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Chris Sharma Opened a 5.14b in Quebec, It Was Just Climbed Again

David Rea showed up and put down a steep and burly test-piece at Orford that ends with a big throw

David Rea has repeated one of Chris Sharma’s many Canadian routes with a redpoint of Welcome to Jam Rock at Quebec’s Orford. It’s one of the most difficult sport climbs in the province.

“After 17 sessions of effort it finally happened,” said Rea. “This weekend was my first time back on it since last year and yesterday was kinda trash. I couldn’t do any substantial links on my first 3 tries and i felt super weak on it. Then I gave a forth try as the sun was setting and got really close, but didn’t quite do it. This morning I woke up and felt tired and weak so belief was kinda low.”

Rea said that luckily friends Elvira Mendez and Mikael Fortin stepped up and invited Rea and his partner “to there place for the night so I slept pretty well and Elvira made an amazing omelet that gave me the necessary power I needed.” Rea said that he almost sent on the warm up – it went down on his second go of the day. He went on to climb the classic Parallel Universe 5.14a at Rumney and said, “I had been looking at videos of this route since I started climbing and today it goes down after five or six days of effort.”

Welcome to Jam Rock was bolted by Yannick Duguay before Sharma visited and sent the technical route which climbs a crimpy face to V11 crux and V9 dyno before the chains. It climbs an obvious line up the middle of a series of overhangs through around 20 moves with the final being the hardest. Duguay mananged to get the send after 60 days and 120 attempts for his first 5.14. Over the years, other climbers including Gabriel Laliberté and Laurent Chiasson have climbed Welcome to Jam Rock.

David Rea’s Send

Yannick Duguay’s Send

 

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