>>Trotter Climbs 5.14 Cobra Crack
By Dougald MacDonald
Canadian Sonnie Trotter has redpointed the much-tried Cobra Crack at Squamish, B.C., calling it solid 5.14, a strong candidate for the world’s hardest crack climb. Trotter attempted the 100-foot finger crack more than 30 times over three years before completing it all-free, placing his pro on the lead, according to www.gripped.com .
Cobra Crack is an arching thin-finger crack splitting a giant overhang at the Cirque of the Uncrackables on the Chief’s Backside. Last summer, Swiss crack-climbing ace Didier Berthod, who has redpointed cracks as hard as 5.14a, spent two months at Squamish and made more than 30 attempts on the Cobra Crack without success.
Trotter told the Canadian website Gripped: “Cobra is 30 meters long, with the crux pulling over the lip around the two-thirds mark. It involves huge dynamic throws between one- and two-finger locks; pain is ever-present, and the mental crux is overlooking the pain move after move. The redpoint crux comes over the lip on a slippery side pull; the feet are next to nothing, and it takes momentum and a huge throw to latch the final edge, at which point you’re about 15 to 20 feet about your last piece of gear—it's really exciting.”
For pictures of the route and a good article about Didier Berthod’s attempts on Cobra Crack, see latimes.com .<<
It's interesting that Trotter decided not to assign a more precise difficulty rating to the climb. I take "solid 5.14" to mean 5.14b or 5.14c. While there are several 14a cracks around -- most unrepeated -- there is only one 5.14b. That would be Ron Kauk's "Magic Line" at Yosemite, which is also unrepeated. I suspect Trotter would like to call it 14c, but realized what controversy that might ignite, and decided against it. This always happens when some guy claims the world's hardest climb (especially if he's not climbed anything nearly that hard before -- this is not an issue for Trotter, however; he is arguably Canada's best climber). Who knows? The difficulty ratings of climbs only get confirmed when at least a few folks manage to get up them. Thus the hardest new climbs are always shrouded in a bit of uncertainty regarding how hard they really are, especially since a climb's difficulty is a bit subjective, and often height-dependent. With cracks, even more so, because then finger and hand size become important.
You guys can't say you weren't warned. See
Message 22576209
and subsequent posts, as well as
Message 22579116
Cheers, Tuck |
