Before he left he climbed a stunning route up the overhanging face of an 80ft free-standing gneiss boulder near Ticino in Switzerland. Bolted in May this year, he worked on it when conditions allowed during the summer and finally snagged the first ascent, in front of Josh Lowell's cameras, on November the 8th.
The conservative grading Graham (he's down graded his own problems) has offered 9a for Coup de Grace which involves dynamic climbing on small holds, slopers and includes three hard bouldery sections between V11 and V13. Although his 8a.nu scorecard says 9a+ with the comment, " Hard, The most amazing beautiful cool thing ever! My baby." Josh Lowell of Big Up Productions (makers of the Dosage series of DVD's) has a full illustrated report at his website including video footage (see the Extras section)
Graham is now in Bishop, California were he recently repeated Toni Lamiche's sit-start to Mandala (V13), Matt Birch's Swarm (v12/13) and Tim Clifford's Thunderbird (V12/13) and knowing the area he'll no doubt soon be the author of some impressive new problems the equal of his own Spectre (V13) at the Pollen Grains and maybe set a new standard or in his own words,"I am just trying to climb really, really hard, a new level for us humans. "
You can read an interview with David Graham at the Prana website.
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