Drew Ruana has made the first ascent of Maxwell's Demon Sit, at Secret Garden, Colorado. He has graded the boulder V16, or Font 8C+.
Ruana made the first ascent of the stand start back in October, and gave it 8B+. The stand version of the boulder largely follows a thin seam, with powerful moves at the beginning when the boulder is at its steepest, leading to more static moves on smaller edges as the boulder becomes less overhanging.
Upon making the first ascent, Ruana described the boulder as a '5 star line', and perhaps 'one of the top three climbs' that he had done in Colorado. In early December, Daniel Woods made a repeat of the stand start, describing the boulder as 'hard' 8B+.
The 8C+ sit start adds a further seven 'fingery' and 'wrist intensive' moves to the beginning of the boulder, a sequence that Ruana graded as Font 8B in its own right.
Sharing news of the ascent on instagram, Ruana said:
'So happy to have gotten this one done yesterday. After doing the stand in October I planned to return to start the line at the base of the seam. After getting a few other projects done earlier this month it felt like a good time to come back to this'.
'I did the left exit last week and called it Schrödinger's Cat V14, happy that the full line went down quickly after! Feeling pretty strong right now, hoping that more projects that have eluded me for years will go down soon. Onwards and upwards'.
With four first ascents at 8C+, and a further four repeats at the grade, Ruana is the most accomplished at the grade outside of those who have climbed Font 9A. With two 8C+ first ascents and a 8C repeat in the last two months, it may not be long before we see Ruana join that group.
Comments
Impressive ascent. But is it really so, that 8 8C+ problems makes you the biggest ticker outside those that have climbed the next grade (9A)?
AFAIK. Jimmy Webb has yet to climb a 9A, but I did think he has climbed more than 8 8C+s. Perhaps I’n wrong though.
It surprised me too, but by my count Drew is 2 ahead of the next closest contender.
As far as I can tell, Jimmy has 6: Sleepwalker, Off the Wagon Sit, Ephyra, Creature from the Black Lagoon, Insomniac, and Poison the Well. He also climbed Lucid Dreaming but Paul Robinson who got the FA suggested a downgrade of that to 8C.
Ryuichi Murai and Matt Fultz are tied with Jimmy on 6 each.
Drew has climbed 4 in the last 12 months so maybe that goes some way to explaining why it's such a surprise!