Adam Ondra Sends 5.14ds While Waiting for 5.15c Conditions
The top climber has been struggling with humidity as he tries to make the fourth send of Perfecto Mundo in Spain
Adam Ondra is in Margalef, Spain, waiting for conditions to improve so he can resume his Perfecto Mundo 5.15c projecting. In the past week, he’s ticked another three 5.14ds which brings his total for 5.14d or harder up to over 180 routes, the most of any climber.
The three 5.14d lines he sent this week were: Victimas Perez, Direcya Bongada and El Potro. About Victimas Perez, he said, “My nightmare, tried a few days back in 2015, a few days this trip, usually tired and when conditions were too bad for Perfecto. Today sent with severe humidity.”
It’s that humidity that’s preventing Ondra from working on Perfecto Mundo.
About his send of El Potro, Ondra said: When the wind from the east hits Margalef, it usually means no good conditions for Finestra sector where Perfecto Mundo is located, but it means it will be windy down in Laboratory sector. Far right in this sector, there were still some projects left.
Their character is great for training power and short power endurance – and on the top of that, these routes are relatively skin friendly, as they tend to be less pocketed. I tried one harder project which I had to leave for another day, but clipping chains of the great route El Potro 5.14d, which was actually first ascent, was a pretty damn nice feeling. Now hoping the wind will turn towards the north.
Follow Ondra’s journey on Perfecto Mundo on YouTube below.
Perfecto Mundo 5.15c
Alex Megos made the first ascent of Perfecto Mundo 5.15c in 2018 when he was 24; it was an old Chris Sharma project. It took Megos more than three weeks of work and it was his first of the grade.
Here’s how Megos described Perfecto Mundo: It’s an amazing route. It’s 25 moves of 5.14c to reach a poor rest and then comes 10 moves to reach the crux: a jump move from the mono to the big pinch. Last week I stuck the move but got the pinch wrong. From then on, I knew I could do the route. I stuck the pinch four to five times without being able to move afterword. Once I got it in such a weird way I couldn’t move at all, so I started talking to Ken Etzel, the photographer next to me, about how my fingers were all fucked up on the hold and that I couldn’t move.
I had enough power to hold on and talk for ages. Three or four days later I finally stuck the pinch move and could do the next moves. From there it’s endurance 5.14 with few rests. The rock is yellow at the bottom and then goes to white and at the top it is gray. The whole thing is 45-degrees overhanging with a boulder problem to pull over into the slab. The final slab is easy 5.11, but you still have to be focused.
Perfecto Mundo has been repeated by Stefano Ghisolfi and Jakob Schubert. Ondra has been projecting it on and off for nearly a month.
For Megos, the route marked a turning point. The acceptance of failure as a possible outcome, for one. For two, something else: “I don’t want to sound arrogant,” he said, “but this is probably the first hard route I’ve climbed.”
Alex Megos Perfecto Mundo
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