Kaddi Lehmann has made the fourth ascent of Franz Widmer's Kryptos at Morchelstock in the Balsthal, Switzerland.
The problem was put up by Franz in May 2009 and has, until now, only been repeated by Fred Nicole who did it in late October the same year and by Kevin Heiniger a year ago.
Kaddi's brother Christian and Michael Steimle first showed her the problem in March 2017, and she tells Black Diamond that "When I first tried it, I couldn't do much on it— just hold some positions and most of the moves felt impossible".
But this first impression didn't scare her away, "At the end of 2017, I had the idea of seeing this boulder as the ultimate goal with all other climbs like small steps towards that goal. And I thought, if not now then maybe never".
From Kaddi's Instagram: I'm very happy that I could do this boulder. It didn't feel easy and I think for sure this is the hardest boulder that I have done.
Kaddi's hardest problem before Kryptos was Fragile Steps (V13), 8B, in Rocklands (2015) and she is the second female climber to climb an ~8C boulder after Ashima Shiraishi who repeated Dai Koyamada's Horizon in March 2016.
Comments
Wow. So much for broad pyramid theory of grade progression. One 8b then this. Impressive stuff.
So is she a Swiss climber?
4th Ascent. The 3rd was last year
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00spoNb8c6U
Very impressive
Confused by all the '~' symbols. Seen it used in a few other reports on here for boulders. Are all bouldering grades approximate these days?
Thanks, I didn't know Kevin had done it!