Gnarly Offwidth, Jihad, Gets Third Ascent

The famous 5.11 Vedauwoo offwidth was repeated by Anthony Johnson who onsighted it in June 2015.

The first ascent was by Bob Scarpelli in 1988, who pioneered a number of difficult offwidths in his day. Scarpelli graded the crack 5.11d. The second ascent was 25 years later by Pamela Pack.

Pack almost made an onsight and wrote after her send, “After another 15 feet of desperately brawling, my onsight attempt of Jihad came to a heart-breaking end with a fall in the final few feet. Despite having climbed cleanly through the crux offwidth, I fell at the last section of traversing fingers, just too crushed from the brutally physical offwidthing to make the transition into the delicate flared finger crack traverse.”

Watch Johnson climb the burly Jihad: