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Barefoot Climber Claims World’s Second V17 Problem

Charles Albert has claimed to have sent the world’s second V17 with his climb of Kapote at Rocher Brule in Fontainebleau while climbing barefoot. It took him 20 visits to the problem.

In 2016, Nalle Hukkataival sent Burden of Dreams after years of attempts and graded it V17. Neither V17s have been repeated.

Albert has repeated some of the world’s hardest problems, always without climbing shoes. Some of his hard repeats include: Le Pied a Coulisse V15 and Hypothesis sit V16.

The news first appeared on Grimper magazine’s website here.

Albert said the following of the route: “It starts in the V13 located on the left-hand side of the boulder, climbing a crack. You have three traverse moves around V12 followed by two extremely hard moves before reaching the underclings that are the stand start of Gaia V10.

“You need to take a crimp with left hand to go to a good right hold, before doing a foot-hand match and a dyno in a far two-finger pocket again with the right hand. Then you need to cross in the underclings of the stand start of Gaia and finish on it.”

Watch Albert project the route in the below video.

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