Seb Bouin Sends and Joins La Rambla List
Seb Bouin has sent La Rambla 5.15a in Spain and joined the growing list of top climbers who’ve climbed the historic route. Bouin is the sixth climber up La Rambla i 2017, the route’s most active year.
On Instagram, he said: “This route is a piece of climbing history. For me it’s a revenge to do it in nine goes this year, because I injured my back two years ago on this route. In fact, I injured a herniated disc on the crux during a working session.”
La Rambla is 41 metres and located at the El Pati crag in Siurana, Catalonia. Alexander Huber bolted a six metres of it and first climbed it in 1994. Dani Andrada extended the route to reach a higher anchor and his project was first climbed nine years later (2003) by Ramón Julián Puigblanque after more than 40 failed attempts.
Since then, all repetitions were made on the extended route and Huber’s intermediate anchor was eventually removed. In 1994, Huber graded his route 5.14c, but he actually meant that it was as difficult as Wolfgang Gullich’s Action Directe, which at that time was considered to be 5.14c/d and was later upgraded to 5.14d.
Puigblanque climbed Huber’s route four or five times and upgraded it to 5.15a, then he managed to redpoint the extended route as well. The additional six meters needed to reach the higher anchor slightly increased the difficulty of the ascent, but not enough to justify an higher rating.
“It’s just a harder 5.15a,” said Adam Ondra, the fifth climber who repeated the route, in 2008.
La Rambla Repeats
Edu MarÃn Garcia in 2006
Chris Sharma in 2006 (a day after Edu MarÃn, after about 20 tries)
Andreas Bindhammer in 2007
Patxi Usobiaga in 2007 (after nine tries)
Adam Ondra in 2008 (after five tries)
Enzo Oddo in 2011
Sachi Amma in 2012
Felix Neumärker in 2013
Sangwon Son in 2013.
Alexander Megos in 2013 (second attempt)
Daniel Jung in 2014
Jonathan Siegrist in 2015
Matty Hong in 2017
Margo Hayes in 2017 (first woman to climb a confirmed 5.15a)
Stefano Ghisolfi in 2017
Jacopo Larcher in 2017 (day after Stefano Ghisolfi)
Klemen Becan in 2017
Seb Bouin in 2017
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