Graham & Woods climbs The Bridge of Ashes, ~8C

by Björn Pohl - UKC Mar/2013
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+Dave Graham on The Bridge of Ashes, ~8C, Elkland, Colorado, 214 kb
Dave Graham on The Bridge of Ashes, ~8C, Elkland, Colorado
Björn Pohl - UKC, Mar 2013
© Cameron Maier/Bearcam media/Island

After a lot of hard work, struggling with conditions and skin that never seemed to be good, Dave Graham managed to make the first ascent of The bridge of Ashes, ~8C, at Elkland, Colorado.
Shortly after, Daniel Woods found perfect conditions and was able to make the 2nd ascent, confirming the grade.

On the Island website, Dave described the problem a while back:

After a couple sessions, I was feeling good on the crux move. A massive slap of a terrible left hand slope/edge to a sloper with the right hand in full compression, involving bizarre feet, and a critical blind left-foot placement in order to set up and go for the slap. I realized I could do the massive move with my right hand even lower, enabling me to avoid the finger switch that plagued my old sequence. I resolved the section with a pinch, in the crack system, lower then where I was grabbing by three inches, and climbed the bottom section (which feels v12 still ) up until the set up for the crux slap. I think it must be around 8b, a very hard one at that, to link the heinous slap move, directly into the 8a outro.

As always, Cameron Maier was the to catch the action on video, which should be up on Island shortly.

David Graham is sponsored by: Beal, Five Tenand Petzl


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