Watch Pete Whittaker Try the Crack on Silence 5.15d

Silence is one of the hardest rock climbs in the world at 5.15d and was first climbed by Adam Ondra. Seeing as how a very small portion of the crux has a crack on it, crack crusher Pete Whittaker wanted to see if he could find some jams and actually hang on.

Here’s what Ondra said about the film: I really enjoyed watching this video and I was looking forward to when Pete or Tom would finally check it out. Linking the crux (even though there are harder single moves lower down) was jamming my left foot properly, while being super extended holding the slopyy hole with right hand down low, and then getting into the holds right underneath the foot jam. From there on, it was all about this massive drop knee, which makes the “crack section” a one mover, instead of technical jamming and making more moves.

I would often get into the position where Pete is starting from, with my foot jam sliding half out and there was no way to drop the knee, because I was in the air before I dropped the knee. At the same time, if the foot jam stuck perfectly, I would never fall in the drop knee any more. So, I do not think that the new jamming beta would help me because you still need the foot jam in the correct place in order to move your feet higher.

In my point of view, I guess the new beta might be similar difficulty for me (I totally agree I still have a lot to learn about jamming though), but new beta requires wearing flat shoes on both feet (instead of soft downturn shoe on my right) which would definitely make the other sections harder for me. Great news is that the route is possible without dislocating the knee though, which makes the route much better!

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The crack on Silence – When half the crux of the hardest route in the world has a crack on it and part of it revolves around a foot jam, I was too curious not to have a look and see what it was all about. . I wasn't interested in checking out the beginning moves of the crux and getting into the crack (they looked utterly desperate), i was purely interested to see what the climbing was like when established with the infamous feet-first foot jam, and whether the remaining moves up the crack could be climbed using pure jamming technique rather than the drop knee and laybacks that @adam.ondra had used. . I found an alternative crack climbers sequence to the end of the crux, which used some technical foot and thin hand jams…shame for me that the crack is marooned between impossibly hard looking V14 and 13 climbing ? . #silence #flatanger

A post shared by Pete Whittaker (@petewhittaker01) on Aug 6, 2020 at 5:01am PDT

The Crack of Silence