Bronwyn Hodgins Sends La Rubia 5.14c in Spain

On Feb. 28, Canadian climber Bronwyn Hodgins sent the hardest sport climb of her life with La Rubia 5.14c (8c+) in Villanueva del Rosario, Spain. Hodgins set her sights on La Rubia 11 months ago, when she began working with Maddy Cope at Lattice Training. She dedicated herself to training for eight months and then spent 2.5 months living in southern Spain working on the line itself.

“It was hugely intimidating arriving at La Rubia, having only climbed one 8b+ [5.14a] and a handful of 8b’s,” said Hodgins. “I definitely felt like maybe I had dreamed a little too big this time! But over the course of the season I slowly ticked away at more manageable chunks of the route until I was finally able to put it all together. The mental aspect was really tough. I felt like I had some of the tools from big wall free climbing such as performing well under pressure and sequence visualization and execution, but I had no experience in sticking with a project for anywhere near this long. At the same time, I continued to make progress pretty much every time I tied in which was super motivating.”

Hodgins has been one of Canada’s leading climbers for the past few years, with free ascents of Golden Gate and Freerider in Yosemite, and redpoints of A Muerta Bicho  5.13d in Turkey, Dante’s Extension 5.13d in Mexico, and Necronomicon 5.13d/14a trad in Utah.

“The route is 55m long, and steep with many knee-bar rests in the top half, which also gives a lot of opportunity to overthink things and get nervous,” said Hodgins. “On the send go, I climbed super smoothly and faster-than-ever all the way up to the final bolt (where I’d fallen on my last attempt a few days earlier). I tactically skipped the final knee bar so that I didn’t interrupt my mental flow and launched myself with all I had left for the big move just next to the chains. I still can’t believe my fingers latched onto that hold!”

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