Home > International

Watch Pirmin Bertle Send Bolivia’s First 5.14d

German crusher Pirmin Bertle has continued his South America new-routing with the first ascent of In this light you look like Poseidon at El Eden.

The hard new climb is the first of the grade in Bolivia and is at nearly 4,000 metres. Bertle, 32, made the first ascent of Azul es el cielo de los ciegos at Piedra Parada 5.14d in Argentina in 2016.

Pirmin Bertle on his new 5.14d in Bolivia.

This year, he made the first ascent of Ruta de Cobre at Socaire 5.14d in Chile’s Atacama desert, at over 3,500 metres. More at his blog here.

Bertle wrote after “In this light you look like Poseidon is Bolivias’s first 5.14d, the second one on the Altiplano at almost 4,000 metres and the fourth one in Latin America.

“I sent it after some 10 tries in a once-in-a-lifetime rush one month before the end of our five-month trip to South America. The route consists of about 25 hard moves with only one moderate rest point before the red point crux.

“The first boulder is definitely harder than everything I repeated on this trip (problems up to 8A in Capilla del Monte or Golden) and way more my style. On the right foot you need a harder shoe like the Scarpa Instinct VS to push from very open foot holds for the jump move but in the following main crux part of nearly 15 moves.

“There was no way to hook the crucial hook with anything else than the heel shape and the new rubber of the Instinct VS-R (and even with this one only one of three hook tries were successful).”

“Up to there you have linked 7C+ to 8A+ without a rest, thus something like 8c+, but the last 7B+ boulder still will throw you off, if you are not in a good route climbing shape.”

Check out the latest buyer's guide:

The Best Climbing Gear According to Our Editors – March

Every month we're bringing you our favourite gear so you can complete your climbing kit with the latest and best stuff out there