Watch Adam Ondra Style One of the World’s Hardest Trad Routes

Added bonus: Ondra takes the most surprising whipper I’ve ever seen.

The post Watch Adam Ondra Style One of the World’s Hardest Trad Routes appeared first on Climbing.

In February 2024, Adam Ondra reminded us that he’s the world’s best all-around climber by taking a break from his Olympic training to make a characteristically casual repeat of James Pearson’s Bon Voyage, a 5.14d R trad route and the world’s first confirmed E12.

Now Ondra has released a 30-minute YouTube video that dives into his process on the climb.

The film, which is excellent, is full of gnarly mono-pockets, huge and unexpected whippers, and some surprisingly moving scenes about how significant the climb—and Ondra’s decision to visit Annot to repeat it—is to Pearson, who’s still shaken by the reputational damage caused by his first attempt to grade a route E12, way back in 2008.

For those of us interested in things like the craft and history of climbing, there are a lot of interesting takeaways in the film. Here are my four main ones.

1. Ondra’s repeat is a moment of historic redemption for James Pearson

Ondra’s film achieves something that climbing films very rarely do: it’s genuinely moving.

I’ve written quite a bit about what Bon Voyage means for James Pearson, and I very much recommend that you read the longform version of that story, but if you’re too busy for the (oh-so-juicy) drama, here’s a summary:

Back in 2008, twenty-two-year-old James Pearson was the wonderkind of the English gritstone, knocking down hard and heady trad climbs with stunning regularity and racking up a dangerously hubristic level of confidence in his own wunderkindness. Then, as happens when hubris gets involved, he overstepped and committed the cardinal sin of UK trad climbing: he overgraded a route. Specifically, he declared that The Walk of Life, a terrifying slab on England’s moody North Devon coast, was the world’s first E12—i.e. the hardest trad route in the world. And he did this despite the fact that he had been unable to send Dave MacLeod’s Rhapsody, which at the time was the world’s only E11. Perhaps a bit miffed, MacLeod descended from his Scottish stronghold, made quick work of The Walk of Life, and then slapped a triple downgrade on it, saying it was stiff E9.

For all the yanks out there: That’s 5.13 R instead of 5.14+ R.

Humiliated, and bombarded by internet hate, Pearson literally fled the UK and constructed a life for himself in mainland Europe. But as the years went by, he gradually began trying to regain credibility in the eyes of his grumpy countrymen. He returned to the UK to repeat Rhapsody in 2014. Later, he made ascents of Tribe and Lexicon, both among Europe’s hardest trad routes. Then, in 2023, he sent Bon Voyage. He didn’t grade it at first. But after months of doubt, and after various visiting pros failed on the route, he again—very hesitantly—proposed E12.

And Ondra thinks that’s about right.

Physically, Ondra says, it’s upper-end 5.14d. But due to the challenging protection and the mental challenges, he thinks it’s as hard as climbing a 5.15a sport route… “if you’re bold enough.”

In the film, you can see the tension melt from Pearson’s shoulders. His voice quavers with relief. And it becomes clear that Pearson might now finally be able to put The Walk of Life behind him, and to rest assured that, in a roundabout way, he’s become a far more accomplished and influential trad climber than even his wunderkind self could have dreamed.

(Fun sidenote: Bon Voyage saw its third ascent several weeks ago. Sébastien Berthe seconded Ondra’s grade opinion.)

2. Ondra listens to his body

The crux move of Bon Voyage, at least for Pearson, involves a huge move off a pinky-finger mono that, he says, makes your forearm feel like it’s about to explode. Testing the move on toprope, however, Ondra realizes that his pinky is not strong enough to safely take the hold like Pearson does, so he spends a lot of time—multiple days—testing different methods that would minimize the likelihood of incurring an injury on link.

I find this quite interesting for several reasons. As an injury prone mortal, I’ve often mistakenly assumed that pros like Ondra are simply genetically blessed mutants who’ve never had to be careful with the kind of holds they grab. The more I’ve talked with pro climbers over the past several years, however, the more I’ve learned that—as we can see in this film—most professional athletes, particularly the older ones, spend a lot of time thinking about how to avoid injuries. And it’s super cool to see Ondra actively working injury calculus into his projecting process. Eventually, he finds a way to grab the hold that, though objectively worse, at least allows him to do the move without feeling like he’s endangering his climbing future—or at least his chance at the Paris Olympics.

3. James Pearson thinks it is insane to climb without trusting your gear well enough to fall on it.

I very rarely trad climb, and when I do, it tends to go poorly. (Returning readers may remember that my tenuous first trad lead, on a 5.10 slab, was hardly the sort of introduction that made me interested in doing much more of it.) I know how to place good gear, but I don’t trad climb frequently enough to truly trust it, so I occasionally fall apart a bit up there, my ability to focus on the act of climbing interrupted by visions of my own imminent splat. Which isn’t all that fun for me.

Ondra clearly doesn’t have this problem. He takes a lot of big falls in this video, including a mega-punt on redpoint, high on the route, right in that place that Pearson says could be quite dangerous to fall.

But what is most interesting to me here is Pearson’s blunt astonishment that people like me, who haven’t taken the time to build confidence in our gear, ever dare to trad climb at all.

When he gets asked “how are you brave enough to fall on your own protection?” he says, his reply is, “How are you stupid enough not to be brave enough to fall on your own protection? Because if you can’t trust your protection, it’s playing Russian roulette. You’re gambling with your life.”

Point taken, James. Maybe I’ll take up aid climbing. After all, that’s supposed to be one of the best ways to learn what gear holds and what doesn’t.

4. Adam Ondra is a risky climber… and you should be too

When I call Ondra a risky climber, I don’t mean it in the sense that I might call Alex Honnold a risky climber. Sure, Ondra is bold above trad gear, but that’s largely the result of experience. He knows what’s safe and what isn’t, and he’s far more worried about his pinky than about pulling a piece and cratering into the ground. Instead, the riskiness I refer to concerns his movement style.

Ondra likes to climb fast and grab holds with a minimum of intensity, something that often comes at the expense of control and precision. When it works, it works well: he moves through hard sections accruing minimal pump. But it’s also easy for him to make mistakes—and fall—on sequences that are well below his limit. In minute 14, he takes what may be the single most surprising fall I have ever seen in my 20 years watching climbing videos. (Its main rival is the fall that Gérôme Pouvreau takes in the video from Petzl Rock Trip to Milaeu in 2004.)

Ondra, mid conversation, slips out of a nearly-no hands kneebar and falls out of the frame. But instead of shrieking in terror, he just says, “Sorry. This is what I was talking about. Sometimes I fall off 7b [5.12b].”

“Well, I’m glad that I’ve seen it first hand,” replies Pearson. “Because I never would have believed it.”

I wouldn’t have either.

But for Ondra to climb well, even on easy terrain, he has to risk falling. There’s a lesson in there we can all learn from.

The post Watch Adam Ondra Style One of the World’s Hardest Trad Routes appeared first on Climbing.