In an Instagram post, Ethan says that he needed around ten days of work to be able to redpoint this 30+ metre crack, which he protected with 15 cams.
Once I started giving it legit red point burns I pushed my high point higher every day (including one fall from the very last move on Saturday) so I thought I might get off easy without entering the realm of pre-send stress, the realm of manifesting worst case scenarios. But of course as happens with the most meaningful projects, progress wasn't linear and I had a heady couple days of "regression" before realizing how dialled I had it and taking advantage of a one hour window of the right kind of wind yesterday. The important ones always get heady, break you down and force you to check at least some of your ego at the bottom. That's what I love and hate about hard projects: they force you to surrender.
Needless to say, this was Ethan's hardest trad climb to date. Not sure how much experience he has placing gear, but when it comes to pure climbing skills he is one of the few to have sport climbed 9b. He repeated Chris Sharma's Jumbo Love in May 2015.
Photo: Jim Thornburg
Ethan Pringle is sponsored by: Mountain Hardwear, Tenaya, Touchstone climbing and Trango
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