The world’s best climber shakes up the Rockies scene
I’ve been climbing in the Canadian Rockies for nearly 20 years and after every summer, I take time to reflect on the important sends of the season. This summer was an exceptional one and it will take some time to unpack everything that went down, or should I say up, from the folder of noteworthy climbs. Of all of the impressive performances this summer, Czech climber Adam Ondra, best known for being the best technical sport climber ever, took the Bow Valley for a ride along the he-did-whatand-how highway. One of the biggest takeaways from the summer of sends is that the potential for hard climbing in the Canadian Rockies is just now being realized.
When it was announced that Adam Ondra would be visiting Canmore in 2018 for the Bow Valley Rock Fest, climbers assumed he would quickly make the second ascent of Alex Megos’s Fight Club 5.15b at Ravens Crag in Banff. However, Ondra found the route to be seeping for most of his visit, so he turned his attention to projects in the valley.
At Acephale, where Ondra would attract crowds up to 50 climbers to watch him climb, he made quick work of old classics. His onsight of Fight Flight 5.14c, where he skipped crux holds and linked sections that many locals have been projecting for years, made believers of anyone who didn’t believe the hype of Ondra’s onsighting power. Shortly after First Flight (which was first climbed by Josh Muller and repeated by Evan Hau and Alex Megos) was followed by an onsight of Ojas, a 5.14a slab. When Megos was visiting, he said an onsight of Ojas would be more difficult than sending a 5.14d, Ondra disagreed.
In a conversation I had with Ondra about whether grades in the Rockies were soft,
ADAM ONDRA’S DRY SKIN, SACRIFICE AND DISBELIEF
he said, “The grades are quite hard up to 5.13-, then it is quite normal, never really on the super soft side.”
Also at Acephale, Ondra worked hard on a thin-looking project which is more/less a direct start to The Unknown Stuntman 5.13d. Ondra found the moves desperate and onlookers couldn’t believe he could contortion his body like he did on such tiny sidepulls. He said the climb, named Disbelief, is at the upper end of 5.15b, so we’ll assume he meant 5.15b/c. “It was a crazy day,” Ondra said. “I almost wanted to give up. After two tries, when I got to the crux move (which is actually a foot move) totally fresh, I slipped off, for like the fifteenth time. No light at the end of the tunnel, despite the fact I stuck the move 10 days prior, once, only to fall off two moves higher. On my third try of the day, I somehow did not slip and did not fall. I cannot think of many other routes where I climbed so close to my limit.”
When I asked him what route it compares to, he said, “It is very unique climb and the most vertical 5.15b I have done. It might be relatively comparable to Vasil Vasil 5.15c in Czech Republic, but that one is steeper and less intricate.”
Ondra also made the first ascent of Hairball Direct 5.13d and made the first
onsights of Existence Mundane 5.14b, Endless Summer 5.13d and Whale Back 5.13c. He climbed the classics Army Ants 5.13c, Leviathan 5.14a and Beam Me Up Scotty 5.13c quickly.
Over in Echo Canyon, Ondra was keen to attempt Evan Hau’s Honour and Glory, a tall route that Hau graded 5.15a. It made Hau the first 5.15 Canadian climber and was the second of the grade in the country. Ondra only needed two tries to send the steep climb with sharp holds. Ondra, known for downgrading routes everywhere he visits, settled on 5.14d for Honour and Glory. “It’s an amazing 45-metre line up in Colosseum, a scenic crag high above the town of Canmore, which was one of the reasons why I went to Canada. One of the few potential 5.15as that looked flashable.”
Ondra was joined in Echo Canyon by Hau, Miles Adamson, Sonnie Trotter, Petr Pavlicek and some other climbers. Adamson had been attempting the second ascent for a few weeks and was keen to watch Ondra’s beta. “I set off and I felt awesome, just flowing up the route,” said Ondra. “But at the fourth bolt it was all over and I did not want to waste my energy drying up my hands after touching a wet hold. I knew a good hold was getting closer and pushed through, but I slipped.” Ondra lowered to the ground and rested for a few minutes before heading back up and sending on his second go. Adamson went on to make the third ascent and Jon Siegrist the fourth.
It was a cool July in the Rockies and morning temperatures were chilly. Things warmed up and soon there was wildfire smoke clouding the air most days. It made approaches difficult, but most climbers managed to take advantage of the days when there was less smoke in the air. When asked about the air conditions, Ondra said, “I like the cold conditions in Canada, but unfortunately, I couldn’t
appreciate them enough because my skin remained really dry until the very end of my trip. I felt better on slightly warmer days. But even on the warmest days, it was never too hot to climb.” To combat the dry skin, Ondra was wearing bags full of moisturizer on approaches.
A few days after repeating Honour and Glory, Ondra was back in Echo Canyon on another Hau project. The Coliseum has a number of big lines that will eventually all settle in the 5.15 range. Hau bolted both this project and Honour and Glory two years ago. The 45-metre pitch of steep limestone didn’t take Ondra long. “I linked all the moves of this on what I’m calling Sacrifice 5.15a. Both it and Honour and Glory are of a really good quality and will hopefully tempt other climbers. As much as it is fun to climb on established routes, we should give a credit to everyone who makes the sacrifice to bolt and clean them for the rest of us.”
But Ondra’s trip to Canada was really about attempting Fight Club, which he did get to do after the seeps dried up. The first half of the route was bolted by Peter Arbic in the early 1990s and Trotter bolted the upper half in 2016. When we asked Megos
about the crux of Fight Club, he said, “I think the most challenging part of the route was the section in the middle where I decided to change beta after trying it for a couple of days already. That was the move where I fell most and which was the most unsecure move in the whole route.”
When we asked Ondra, he said, “Fight Club is incredibly power-resistant with very few places to rest. For me, I still struggled with my dry skin, so I could keep my skin warm and sticky on the bottom, but as soon as I made it to the upper half, I started losing grip. But the main problem is having the endurance for the whole climb. There is a hard boulder problem after the first anchor, so the fresher you get there, the more chance you have to do it. Unfortunately, as I was waiting for a long time to finally try it and in the meantime trying mostly short and bouldery climbs, my endurance was not that great.”
Ondra said he’s excited to return to Banff to try Fight Club, mostly because he sees the potential for an extension that could bump the grade up, which means the ongoing history of Fight Club will continue for years to come. As for hard single-pitch sport climbing in the Rockies, it’s fair to say that the potential for more 5.15s is very much a reality. And while Canada still doesn’t have a 5.15 climber, it’s only a matter of time with so many new projects to get strong on. Thanks Ondra, for bringing your world class focus and vision to Canada, hope to see you again soon.—BP