UKC

Correct me if I am wrong but as far as I am aware it is still only Ondra and Sharma who have sent this climb.

In a time when 9b looks to be going fairly regularly why have I not even heard about any attempts on this line. Megos has now sent 9c, Stefano has just sent Change 9b+ etc 

Is it that La dura Dura is actually 9c?? 

Just my random thoughts on a tuesday morning wondering if there is an obvious answer I am missing. 

cheers all 

La Dura Dura (9b+)

I don't know how connected you are with the global climbing elite, but why would you expect to hear about someone trying it? 

I just follow the usual social media etc and quite often you do hear that people are trying certain boulders or lines. Normal you only hear about a line once it has been sent but compared to other 9b or over lines I have barely seen anything on La Dura Dura, just wondering why that is. Are people put off as it is only Sharma/Ondra who have sent it?

I cant be bother to list the athletes who have the potential to send the route having sent other lines of the grade or close to it but there are now quite a few. 

It maybe that La Dura Dura is just not that an attractive line or  some other factor i don't know about or maybe shit loads of people have had a punt and not sent and so punters such as myself have not head about it. Just curious to see if anyone had any info/ reasons why this is?

It's not just La Dura Dura - there's Akira,  Le Bombe Bleu project at Buoux, Mandallaz Drive...and some of Manolo's masterpieces as well

sent this climb -> climbed this route

It's not quite "my bad" but it is quite irritating and you only get to use language of this sort if the 2002 in your username pertains to your date of birth.

One reason that I have heard from people who could consider it is that La Dura Dura has a long crux move (check out how spanned out Ondra and Sharma are, and they are both 180+ with positive ape index. 

Stefano is much smaller so even if he would cruise the rest of it, it's irrelevant if he can't do the long move. Same goes for Megos. 

It's also worth considering the very limited number of climbers who can even consider going for that sort of grade, and also have the necessary sponsorship to spend months and multiple trips to Oliana. 

If I had to put my money on someone it'd be Seb Bouin or possibly the UK's own Will Bosi who has the height and recently did a Siruana 9b in 4 days. 

Good constructive on topic comment. cheers for that. 

That makes sense, well lets hope some one has a go in the future.   

I'll have a go if someone will pay my travel expenses.  I've only done around 7a+ so far, but how hard can it be?

Seb Bouin tried it briefly pre-coronavirus this year when I was at Oliana. He said it was too hard. Though tbf he only had a quick dog up it with sharma shouting beta at him. 
 

Along with Cedric la chat, he had been ticking through a lot of the other hard Oliana routes I think. 

I don't think access is allowed to the Akira cave anymore so it is unlikely to see any attempted repeats.

Dani Andrada and Jibé Tribout tried it quite a few years ago. Andrada made decent links and suggested there was an easier sequence that may lower the grade but he never managed the repeat. 

Then there were rumours that holds may have been artificially made worse since Rouhling climbed it but I think the climbing.com interview made it sound very likely that Rouhling did climb it in its current form.

Rather than the first 9b route in the world, it would probably be fairer to call it the first 8C boulder problem in the world. It is something like an 8B in to another 8B, then a rest, then an easy headwall. People probably wouldn't bother with a rope if they did the first ascent of it now. Rouhling didn't rope up until the rest either.

Of the 9b+s, I think I'm right in saying this is the number of ascents they have each had:

Perfecto Munro: 3 (Megos, Ghisolfi, Schubert)

La Dura Dura: 2 (Sharma, Ondra)

Change: 2 (Ondra, Ghisolfi)

Vasil Vasil: 1 (Ondra)

So none of them have been repeated much and La Dura Dura isn't an exception. Although 9bs are starting to go down quite quickly, there still aren't that many ascents of 9b+s.

Could it be because Spain was Covid Central for much of this year?