take the name and the grading of the Change as a statement that Ondra felt ready to move on.
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Extra note,
If you followed Ondras development its interesting how he has followed the path of climbing legends, beginnig with Gullich, to Huber, local climbing heros as Mrazek, and finnishing with Sharma. (He missed out on Ben Moons hubble though, and the flash attempt on realization would have marked the perfect end on his “Sharma period” ).
Doing a lot of hard FAs in the process of course but its like he has been doing a wrap up of sportclimbing history until he was ready for the Change.
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Did he do all of those McClure routes?
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