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More 5.15 Sends Continues Epic 5.15 Send Train

It wasn’t too long ago when a 5.15 send was a big deal, so big that all of the media covered it and echos of it could be heard in climbing gyms for weeks.

Now it seems a 5.15 send is so commonplace that keeping track of them is more difficult than ever. Over the past few days, La Rambla 5.15a got its 20th ascent by Kleman Becan. The strong Slovenian climb Joe Mama 5.15a and Papichulo 5.15a in Oliana in 2016.

La Rambla, one the world’s first 5.15s, has had seven ascents in 2017: David Firnenburg, Matty Hong, Margot Haynes, Stefano Ghisolfi Jacopo Larcher and Klemen Becan. It was first climbed in 1994 by Alex Huber at 5.14c and repeated and extended in 2003 by Ramón Julián Puigblanque at 5.15a.

Also in Spain, Felipe Camargo sent his first 5.15a with a tick of Papichulo. After his send he wrote, “”I worked the route six weeks last year and seven days this trip. Trained a lot of endurance and tried to set my traverses in the gym with similar amount of hard moves, resistance and boulders.

“Like 28 moves to the first bad rest, then 12 moves boulder, better rest and then 40 endurance moves to the top. I never worked so hard or wanted anything as bad as I wanted this route!”

Adam Ondra reported on Instagram that he sent two new routes at Camaiore, one called La Terza Eta 5.14d and the other being Naturalmente 5.15a. During the same week, Ondra sent Lapsus 5.15b and the new Queen Line 5.15b.

And not to be outdone, strong American Jon Siegrist sent his project Pachamama 5.15a in Oliana last week. There were far more 5.14 climbers before 5.15 was ticked, but with so many 5.15 climbers in 2017, will 5.15d or 5.16a be a grade we see before the year is out?

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