Franco Cookson has made the first ascent of his long-term slab project, The Dewin Stone (9a+) at Twll Mawr, Gwynedd, Wales.

Graded at 9a+, The Dewin Stone may well be the hardest established slab route in the world.

Situated on the same wall as James McHaffie's The Meltdown (9a), The Dewin ('Wizard' in Welsh) Stone follows a crack system lower down, taking a direct line into the crux of James McHaffie's iconic route, as well as a direct line out of it.

Earlier in the projecting process, Franco described the route as taking 'all the hard climbing of The Meltdown apart from one move and chuck[ing] in a harder into and outro', creating a 'slate enduro monster'.

The route is Franco's second addition to The Meltdown. He first climbed the original route in March 2022 - skipping all 8th grade routes in the process - only to add a 9a+ direct finish to the route a month later.

The Meltdown Direct (9a+) follows the original route through the majority of crux, before bypassing some of its final traverse and heading directly up to the belay. Earlier today, Franco told us that The Dewin Stone, with its many hard moves packed so closely together, is the harder of the two.

'SO ABSOLUTELY PSYCHED' Franco said on Instagram, after making the first ascent of The Dewin Stone, 'it has taken just SO LONG and required so much effort! And I'm delighted with the result: pure magic'.

'For years now, I've been completely obsessed with the idea of pushing slab climbing as far as it will go. James McHaffie's The Meltdown (9a) opened my eyes to what sustained slab climbing entailed and hinted at what the future could hold'.

'I went abroad to try and get benchmarks on other hard slabs, but found the best stuff was right on my doorstep, here in North Wales. What we have here is world class - in terms of difficulty, but also quality. I just love it so much'.

'I found two perfect projects, right on the same wall as The Meltdown. The one on the left was sustained and really hard, and the one on the right mind bogglingly futuristic. The Dewin Stone takes this sustained left hand line, following a groove/rib the whole way'.

'There are four parts to the climb: it starts with eight metres of easy climbing, before jumping into twelve hard hand moves, the last of these the hardest on the whole route (I fell here dozens of times). This gains the groove of The Meltdown, taking in all but one move of The Meltdown's crux section (twelve hand moves for my sequence)'.

James McHaffie demonstrating everyone's favourite Meltdown move

'After the foot pick up of The Meltdown, you are straight into a longer, boshy, dynamic section, with some powerful pulls on small crimps, which become really difficult when pumped. This is seventeen further hand moves, which means by the time you jump for the stance, you've been doing hard moves, in complete flow state for forty-one hand moves (and more importantly, absolutely tonnes of foot moves)'.

'The line maybe sounds convoluted, but it's a straight up, following a groove: a brilliant feature, especially for the grade. The confusion is mostly caused by The Meltdown being such a weird snaking line. The Meltdown's a great line of weakness, but as a result it does climb all over several obvious lines'.

'I did the moves on this route relatively quickly after doing The Meltdown, but I hadn't quite appreciated the extent to which this route goes on and on. I felt like I was using a totally different energy system on this to when I did The Meltdown - I was just totally destroyed by the end, power screaming and summoning everything I had'.

'I knew the moves so well, could shake out all over the place, cruise through sections I used to find nails, got the best shoe beta, diet was on point, in great shape, and I still had to go back day after day, falling and trying so hard. For me, it feels significantly harder than The Meltdown, which is the only route you can compare it to really. More than a grade harder to be honest'.

'I've progressed so much in this style over the last few years, grading a route like this becomes a bit of a nonsense, but I'm a firm believer you should propose something. Of course what I'm now really psyched for is to begin work on the next project, to which the increase in difficulty is yet greater again. The moves on that thing are out of this world...'

We'll be chatting with Franco about the route early next week, keep an eye out on our YouTube channel for the interview.