Adam Ondra Opens a Unique 5.14d
The short sandstone route features an extremely difficult crux
Adam Ondra recently made the first ascent of Čert ví 5.14d (9a) in Chřiby near his home in Czechia. The route had been a longstanding open project, with the crux involving a vicious one-third pad mono. The sandstone route is only a few bolts long, putting it on the smaller side for a sport route but too high to reasonably boulder with pads.
“Chřiby are cute little hills, where many cute little sandstone formations are found,” said Ondra on Instagram after his ascent. “They are cute, unfortunately for climbing, they are not very high. I used to go a lot to Chřiby with my parents when I was a little kid, but I quickly climbed most of the harder routes and then I almost stopped going there. But I always had in my mind a project that I was told about by my friend Michal Rožek. He bolted it 15 years ago, and his description was not very promising – there is a tiny mono and nothing else.
“This route will probably fall into oblivion, but its ascent means a lot to me. It is paradoxical, but if the route was shorter, it would be possible to climb it like a boulder problem and it could be a world-class boulder problem. But it is too high to do it with pads and like that, it is just a random bizarre route.”
Čert ví is Ondra’s first hard sport climbing send in many months. He’s instead been focusing his efforts on bouldering. In February, he climbed his first-ever V17, Soudain Seul in Fontainebleau. At the end of January, he flashed El Elegido in La Pedriza, Spain. Originally graded V14/15, Ondra suggested V14 for the problem. A couple weeks later he flashed La Ligne de Bête V14 in Font, his third V14 flash to date. He’s flashed sixteen V13 problems over the years, several of which were proposed V14s that he downgraded post-flash.
Adam Ondra’s FA of Čert ví 5.14d
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