La Rambla (climb)

La Rambla, more properly called La rambla Extension, La rambla Direct or La rambla Original is a famously difficult 41 metres (135 ft) long route located at the El Pati crag in Siurana, Catalonia (Spain).

Alexander Huber bolted a 6 metres (20 ft) shorter version of this route and first climbed it in 1994. Dani Andrada extended the route and his project was first climbed 9 years later (2003) by Ramón Julián Puigblanque, after more than forty failed attempts. Since then, all reptitions were made on the extended route and Huber's intermediate anchor was eventually removed. That's why the name La Rambla, which initially referred to Huber's route, is nowadays often improperly used to indicate the extended route as well.

In 1994, Huber graded his route 8c+ (5.14c). However, he actually meant that it was as difficult as Wolfgang Gullich's Action Directe, which at that time was considered to be 8c+ and was later upgraded to 9a (5.14d).^[1] Notice that Huber originally wanted to reach an higher anchor, then gave up after breaking a hold, and set another anchor 6 meters lower. The final version of Huber's route was 35 metres (115 ft) long and ended at the lower anchor.

After Huber's ascent, Dani Andrada linked Huber's route to another route nearby, via a traverse, in order to reach Huber's original anchor, 6 meters higher. Andrada's version is known as La Rambla extension or La Rambla direct. Notice that Andrada just intended to restore, as much as possible, Huber's original project. This is why Andrada's extended route is sometimes also called, quite misleadingly, La Rambla Original. An ambiguous name which should be probably avoided. ^[2]

The extended route was 41 metres (135 ft) long. Puigblanque climbed Huber's route four or five times and upgraded it to 9a+ (5.15a) (or high end 9a), then he managed to traverse to the extended route. The extension did not increase the difficulty of the ascent far enough to justify an higher rating. It was just an harder 9a+.

Ratings

Puigblanque rated both La Rambla and La Rambla Extension 9a+. La Rambla Extension was harder, but not hard enough to justify an higher grade. According to Puigblanque, the crux is in Huber's route, then there's a rest (about 5 meters below Huber's low anchor), and "the last 35 feet [up to and past Huber's anchor] could be graded between 5.13c (8a+) and 5.13d (8b)".^[3] The extended route was later repeated by many others, who confirmed Puigblanque's rating.

Huber strongly maintains that his 35 meter version of La Rambla was 9a (5.14d), "not harder than" Wolfgang Gullich's Action Directe, and many others agree with him. This is the reason why La Rambla is not considered to be world's first 9a+ route, although it was climbed by Huber two years earlier than Open Air, the world's first 9a+ route.

Huber also believes that La Rambla extension is just a slightly harder 9a. But almost everybody agrees with Puigblanque about the 9a+ (5.15a) rating for La Rambla extension.

Repetintions

The repeat ascents were by:

• Edu Marín Garcia in 2006
• Chris Sharma in 2006 (a day after Edu Marín) - after about 20 tries^[4]
• Andreas Bindhammer in 2007
• Patxi Usobiaga in 2007 - after nine tries
• Adam Ondra in 2008 - after five tries
• Enzo Oddo in 2011^[5]
• Sachi Amma in 2012
• Felix Neumärker in 2013.^[6]
• Sangwon Son in 2013
• Alexander Megos in 2013 - on his second attempt^[7]
• Daniel Jung in 2014
• Jonathan Siegrist in 2015^[8]
• Matty Hong in 2017 ^[9]
• Margo Hayes in 2017 - making her the first woman to climb a confirmed 9a+/5.15a.^[10]
• Stefano Ghisolfi in 2017 ^[11]
• Jacopo Larcher in 2017 - a day after Stefano Ghisolfi ^[12]
• Klemen Becan in 2017 ^[13]

References

External links

• Description of the route (in Spanish)
• Alex Huber, 1st ascent 1994, La Rambla (now called La Rambla Original, 40m)
• Ramon Julian , 2nd ascent 2003, 40m of La Rambla, plus 7m of extension via Reina Mora. The linked up routes are called La Rambla Direct.
• Adam Ondra on revised grading in recent years
• Alex Huber on recent revised grading

Video

• Video of Felix Nemärker

Coordinates: 41°15′29″N 0°55′56″E / 41.25806°N 0.93222°E / 41.25806; 0.93222