The 9a with no second chance

On July 9, 2013, Adam Ondra, a 20-year-old Czech sport climber, reached the anchor of La Cabane au Canada at Rawyl in Valais, Switzerland, after climbing the route on his first try. The route was graded 9a, also written as 5.14d in the American system. 1 2

For non-climbers, the word that matters is "onsight." Ondra did not rehearse the moves, fall, inspect the holds, or come back after practice. In climbing terms, he onsighted it. Climbing Magazine described the ascent as the second 5.14d onsight ever, after Alexander Megos onsighted Estado Critico in Siurana, Spain, earlier in 2013. 3

A redpoint lets a climber practice a route over repeated attempts. A flash is a first-try ascent with prior information. An onsight is harsher: the climber starts without having touched the holds, practiced the sequence, or received useful instructions. 3

That is what makes this July 9 moment so strange. At grades this hard, the normal story is obsession: sessions, falls, memorized footholds, microscopic adjustments. Ondra was trying to solve a world-class route in real time, and any fall would have ended the onsight forever. 3

Ondra first saw La Cabane au Canada the previous evening. He told PlanetMountain that he saw it "in the last rays of sun," thought it looked "absolutely amazing," and was so excited that he "couldn't fall asleep." 2

The next morning did not start like a polished elite-sport ritual. Ondra said the forecast had called for overcast skies, but he woke at 7 AM, saw blue sky on a south-facing crag, and "got furious." 4 He tried to warm up on a route he thought was 8a, fell halfway up, then learned it was not even in the guidebook. His backup warmup was wonderfully low-tech: "I then ran around and flapped my arms as best I could and then set off." 2

Ondra described the route as "40 meters of perfect wall" with small crimps, good footholds, rests between cruxes, and a line that looked as if it had been cut with a knife. 4 PlanetMountain reported that the ascent took about 15 minutes and ended around 9:00 AM, when Ondra clipped the anchor and a jubilant scream carried across the Valais valley. 2

The best line from Ondra is not heroic in the usual way. He said he began with "slight nervousness," but near the top he climbed "like a robot" with "no space for thinking." 4 That is the whole trick of an onsight at this grade. The climber has to improvise, but the body has to act as if the answer was already known.

The route itself had a history before Ondra arrived. Didier Berthod bolted La Cabane au Canada, and Lionel Clerc made the first ascent in 2006. 5 Ondra later suggested the route sat at the lower end of 9a, but he also said it was the first route suggested at 9a that he could "honestly believe" belonged in the 9a range after onsighting it. 5

The shareable stat has a wonderfully scrappy prelude. On July 9, a climber saw a Swiss limestone wall, slept badly, botched the warmup, flapped his arms, and then became the second person credited with onsighting a 9a route. 1 2