Adam Ondra flashes Southern Smoke Direct 5.15a/9a+ (?)

He has tried that before (e.g. on famous Realization) but unsuccessfully. Untill now. As it was reported by adamondra.com and 8a.nu, the Czech flashed Southern Smoke Direct 5.15a/9a+ !!

Red River Gorge is currently experiencing an absolute boom of young, talented and ambitious climbers from all over the world. No surprise that the spot will probably be our number one tag in the forthcoming news of November. We have already posted some info about Ashima Shiraishi’s achievements in the Bob Marley sector and now the time has come for Adam Ondra to take over.

Adam did not waste any time and went directly under Southern Smoke which seems to be one of the most popular routes of the last twelve months. The route may be famous for being a perfect field for various records breaking but it seems like not many people know about its direct variant put up last year by Adam Taylor. The variant adds a beginning in form of an 8B boulder to the original line graded 8c+, which in overall is said to give 9a+. Daniel Woods happened to be one of the witnesses of Ondra’s ascent and he commented on it as follows (as cited by Nick Duttle for dpmclimbing.com): "Apparently, he walked up to it and just went into beast mode. He flashed the boulder problem and went to the top."

 

Adam during the first ascent of
L‘étrange Ivresse des Lenteurs, Céüse, France
(photo: Black Diamond/blackdiamondequipment.com)

Adam’s ascent is the second one as Daniel Woods and Jon Cardwell, who have worked on the route before, haven’t succeeded in sending it yet. There is yet no info about Czech’s personal impressions of the route difficulty. Ondra is well-known for his honest and hard personal gradings and according to some rumours he is hesitating about confirming the 9a+ grade, suggesting that it may be rather more like 5.14d/9a.

Still, that does not change the fact that the ascent is currently the hardest flash ever made in the history of sport climbing. Rumour has it that Ondra’s number one goal for the Red River trip is to make osight attempts on Pure Imagination and Golden Ticket (both 5.14d/9a). We’ll keep you up to date with that so stay tuned!

 

Sources: dpmclimbing.com, 8a.nu, adamondra.com