When Will Connor Herson Run Out of Hard North American Trad Climbs?

In an attempt to make space for the newsworthy ascents that occur with ever-increasing regularity, our weekly news series tries to celebrate a few outstanding climbs (or interesting events) that for one reason or another caught our attention. We hope you enjoy it. —The editors

Connor Herson does the fifth ascent of Meltdown (5.14c)

Here’s a question that popped into my mind when I learned that Connor Herson had just made the fifth ascent of Beth Rodden’s Yosemite testpiece Meltdown:

What is Connor Herson going to do with himself when he runs out of hard trad climbs in North America?

I say this without intending to be hyperbolic. Since making the sixth free ascent of the Nose at age 15, Connor Herson (now a 20-year-old college student) has sent a disturbing percentage of North America’s best and hardest gear testpieces, including (but not limited to) Empath (5.14d) on gear, Blackbeard’s Tears (5.14c), Cobra Crack (5.14b), Crack of Destiny (5.14b), and Air Swedin (5.13+). Sure, he’s got a lot left. He hasn’t done Stranger Than Fiction (a Mason Earle 5.14b that just received second and third ascents) or any of the big 5.14 roof cracks in the White Rim. Nor has he done the Dawn Wall (5.14d) or Magic Line (5.14c). But I’d put money on the fact that he would make relatively quick work of all these routes—and will. Which again begs the question: What’s he gonna do then?

I can’t answer that.

I can, however, note that even though he—like each of its other repeaters—found Meltdown quite hard*, he also sent it fourth day on, having onsighted Wayward Son (a 1,200-foot 5.12c) the day before, worked on Meltdown the day before that, and onsighted Scarface (a 1,500-foot 5.12) the day before that. That’s certainly not a symptom of someone climbing anywhere near his limit.

*On Instagram he wrote: “The most sessions I’ve spent on a gear-protected pitch, the most uncertain I’ve been about whether a route is possible for me, the most I’ve learned on a route—the list goes on. The crux boulder felt harder than any boulder I’ve done on the ground.”

—Steven Potter

Pete Whittaker makes third ascent of Stranger Than Fiction (5.14 trad)

After eight lonely years, Mason Earle’s Stranger Than Fiction (5.14) is finally getting some redpoint action. Earlier this month Lor Sabourin clipped the chains on their four-year project, and now Pete Whittaker has done the same on a multi-week trip to the States.

“It really is one of the great crack test pieces out there,” Whittaker wrote on social media on November 14, midway through his projecting phase. He’d just made an “extremely promising” first lead attempt, climbing right up to the final steep finger-crack crux before pumping off. Despite the solid effort, Whittaker was wary about any looming success: “It’s going to be tricky … due to skin and finger joint care; quite a lot of rest time is needed for everything to stay fresh.” Nevertheless, Whittaker made each redpoint attempt count and found success late last week.

Whittaker said he was initially worried that his large fingers and hands wouldn’t be able to fit into the thin sandstone splitter, and opted to not wear crack gloves to keep his hand-profile low. Curiously, unlike Earle’s and Sabourin’s ascents, who pulled off their right shoes mid-climb to jam taped feet, Whittaker stayed two-shoed for the duration of the 30-meter pitch. The shoe-less beta felt too painful for him.

About the grade, Whittaker offered: “As it’s not had many ascents I’ll give my thoughts on the grade to add to the general consensus over time. For me it felt tough 8c [5.14b], harder than Cobra Crack, easier than Recovery Drink. With pure cracks like this, hand and finger size does always play a part though. This crack does take in a range of bad sizes so the cruxes are likely to be slightly different for everyone.

“Now I’m going to go bathe my fingers as they feel beaten.”

—Anthony Walsh

Cédric Lachat sends one of the world’s most controversial routes

Some routes are mythic, and Bernabé Fernández’s 270-foot cave monster Chilam Balam, located in Andalusia, Spain, is one of them. After claiming its first ascent in 2003, Fernández proposed a mind-boggling grade of 5.15c—and was then promptly criticized for both inflating the grade and not actually climbing the route (no uncut footy back then… plus Fernández apparently claimed not to remember his belayer’s name).

Then, in 2011, Adam Ondra—who was still a year away from doing the first ascent of Change, in Flatanger, Norway, which is generally (but not always) considered the world’s first 5.15c— did Chilam Balam after just three days of effort, calling it soft 5.15b. (Even at 5.15b, if Fernández did indeed climb the line back in 2003, five years before Sharma did Jumbo Love, it would, as Ondra said in an old Planet Mountain interview, “certainly be an incredible achievement.”)

Another incredible achievement: the Swiss climber Cédric Lachat, who retired from an illustrious competition career in the 2013, has made the eighth ascent Chilam Balam—spending more than an hour on the wall during his send. In the process, Lachat has accomplished his longtime goal of climbing 50 ninth-grade routes (5.14d or harder) before his 40th birthday. And he succeeded by a pretty wide margin: he doesn’t turn 40 until next August.

—SP

Watch Seb Bouin do 5.15b linkup in Norway

I don’t have much to say about this one except that’s if you like seeing athletes in their element, you’ll like watching Seb Bouin take town Adam Ondra’s rarely-climbed endurance monster, Move Hard, which links the lower sections of Move (5.15b/c) into the upper sections of Silence (5.15d).

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