Adam Ondra Onsights Two Acephale 5.14s in a Day

Adam Ondra has been in the Rockies for about two weeks, with one of those being rainy, and has a number of hard sends to his name.

At Acephale, he had already onsighted Existence Mundane 5.14b before working on his own project.

On July 6, Ondra onsighted First Flight 5.14c and Ojas 5.14a in that order. He also onsighted Army Ants 5.13c to warm up.

He also linked moves through a project he’s been working on, the direct start to Unknown Stuntman 5.13d, which Ondra said is very hard.

Took me forever to find a way around the broken hold. Searching the best beta (sequence of moves) is an important part of climbing. It is an interesting and creative process, even though sometimes it is incredibly frustrating. You can spend days trying something for days with the wrong beta until you found a different solution and all gets easy. Wasting many days on something that turned out to be easy is disappointing. And sometimes, it is somebody else who repeats it later, finds a new beta and downgrades the climb. And getting your own climb downgraded is embarassing of course?. Note: yes, the rope is in the tension – I am just desperately trying to find the beta in this picture @montura_official @lasportivagram @blackdiamond @mytendon @gardatrentino Pic by @bernartwood

A post shared by Adam Ondra (@adam.ondra) on Jul 2, 2018 at 7:45pm PDT

In 2016, Alex Megos flashed First Flight and attempted to onsight Ojas. He said after, “Did one of the last remaining hard routes here at Acephale First Flight 5.14c (8c+) on my first try.

“I knew the bottom of it from another climb but the upper two thirds were new. Super cool route. As well did the slabby 5.14a (8b+) called Ojas. If anybody ever onsights that thing, that’s at least as impressive as flashing 9a (5.14d).”

Ondra hasn’t said how hard it felt to onsight Ojas, but he’s raised the bar from Megos’s impressive visit a few years ago.

The crux of First Flight is an iron-cross style move with the right hand to high left foot to a right hand bump to a high gaston. According to climbers at Acephale, Ondra skipped the first move of the crux and went straight into the high hold.

Ondra is in Canmore for another few weeks with some other hard projects on the go.

First Flight 8c+ onsight. Followed by Ojas 8b+ onsight (slab!). Waited for the rain to wash the chalk down from Ojas to get proper experience. Pic from First Flight by @bernartwood @blackdiamond @montura_official @lasportivagram @mytendon @gardatrentino

A post shared by Adam Ondra (@adam.ondra) on Jul 5, 2018 at 10:09pm PDT