HARDEST Trad Climbing Flashes of All Time

So I'm here in Spain to attempt this trad line originally climbed by Carlos Legroño and give an 8b+. My aim is to try and flash it. Flashing a climb simply means doing it first go with no falls, but you've previously had information about the climb. I know that this is going to be incredibly difficult as this standard of trad climb has only ever been done in this style once before. So a lot of the time in trad climbing, as the difficulty increases, the gear can get sparse as there's less crack features to place protection. Obviously, this isn't always the case, but it's true to say that many trad climbs in the UK do seem to follow this trend. Because of this, flashing trad routes with a high physical grade can become incredibly difficult because the danger element attached to it. There basically just aren't that many climbers, really, who want to be attempting 8b or 8b+. climbs with deadly falls on their first attempt. However, there is a form of trad climbing which is an exception to this, and as the physical difficulty increases, the danger doesn't become a problem. This type of climbing is crack climbing. It is possible to get exceptionally difficult crack climbing yet still have very good protection. The combination of these basically give a climber freedom to try hard on their first attempt to flash without putting themselves in severe danger. There have actually been many impressive trad climbing flashes which have taken the mental side of climbing to another level. However, these climbs have often had a slightly lower physical difficulty, generally being around 8a or lower. The exception to this was James Pearson's impressive flash of Something's Burning in Pembroke, which has an 8a plus 8b climbing standard mixed in with some serious consequences. Above this grade though, there's only three known trad flashes which have a harder physical difficulty. The first one being in 2009 when Stevie Haston climbed the 8b route of Greenspit, then myself climbing Ronnie Meadowsfensen, again 8b, in 2019, and then taking top spot is Alex Magos' incredible flash of the path 8b plus in 2016. Before setting off, I felt as though I had good beta for the crook section. However, my knowledge for the final crack was still pretty limited and I didn't have a specific sequence to follow. As this route gets a grade of 8b plus, it will be the hardest naturally protected climbing I've tried to flash. It is a crack, so it's nice and safe, but I'm expecting it to be a physical battle. What must be noted about this line though is that the initial 6c wall climb leading up to the base of the crack is protected by three bolts. So even though all difficulties are in the naturally protected crack section, technically it's not a pure trad line. So the first tricky section of the route comes when you have to make this rock over move into the roof. It's actually really tempting to go left foot up into the corner and reach out onto the left wall to some face holds. But after watching Mari do the move, I stuck to the beta I'd seen and used some locks in the crack. The final lock is actually pretty thin and flaring. Like in all honesty, it was a lot worse than what I was expecting and I was kind of struggling to get my fingers in there with my meaty sausage pork like fingers. So from here you can place a few pieces of protection and the key for me at this point was to ensure that I had placed a piece reasonably far ahead of me so that when I entered into the next crook section I didn't have to stop too many times and place more pieces within that difficult climbing. However, because I didn't know exactly what finger locks I was going to use and in which order, I was consciously thinking, you know, not to place it right in the middle of any finger jams. I don't think there's a real rule for how to go about this, but generally I'm reading the rocks features as quickly as possible for the hand holds first and then focusing secondly on the gear placements around these. I think with a bit of experience you get quicker at this, but it is a real skill that takes a long time to build up, especially when you're in stressful situations. So in the steepest part of the crack, just before the crook starts, I managed to get two opposing finger locks. I do find when it's finger cracks and it's quite steep terrain that using these opposing finger locks can feel really good. I knew coming into the next section that was going to be tricky from watching videos previously and that it revolved around this high left foot which enabled you to get a knee bar and then off this you're able to reach a big jug at halfway. In the central section of the climb you have some really good holds. The feet are good if you know how to jam them correctly in the box, but otherwise they're actually quite poor. And this is also a really good opportunity to place gear ahead of you and just sort out the other bits of gear that are behind you. I only had one red cam left and I knew that I needed this red cam for the final section, so I did do a little bit of shuffling around with the gear to make sure that I had the right pieces for the very end crooks. I think the real important thing about flashing and on-sighting routes that are at the limit is to be confident in the crook sequences and move quickly. If something feels bad in the crooks I tend to go with the mentality of just going for it because by the time you've thought about it, change your mind on what you want to do next instead, then that's basically just too much time and you'll likely just fall off. However, I do think it is important to re-evaluate if you think something's going wrong and you don't believe it to be the crooks. I knew this next section wasn't meant to be the hardest part of the route, so it was crucial to evaluate each section coming up as even if I was fatigued, then I knew it should be within my ability even when I was tired. The first section of this end crack was actually quite straightforward, essentially a couple of moves which landed you at some more really good holds. I decided here at this point that it would probably be my last placement before the anchor. I made the assumption that I'd be too tired to place any gear when I was going for it and also I didn't want to risk placing something in the handhold which I might need later. It was obviously going to be a pretty big run out, but the route is so steep you'd just be falling into space. If for some reason that the cam did rip, you'd take an absolutely monster fall, but again you've climbed so much of a roof section to get to that point, I think you'd just be totally fine and you'd just end up going for the ride of your life. I actually left the rest not feeling that recovered. It's kind of awkward this last section as it's hard to decide what to do. I wasn't sure whether to jam straight in or use some drop knees or get, you know, the back and the shoulders involved in the offset of the crack. In the end, because I was struggling, it kind of became obvious as I started climbing to use the back and shoulders against the sidewall to give me some extra friction. So on my first attempt out, I totally nearly blew it. I found myself in some dodgy ring locks, too pumped to do anything. I think this is where a bit of experience and also willpower comes into play because it would be easy to just drop it at this point but instead go back to the rest, re-evaluate. If I had carried on here, most certainly I would have fallen off. I knew the rest a few meters back was okay and now I'd got a feel for some of the jams on the end section plus I'd been able to see what was coming up. So if I could recover a little bit in the rest, I'd be able to climb with a bit more knowledge on the second time around. I had eyed up a hand jam on this end section and I knew that if I got my left hand in there, I would have a decent chance of doing it. However, I could see that my right hand was going to end up in this hand jam and to switch to get my left hand in was definitely going to be crooksy. I was also finding it really hard to recover at this point as I'd been on the route for around 35 minutes already. So just that general fatigue of being in a roof for so long was definitely starting to kick in. Come on Pete, come on, come on, come on, fight, come on, you got this, come on, come on, yes, come on, come on, one more, come on, you got this, come on, yes, come on, come on Pete, come on, you got this football on my face, come on, yes, come on, come on, come on, keep going, keep going, come on, come on. **** yeah man, Jesus Christ, when in doubt run it out. No way was I placing any gear coming around there, screw that, nightmare. Like 40 minutes of ascent, totally worth it mate, good effort. Cheers thank you, I was really boxed at the end, well basically from that jug in the middle. Didn't even nearly fall off on the first time I went up, first time I started going. So the grade, the grade, everybody always wants to know about that. Well what I can say is that it definitely isn't a B+. One of the reasons being is that the beta has changed in the crook section. So where I used that knee bar and a knee pad, the first ascensionist didn't use that. And that definitely makes it easier. Also from a crack climbing point of view, even without the knee bar, I just don't think the locks are bad enough for it to warrant that grade. I think for a crack in Spain then this could probably be soft 8B, but it's definitely a soft D and it is quite generous at that. It's not often that you get limestone cracks of that quality and to find something as splitter on that rock type is pretty unique. So yep, definitely a pleasure to climb.