Why He Downgraded One Of The World's Hardest Routes // Jonathan Siegrist

I don't want to make too big a deal out of this, but I do disagree with the 15b grade. I'd love to think I could do 9B in 10 tries or whatever, but personally it's not there. But all that being said, it's still definitely a hard route. I think the way the route breaks down is pretty good for my climbing preference and style. There's a crux pretty close to the ground that's the hardest by far, after which you've got probably 80 feet of, depending on where you put the end of the crux, I would say 14a or 14b climbing afterwards. I knew from experience before that with a route like this, I was going to do the crux one time. After just trying it a couple, three, four, or five times, I was going to be able to do the top after the crux on command, assuming I had rehearsed it enough and understood the climbing well enough. So once I get into that position, I just focus all my energy on having tries where I'm going up, falling in the crux, coming down, resting, trying the crux again, basically just trying to give myself opportunities. I think what surprised me was two things. I got through the crux in the bottom much faster than I expected because watching the video when I was training and trying to prepare for it, it looked pretty reachy and I was a little bit worried about that. Carlos is shorter but he has a huge ape index and he's also a way stronger boulderer than I am. Maddie's quite a bit taller than I am and has a bigger ape index. So I was a little bit worried about a couple moves, but I was able to find some ways to do the movements slightly differently, like the same hand holds but where they use the knee, I couldn't reach from the knee so I had to use some feet instead. But basically, I was surprised by the crux feeling better than I expected, which I think is due largely to my training and being able to find a couple slight methods that were good for my size. I was also surprised by how hard the top felt after doing the crux on the redpoint attempt. On the one hangs when I had fallen in the crux and then gone to the top, which I had done maybe four or five times at that point, the top felt chill and I had no expectations of any alarming pump happening up there, but definitely did when I actually sent. It was awesome. I love the feeling of knowing you have an opportunity, almost wanting to celebrate but tempering expectations and really trying to remain focused. It was just really fun to get through the bottom and then fight. It was really cool.

Yeah, definitely. I focus all of my preparation energy on bouldering-specific things, power most notably. The funny thing is that even when I was trying the route, I didn't have access to the video because it's locked behind Sender or Big Up Productions or Real Rock, whoever that is, they have a paywall. So I only saw the video once when I first saw the Real Rock, but I remember well enough to know because Maddie describes a bit during the video, there's a pinch that's really important. The whole crux revolves around taking this pinch, so I knew I was going to need to be able to smash fat pinches. I spent basically four weeks just using the tension board and those fat pinches on the tension board are pretty perfect for tufa-style pinching. It ended up working great for the crux of Flex for me. For me specifically, I knew my time would be better spent doing that than trying to stay fit, quote unquote, because I can get the fitness back pretty quickly, but it's the power and strength that's the hardest. I had heard the boulder problem described as V12 or V13, and those guys are vastly better boulderers than I am, so that was very intimidating. I was like, I need to spend every ounce of energy to get my bouldering up as much as you can through three and a half weeks. I did everything I could to get there. Once I got to the cliff, I spent some sessions trying to climb the top like I told you, and then work on the boulder problem as I had time coming from the ground.

I think to me it's more of an inner dialogue than it is necessarily being influenced by the outside. I think honesty is what I ultimately strive for. I'm going to be totally honest, I'm not always that good at it because sometimes you really want a route to be a certain grade, and it's hard to see that in yourself. Maybe some of you bolted, or maybe it's something you're trying and it really feels like it should be something, and you can sometimes get that in your head. You have that inner conversation of, well, I really thought it was this, but maybe it's not, or maybe it took me less tries. It's tempting to just go with what was said if it feels like that would be a personal best. There's a route I did in a couple tries that would be the fastest I've ever done 9A this fall, but it just felt like that was a time when I was able to really be honest with myself and say I just can't quite go there. I think at the end of the day, it's more about the experience and the challenge that each individual route can offer than it is about trying to tag every route with a number that will hold true for a lifetime and is unchangeable and set in stone. We all know that each route is difficult for its own individual reasons. I guarantee there's a route you could get together with all your buddies and climbing partners and argue about the grade of Chainsaw Massacre or whatever. Three people in the group are going to be like, dude, I get bodied on Chainsaw, I can't do it, and three people are going to be like, oh, Chainsaw is so easy, it's so much easier than XYZ. I think as long as we can always have those conversations, that kind of stuff is pretty fun. It's pretty fun to just get into it and have a bit of culture around this type of thing.