James Taylor has made the first ascent of Olwen (E9 6c), at Rhoscolyn, Anglesey. 

The route, James' second hardest FA, is on Painted Wall, the same wall where, in 2021, James established his hardest route to date, Prisoners of the Sun (E10 7a).

Olwen is a hybrid sport-trad route, starting on the drilled and glued bolts of Easel-EE (E7 6c). The route follows the same line as Easel-EE until the third bolt, and then - where Easel-EE goes left - heads directly up 'on side-pulls and undercuts'.

Thereafter, a five metre runout leads to the next decent bit of gear at some flake undercuts at 'about nine metres', with James suggesting there if you fell before placing the gear there might be 'some ground scrapers'.

After placing some good gear, there is a further five or six metre section with no placements, before the final bolt of Painted Groove Direct (E7 6c). The route then follows the same top out as Painted Groove Direct.

Sharing news of the FA on instagram, James said: 

'The rib-like feature in the center of the Painted Wall has been an open project on the topo for a few years now, and after a sustained effort from Franco Cookson and myself, it's finally done'.

'This route was a total team effort, with Franco unlocking some of the sequences way before me, and then showing me the way. Due to timing and conditions, I happened to make the FA - but it could easily have been the other way round. I had a good fight on lead, which I won't forget for a while, scraping through some of the moves by tiny margins with very pumped arms'.

'After my lead, Franco made the wise choice to bail as the sun had come round and he did not want to risk the runouts in those conditions. The week before he committed in the sun and had a difficult time grappling with the hot holds before coming off the top wall, a scary belay and not something either of us wanted to do again'.

'As for the grade, as always it's difficult to tell but the route is undoubtedly harder than the neighboring 8a sport route. I think a very runout 8a+ is a fair appraisal of the route. Of the two five metre runouts, the first has you thinking a little too much about the floor but is thankfully not too hard (British 6b). The second runout is the pumpy finale of the route and makes for some long whippers and scary moves. Total Class'.