Long Routes - Petzl Team extend themselves

The Petzl Roc trips get better and better, bigger and bigger. This year was no exception, with single pitch routes 100m long, I don't think they get any longer. I was invited again, obviously as the token Brit, there for dry humour and poor dress sense and perhaps because I've won a few trips, even up against the likes of Sharma and Andrada. Fortunately they hadn't spotted it was clearly either a fluke or involved some serious cunning. On performance alone I think I'd be lucky to scrape in!

On height alone I’d also struggle and a bunch of shorties watched in disappointment as the tall guys stretched up via an enormous reach from a massive undercut to a hidden crimp over a bulge. Disappointing when this move lies 10 metres up a 100 metre route! Sure enough I was off before Id even started, hitting the hold too far left. Other shorties suffered a similar fate dropping this move or just about latching it and falling very soon afterwards. It seemed unfair. But that’s real climbing, the hold positions chosen only by nature and not by route setters. This was a ground up competition, one go per day, no opportunity to practice or solve the mistake. At least it wasn’t completely game over, there were two more days and so two more goes. It was ironic, it would have made absolutely no difference what so ever if I’d spent five years solid training and turned up looking like Adonis, or if I’d sat on my arse for five years drinking Stella, I’d still have flopped off at the same spot!

                                                 Pic - Sam Bié

One attempt per day, last day I latched it, almost letting go with surprise. The hold was only just enough. The next section was hard, but I wasn’t dropping that, I wanted to make the most of the length. 50 metres of 8b to a no hands rest, a further 30 metres of 7a climbing and then 20 metres of unknown boulderyness into a wilderness of holdless steepness, probably at least 8b+ in its own rite! The entrance from 7a to 8b+ was a complete shock to the system, startling my body from a state of gradual warm down to intense warm up. The angle tipped over alarmingly and the holds appeared to disappear, not helped by the decreasing amount of chalk left by fewer and fewer climbers. I sketched my way up an assortment of unlikely moves to eventually plop off, though not until I’d had the chance to shake out a little and absorb the ridiculousness of this crazy position. 85 metres up above the ground. How often do we get the chance to climb in one unbroken flow of movement for so long? Yet again Petzl had come up with the goods, giving climbers the gift of a route of such quality and the chance to enjoy the movement for so long. Next I flashed the women’s route, and this was even better. One of the most amazing sections of climbing I’ve ever done. If I don’t climb anything else this year that route alone will keep me happy!
 
 

The womens route, A link of 3 pitches. 7b+, 7b+ 7c. That makes about 7c+/8a. Onsighted by a fair few amazing women climbers including Martina Cufar who was first and had no chalk to follow - a brilliant effort...