New 5.15 for Jonathan Siegrist Called Close Encounters in Nevada
During a visit to Canada a few years ago, he made quick work of several 5.14+ in the Canadian Rockies
Jonathan Siegrist has made the first ascent of Close Encounters 5.15a and a 5.14b called Forbidden Planet on the same day not far from Las Vegas.
Siegrist is one of America’s top sport climbers with nearly 20 routes at 5.15a and 5.15b. On 8a.nu, he said, “It’s a really cool route in Southern Nevada. A blocky limestone kind of style so lots of underclings, a critical knee bar, very compression type of climbing. And some very powerful moves too. It took me a dozen or so full effort days to decipher the beta and climb it.”
He’d been trying Close Encounters for a few weeks and said, “It’s a wild feature – an overhanging open corner with blocky features that reminds of Rifle but even steeper and less forgiving. It has some of the most unique and brutal movements I’ve found on rock.”
In a conversation we had with Siegrist here, he told us, “I really learned climbing as a method to move through the mountains. Most of my dad’s friends, and a lot of my original role models early on really valued that. My dad, during his climbing life, was also really interested in alpinism and mountaineering. He did a trip to South America early on and even a trip to the Himalayas. Climbing was a tool that you would use to achieve a summit or to move through the mountains. Even for him, there was no focus necessarily on climbing. For the most part, if you can climb 5.11a or 5.10, the majority of passage through the mountains is available to you.”
Siegrist said that the footage of him sending Close Encounters is his favourite of all time. We can’t wait to see it and will update this story once it’s live. Below is footage of Siegrist making an early repeat of Alex Megos’s Iron Butterfly 5.14+ at Planet X in Canmore.
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